How do you define a successful ministry?

It is a question I wrestle with constantly.

Does attendance measure success? Is a successful ministry one that attracts a lot of people? If so, what qualifies as “a lot of people”? More than the Church across town? More than last year? More than others in the denomination?

Or is success measured by biblical knowledge? Is it enough for people to attend faithfully, or must they also grow in their understanding of Scripture? How much knowledge is enough? The New Testament? The whole Bible? More than they knew a year ago? More than the Church down the road?

Maybe the real metric is involvement. How many people are in small groups? How many have gone through a membership class? But what if they attend every program without actually becoming more like Jesus?

Leading a church forces me to wrestle with these questions because every ministry is aiming at something. Every Church has a definition of success, whether it is stated or assumed.

The truth is that you do too.

You have a metric that shapes how you evaluate a Church. It influences which Churches you admire, which ministries you celebrate, and which ones you overlook. It affects where you worship, where you serve, and where you give your money.

The metric you use matters more than you realize. It quietly shapes your expectations, your priorities, and ultimately your understanding of what God is trying to accomplish through His Church.

The older I get, the more I find myself saying, “If I understand it correctly…”

That isn’t because I’ve become less convinced of the truth. It’s because I’ve become more aware of my own limitations.

There was a time when I thought confidence was measured by how quickly I could answer a question. Now I think wisdom is often measured by how carefully I speak. None of us sees the whole picture. We are finite people trying to understand an infinite God.

That doesn’t mean truth is unknowable. It means humility should accompany our convictions.

I’ve noticed that Jesus asked far more questions than he answered. He invited people to think, wrestle, and discover. He certainly spoke with authority, but he also displayed remarkable patience with people who were still figuring things out.

I wonder what our conversations would look like if we started more sentences with, “If I understand it correctly…” We might listen a little longer. We might ask one more question before offering our opinion. We might discover that the person across from us isn’t as wrong as we first assumed.

As Christians, we should be the most confident people in the world about who Jesus is and some of the most humble people in the world about ourselves.

After all, salvation isn’t based on the perfection of my understanding. It’s based on the perfection of Christ.

So I’ll keep studying. I’ll keep growing. I’ll keep holding tightly to Jesus while holding my own conclusions with the humility of someone who knows there’s still much to learn.

If I understand it correctly… that’s exactly where a disciple should be.

I remember very specifically July 2, 2014. There was also June 16, 2009, and August 2, 2000. I even remember September 16, 2001. I can tell you exactly what I did on all those seemingly random days. Most likely you remember none of them.

The reason they stick out in my head is that those are the days I stepped out on faith and did something big for Jesus. I started leading at a new location. I launched a new Church into the world. I moved my family four thousand miles to a place I was hoping God would use me.

Most days get forgotten unless something significant happens.

As followers of Jesus, we can step up and do something meaningful for him at any point in our lives. We do not have to wait.

Somewhere down the line, you might look back and think, “I remember July 29, 2026, because that is the day I trusted and pushed my faith to its limits.”

They didn’t know I was listening. I was lurking nearby and eavesdropping on these people’s conversation. They were not talking about me or anyone I know. The interaction focused on something that had gone wrong that Sunday morning.

One of them blamed the equipment for the issues. The problem would not have happened if the Church had purchased quality tools for the work.

The other person gave their theory on what happened and why.

As I leaned in to hear their discussion, I noticed that neither one of them accepted any responsibility for what happened. It was the equipment, not the person running it. It was that the person running it was not properly trained by someone else.

Neither one was ugly or mean with their words. They were shifting the blame to areas where they had no control.

I often think that the difference between a leader and a follower is the willingness to accept blame. To say, perhaps I could have done something to prevent this from happening. And I promise you that I will do whatever it takes to make sure it does not happen again. Leaders accept responsibility for past issues and the opportunity to make a better future.

The Church desperately needs more leaders.

Ugly is easy to see.

Turn on the news. Scroll through social media. Listen to the conversations around you. There is no shortage of things that are broken, angry, cruel, and disappointing.

But beauty?

Sometimes you have to look for it.

It requires you to slow down long enough to notice the kindness. The laughter. The sunrise. The answered prayer. The person who quietly serves without recognition. The grace of God shows up in ordinary moments.

We live in a broken world, so the ugly will often find us.

But the beauty is still there.

Sometimes we must fight tooth and nail to see it.

And when we do, we are reminded that God has not abandoned this world or us.

Someone asked me, “Do you still get nervous on Sunday when you have to stand up and preach in front of everyone?”

The person who asked me was one of the men who regularly give communion meditations at our Church. He was scheduled to speak that Sunday and was feeling incredibly nervous.

The short answer is, “Yes.”

Over the years, however, I have learned to tame and channel those nervous emotions.

First, I have learned to put that energy into my preparation. It is amazing how much your nerves are reduced after spending time praying, preparing, and practicing. There is a direct correlation between the hours I spend preparing and the amount of nervous energy I feel.

Second, I have developed habits that help me manage my emotions. Prayer is the first key. Close behind that is walking while I practice my sermon on Sunday morning. The more energy I expend, the less nervous energy I have left.

Then, when I begin to speak, I try to say something that helps me relax. It might be a funny story, a humorous statement, or a personal anecdote. Once I get a reaction from the crowd, my mind can take over instead of my emotions.

All of these techniques have been developed over more than thirty years of preaching. But in the end, they are simply ways to mask and master my fear.

Yes, I still get nervous because I am about to speak for God and, hopefully, lead people toward Him. That is no small task, and I take it very seriously.

My nerves remind me every week of the importance of what I do. Even after all these years, I still get nervous, not because I need people to love what I have to say, but because I want people to love the Lord I represent.

I love the word flabbergasted.

It is a wonderfully strange word. It sounds like what happens when your brain suddenly runs into something it cannot process.

And sometimes, I am flabbergasted.

I am flabbergasted by the beauty of creation. By the kindness of a stranger. By the way, God can take a person who seems completely lost and give them direction.

I am also flabbergasted by people.

I am flabbergasted by how quickly we can judge someone we barely know. How confidently can we speak about things we have never investigated. How tightly we can hold our opinions while barely holding on to the truth.

But perhaps what flabbergasts me most is the grace of God.

That God knows everything about me and still loves me.

He knows the thoughts I have never spoken, the motives I would rather hide, the failures I wish I could erase. And yet He continues to pursue me with grace.

I am flabbergasted by that.

The older I get, the more I realize that faith is not about having everything figured out. Sometimes it is simply standing in awe of a God who is far greater, wiser, more patient, and more gracious than I could ever fully comprehend.

And every once in a while, I think it is good for us to stop trying to explain everything.

Sometimes we should stand there, look at the goodness of God, and say: “I am flabbergasted.”

I was at a new Church conference and went to a breakout session with one of the main speakers. He was from a fast-growing church and wanted to share his wisdom with other Church leaders. I had my notebook and frantically wrote down all his thoughts to help me in my leadership.

Since that day, I have lost the notebook or intentionally thrown it away after many of the concepts became outdated. One of his principles has stuck with me through the years. He described it as “preparing for where you are going, and not where you are presently.”

He used an analogy to help us understand. Earlier, he was asked to officiate a wedding. That day, he trimmed his beard, got all cleaned up, and put on his best suit. He was “dressed to the nines,” as he described it.

Then, on the way to the wedding, he realized he needed gas. He stopped at the station and got out to fill his car. In that moment, he was way overdressed for a gas station. But that is okay, his destination was not there, it was only a temporary stop. He was dressed for the wedding. And when he got there, he would fit in perfectly.

Finally, he explained, when your Church is growing and reaching new people, you will need to develop the policies and procedures of a larger faith community. At the moment, they will look and sometimes feel like we are overdressed. That is okay because we don’t plan to stay here for long.

His final line is what stuck in my mind, “Dress for the wedding and not the gas station.”

We often wonder what people are saying about us behind our backs. Are they true friend, or are they tearing us down when we are not around? Do they gossip about me and my life, or can they keep a secret?

One growth point in our lives comes when we realize we have no control over what others say about us, and we have total control over what we say about them. The biggest question is not what they are saying behind our backs, but what are we saying behind theirs?

All of us want people who defend us when we are not present. We have little control over that, but we can choose to be people who are positive about others even when they have no idea we are doing it.    

Rat poison is 99.9% food.

It contains only 0.0025% to 0.1% toxic chemicals.

How much sin does it take to destroy you? To destroy your relationship with God? To destroy your marriage? To damage your children? To ruin your life?

The answer is always less than you think.