The Challenge of Evaluating Ministry

As the year comes to a close, you might be feeling like flopping onto the couch in exhaustion and giving 2021 barely a backwards glance. Or maybe you want to spend some time reflecting on all the new and different things that were tried this year and wondering whether 2021 was a success or not. Or maybe you’re a mixture of both?

In this article, I want to encourage you to take stock of the year that was and consider how to set yourself up well for whatever lies in store in 2022.

How do you evaluate your ministry?

Which of the following Children’s or Youth Ministers do you most relate to?

Tom is looking back on a ‘good’ year. His junior youth group has bounced back well after lockdown and there are five new regulars.

Kathy is feeling tired. Her kids’ club was able to relaunch, and the majority of children and families returned. They even met a few new faces as children excitedly invited friends they’d missed playing with during lockdown. But Kathy is secretly wondering if it was really worth relaunching for only four weeks, when it cost so much time and energy for herself and her leaders. They are all very tired.

It will be tempting for Tom to evaluate using numbers. It will be tempting for Kathy to evaluate using feelings, her own and her perception of her co-leaders. But are these wise measures of ministry success?

In his recent book on gospel-shaped leadership communities, Paul Tripp writes,

               ‘Failure is not the inability to produce desired results.’ (Lead, 2020, p.40)

Here, Tripp is critiquing the tendency we all have to measure success on our own achievements and results. Those results we look for might be the number of attendees (statistics), or the vibe created (feelings).

But surely there is a place for these kinds of measures? Perhaps. But, as Tripp continues, this is not the sum-total of success in ministry.

               ‘If hard, disciplined, faithful, well-planned, appropriately executed, and joyful ministry work    does not guarantee results, then the lack of desired results should not define leadership success’ (p.40).

Tripp’s point is that often the results we look for are not something within our control. It is God who works in the hearts of people to bring them to himself, and often his work is hard to see.

So how can we meaningfully evaluate our ministries while still acknowledging God’s sovereignty in the outcomes? Below are a few questions worth reflecting on:

1.      What motivated your service in the beginning?

Remembering why we started serving in the first place can be a helpful way to evaluate the state of our hearts.

Our ministry work is not about earning a place or God’s favour. Rather, we serve as a joyful response to a wonderful and incredible salvation. We serve a Lord who first served us. We serve to express our new identity in Christ, new creations living out new lives. There are many different passages of Scripture that help us articulate our motivation to serve.

Spend some time remembering why you chose to serve in the beginning. Which Bible verses were significant to you then? Which verses have since become more meaningful?

2.      Are you continuing to serve for the glory of God?

It is good and helpful to have specific goals and performance indicators in our leadership roles. It is worth spending time working out what is worth measuring, and how to track progress. I find the SMART acronym very helpful (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-bound).

Each of these smaller SMART goals contributes to a bigger overall purpose – the glory of God (Ephesians 1:3-14). Or as it has been summarised by those who’ve come before us, soli Deo gloria, for the Glory of God alone.

This is one reason why pride is so unacceptable in Christian leadership. Our service can never be for our own glory and acclaim because the purpose of true service is to give glory where it belongs, to God. This can be really difficult when your role puts you up in front of people. Or when your role means others give a lot of feedback, whether sought or not.

Often we begin well, keen to step up and try giving the Christmas talk for the first time for example. But our success can stir up the mud of pride. We stop thinking about what a wonderful opportunity to point others to Jesus and focus more on the positive comments we received. Reflection can reveal what a muddy puddle our hearts have so quickly become.

The wonderful truth is that the gospel applies here too. As leaders of ministries that seek to share the gospel, we too need to continue living it ourselves, repenting of our sin and asking for forgiveness. Then remembering afresh, the assurance of salvation that is not by our own works but by his. Our response to finding ourselves falling short is not increased effort (though there is a place for that) but turning back to Jesus again and asking for his grace, again, and his empowering Spirit to work in us.

There are many helpful ways to evaluate our ministries, and our own performance as leaders. Many of them assume we have these big questions covered. So, I encourage you to take time to consider these questions prayerfully before turning to the smaller measurables. Unlike other tasks that can be done successfully regardless of your motivations, ministry success is a matter of the heart.