The Other Baby

As many of you know, Judah is not our only baby.

We have another baby that just recently turned 1 in May, our church plant, Indelible Grace Church.

Being the wife of a planter, it's inevitable that you consider the 'success' or 'failure' of the plant since your whole lives are very much wrapped up in the church.

One thing that has always bothered me about church plants, and churches in general, is that the de facto way people measure 'success' is almost always about numeric growth. How many people attend? How many visitors stay? How much is the budget?

But as Piper would say, Brothers we are not professionals.

We should not measure things the way the 'professional' or 'corporate' world does. Bottom lines, efficiencies, revenue, numerical growth, polish and pizazz, etc. Those external measures have nothing to do with the values we hold nearest--self-sacrifice, humility, death to ourselves, and inner transformation--namely, the gospel of a God who emptied himself of all but love to save the lowest and the least.

That's why my heart lept with joy when I read this excerpt from Reb Bradley, another church planter:

"Shortly after I first planted Hope Chapel in 1987 we were visited by Pastor Richard and Sabina Wurmbrand. (They both had been tortured for years in communist prison camps and are the godliest people I have ever known.) During their visit Sabina asked me how the church plant was going. I responded, saying that I believed I was in obedience to God to be in Sacramento planting the church, so anticipated that the church would be a success. For that statement she firmly rebuked me. She looked me in the eye and declared, “Obedience is the highest success!”

I think our young plant is doing well, by external measures, but that is hardly the point. Since our Lord "failed" in a most spectacular and public way, we must therefore redefine our measure of success.

Let us only follow Him.