You should really go read this blog from Trevin Wax entitled ‘The Precarious Promise of Pragmatism” (like any good Baptist, he used some great alliteration in the title!). It’s very applicable to anyone in ministry but should speak loudly to the sports ministry community. Here are some excerpts:
Church leaders in the U.S. tend to view numerical growth as success and then ask the question “What works?”
[…]
Sometimes, I yearn for the simplicity of Eastern European ministry. Pastoral ministry is stressful anywhere, but the stress in Romanian contexts is almost always connected to shepherding, whereas the stress in American contexts is connected to growing. Pastor Paul Negrut describes the American mindset quite well:
“Numbers have become the fundamental criterion for evaluating success in ministry. But the truth is…fruit that does not remain is not true fruit and brings no glory to God.”
[…]
That’s why I counsel Romanian pastors to ask some of the pragmatic questions they hear from their American friends. Every church ought to ask three:
- What does fruit look like?
- Are we seeing fruit?
- What would help us see fruit?
Americans fast forward to the “what brings fruit” question without having firmly established what true fruitfulness is. But if you skip the first question, you lose the emphasis on true discipleship and wind up with superficial churches filled with unregenerate people. (And don’t be surprised when lost people who think they’re saved don’t evangelize.)
