The Language of success?

As people experimenting with new ways of being church and engaging in community ministry we are constantly asking what ‘success’ will or should look like – in effect how do you measure the effectiveness of what we are doing – in Kingdom terms?

As I caught up with a very good friend the other day I was encouraged to be reminded we’re not the only ones.

Jon is a quality guy, a good friend and a great youth worker. But his youth work, like most of our ministry, isn’t building based, it’s out on the streets and in the community. As such some of the ‘old’ measurements of ‘success’ don’t work. But Jon is learning a new ‘language of success’. He’s looking beyond ‘bums on streets’ or ‘bodies through the doors’.



He may not see an influx of Junior or Senior soldiers, he may not have a group to take to the Youth Rally, but as relationships have developed over the last year (thanks to his sports outreach) he celebrates the fact that conversations about sexual promiscuity and drug use flow naturally as they walk home together. And he questions the ‘coincidence’ that last year was the first year he can remember when the hall wasn’t egged at Halloween or attacked with fireworks on Bonfire night.

Actually he doesn’t question it – he knows that however loosely, the guys he’s connecting with consider themselves part of the Salvation Army – they haven’t signed any bits of paper, they probably never will, and they will rarely (if ever) use the building, but why would they attack or vandalise ‘their own’? This new-found sense of ownership flows from a sense of belonging that has been developed through relationships forged over time (these things rarely happen quickly) on their own terms, on their own patch (largely on a football pitch).

It may be hard to measure or account for (how do you measure a sense of ownership? Or belonging? How do determine if a relationship is getting stronger?). It may be hard to tick a box to say that what Jon is up to every Monday and Tuesday evening is working, but the problem of language or methodology should not deter us from recognising ‘success’ when and wherever God is at work.