Continued from an earlier blog post...

In the church world, we evaluate success based on how many people attend, the size of the staff, how many programs we can offer, the size of the budget, sq. footage of the building, and a score of other ways. The result is burned out volunteers, exhausted budgets, depressed pastors and discouraged members. In the church world, we can get by with these unhealthy ways of measuring success because we couch it in spiritual language like, "We've got to reach more people for Jesus!!!!" Who's going to argue with that?

The reason this is a mirage is because our definition of success changes based on whoever (English majors... is it "whomever"?) or whatever seems to be our measuring stick at the time.

Are you measuring your marriage against another couple's marriage? Your salary against someone else's salary? Your house against someone else's house? Your church size against someone else's church size? Your circle of friends against someone else's circle of friends? Your body against someone else's body? It's an endless game and it very quickly leads to discouragement! Ironically, the allure of having more is also the first "trap" Satan used on the human race (Gen 3:1-19).

Imagine if our view of success changed from what we are "achieving" to what we are "becoming". The apostle Paul made this transition in his own life and wrote about it in Philippians 3:7-10.