Success is in How You Keep Score

“My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.”--II Corinthians 12:9

During my second year in ministry I evaluated the progress of all of the programs and ideas I had tried to start at the church. My conclusions were dismal: seven out of ten ideas had failed. I had a thirty percent success rate! If I had been graded I would have gotten an F in ministry.

Paul was feeling discouraged in his ministry. He had tried to overcome one of his shortcoming, what he called “a thorn in the flesh”, which limited his effectiveness. Three times he had prayed for God to take it away, but in the end God kept it there to needle him. Finally, Paul heard God telling him to rely solely upon his grace to enable him to do ministry. The thorn remained but the grace was stronger so that it would be abundantly clear who really deserved the credit for his success.

Any ministry that is ordained by God will be fraught with failures. It sounds counter-intuitive because we automatically assume that unfettered success equals God’s blessing. In reality—the reality of grace—there will always be elements of royal disaster in our ministry. And yet, because of God’s grace alone they will survive and thrive.

This proves to us that they are truly a divine calling because they require God’s protection and supervision in order to exist. If all they required was our hard work and smarts then there would be no need for God. How ironic, a ministry that does not need God! It is no ministry at all, only an extension of our ego.

When grace, rather than ego, is the motivation and foundation for our ministry then we can risk more in trying new ideas. We literally have nothing to lose because we already have our eternal salvation secured. Along with the risk will come failure, and so a byproduct of serving through grace will be failures. But sometimes God allows it to fail because it is the wrong time for such an idea to be implemented in the church; the congregation or the community is not ready for it. At other times, it will fail because it never was God’s will in the first place and God needs to refine our character through failures. Sometimes it is only through failure that we become receptive to seeing the way God wants it done.

The most radical thing we can believe is that the church is sustained and renewed by grace. It frees us to risk more, to be more vulnerable, more accountable, and more loving. It is through our weaknesses—both individually and collectively—that God is able to make His grace effective. After the resurrection the disciples were only able to recognize the risen Lord by the marks of his crucifixion in his palms and side. The marks of his weakness verified the power of his strength. So if the church is the Body of Christ it most fully realizes this status by coming to terms with its own nail marks, its failures and weaknesses. Only when we realize this can God’s grace can have its full renewing effect.


So I spent the better part of the day that second year sulking, feeling sorry for myself and resentful of the church’s failings. But then I read batting averages on the sports page. In baseball, three out of ten gets you a 300 batting average. That’s not too bad. In school, it is an F, but on the baseball diamond it may just get you into the hall of fame. So it is with ministry. God’s grace is sufficient to work in, through and around our failings.