Real Success for Leaders

There are many people who were once proclaimed the greatest but very few who endure to the end.  We call them the flavor of the day, flash in the pan, one hit wonders and so many other names but we never call them anything but success when they are in the game. 

Truly great leaders are marked by work that endures and outlives even them.  It is not that another will not out perform them later or supercede their accomplishments.  No, great leadership is about enduring results not necessarily the greatest results.  Sometimes great leadership results in quantifiably large results.  Sometimes great leadership is seen in planting an orchard long before it will ever produce great wine.

There is a move in Christian leadership, much like business, to exhalt the individual and not the result.  There is a move to measure leadership success by the amount of movement and work and members rather than the success through endurance of the work.  In Christianity (and equally in the world), it is so critical to measure the long term results in critical areas to Christianity ( and equally in the world use the word industry).

For example, let's not ask how many people listen to a charismatic, talented and intelligent leader on a Sunday but rather let's measure how many: do daily Bible Study; have a time of meditation; share their faith with a non-believer; do an act of kindness that is not to get someone saved; teach another; serve in a weekly ministry; or, do a family devotion.  Oh, I know the usual argument here, "Well everyone is growing and everyone is changing and the Word has to work its effect in the people."  I also know that when Jesus made disciples he called them, put them to work and taught them.  There was no 5 year training cycle as he held them up, challenged them, pushed them beyond what they could ever imagine and led them to His Father.  Let's be honest - our methods result in many books, seminars, Christian concerts and the like but overall believers are making a very small impact on the world.  The church spends 90 percent of its money on itself and on discipleship that Jesus did for pennies on our dollar.

If this were business, we would be bankrupt.  Businesses can not just swap product from store to store while investing hundreds of thousands of dollars in each store just to keep the product fresh and on the shelves.  And, if the business did not go bankrupt, it's only claim to fame would be the amazement of how that business was so good at tricking people into making a foolish investment to keep a product fresh without every using it for anything.

Getting 60,000 people together is success if your goal is to get 60,000 people together.  However, if your desire is to see people encounter Christ and change to be the image that he called for in the Bible, then you need to be measuring that image in the 60,000 people.  Desiring to change the world is great and desiring to write and teach others to change the world is great but when there is no tangible result other than keeping the Christians in church - there is no success for that leader.  He may be called great by all who chant but in the end it will only be flash in the pan that is forgotten when the glare leaves our eyes.