Whenever I challenge myself or others to be more deliberate in our work so that we can be even more successful with our finite resources, a typical response that I get is a sense of fear or rejection of the word “success”.
For some people, success is about measuring the WRONG thing. For example, some feel that the Church would only be successful if it was run like a business and was making more money. After all, when we look at what drives businesses toward success, there may be a reason to be concerned. There is an imagination of business where success requires a person to be manipulative, greedy, self-centered, and occasionally dishonest. Anyone who has run a business knows that there are competitive downsides to making enough money to be “successful”. Since the Church should not be about manipulation, greed, ego, or dishonesty, the Church should try to not be “successful”. Of course, there are a lot of flaws in this logic, but it is the most common objection raised when I bring up a desire for success.
For other people, success is about measuring ANY thing. If we look at measurable indicators of success, we may not like what we see. For example, if we knew that the purpose of a Religious Education program was to have students learn about their faith, we should be able to give students a test at the end of the year and see that they can answer questions that they weren't able to answer at the beginning of the year. We don't do that, though. What if the students don't do well? We don't want them to feel like they are a failure? We can't really expect them to learn anything when they are hungry, distracted, and disinterested. We know that if we measured ANY thing, it could indicate a lack of success. It's far more comfortable to just bury our head in the sand.
I once asked faith formation leaders to report to me about what they do for their Confirmation Preparation Program. I heard from about 75 Faith Formation Leaders. All but one described in detail the elements of their formation program. They wrote about what resources they used, how often they gathered, the topics of their presentations, where they met, and for how long. If we asked them whether or not they were successful in their Confirmation program, this would be an easy thing to answer. If they planned to meet six times for 90 minutes and present certain lesson plans, they would be successful if those things occurred. Simple. These church leaders were successful in running Confirmation Preparation Programs, but they WERE NOT successful in preparing teens for Confirmation.
One parish leader, however, replied differently from the group. Instead of listing the things she planned to do, she described the hopeful impact she wanted to leave with the teens. What she did was to form a team of small group leaders who could listen to young people, to seek to understand where the teens were coming from in their faith, and to help each person in their small group grow in a deeper understanding of the grace of the Holy Spirit. While much harder to measure, and reasonably less likely to generate success, at least this person was not just measuring ANY thing. She was trying to measure the RIGHT thing.
This must be tempered with the idea that success is EVERY thing. We have all heard stories of church leaders who have worked hard to win a battle, only to lose the war. I have seen youth ministry leaders use sleep deprivation and emotional manipulation just to coerce teens to think that they are having a powerful spiritual encounter. Breaking people down emotionally only to showcase the same tactics used by cults it not good for the Church. Focusing only on that one thing risks a significant loss of integrity and any hopes for a future authentic spiritual encounter.