Breakfast at Tiffany’s: To the minister who feels like a failure

You followed what you believed was a clear call from God to establish a ministry. You sacrificed more time and energy than any human being in their right mind would give willingly. You did everything by the book, executing every strategy possible to create a successful, thriving ministry. However, the ministry you thought would reach the masses for God and generate a miraculous financial flow feels like it is dead in the water. Few others have caught the vision, and it seems like all your labor was in vain. Maybe you feel like a failure and the butt of a cruel joke. Maybe you feel like God has abandoned you, and that you might as well give up on ministry altogether. You may be surprised to know that you are part of an ever-expanding group of ministers who feel inadequate because of their ministry’s perpetual smallness. It may also come as a surprise that you might be exactly where God wants you to be.

Minister and author, Kent Hughes, noticed a trend in his conversations with several other pastors through the years and said, “Most pastors were unhappy with themselves and their work. And I secretly agreed with many of their self-assessments.” Kent and his wife, Barbara, had experienced a dark season of discouragement after their well-planned and well-executed strategies for planting a church did not create the growth they had hoped for. Kent especially felt like a failure and sank into a deep depression, resenting God for not blessing his ministry after he had sacrificed so much of himself to make it successful. Desperately in need of answers, the Hughes embarked on a journey of Scripture searching and prayer to find what God had to say about success, resulting in the co-authorship of their powerful book, “Liberating Ministry from the Success Syndrome.”

The Hughes found that many churches measured their success using “the world’s standard of quantitative analysis” in congregational growth and finances. They also noticed that ministers who lacked a certain amount of giftedness and charisma often felt like God had called them to do something he never intended to equip them for. However, when a church seems to be flourishing under the world’s standards, it doesn’t always mean it is flourishing biblically.

Through their exhaustive search of Scripture, the Hughes uncovered one predominant requirement for success: faithfulness. The two essential elements to faithfulness are knowing God’s Word and obeying God’s Word. From this, they discovered several other factors that make up what it means to be faithful such as: service, love, holiness, prayer and a positive attitude. Paul emphasized the importance of faithfulness when he said, “Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover, it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful” (1 Cor. 4:1-2). As ministers, our divine commission is not to attain crowds and popularity, but to do what Paul admonished in 2 Timothy 2: endure hardness, suffer trouble as a good soldier, refrain from entanglement in the affairs of life, endure all things that others may obtain true salvation, and “study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth” (vv. 1-15).

“It is imperative that we fully understand this principle and take it to heart if we are to escape the seductive clutches of the success syndrome.”

Hughes, R. Kent, and Barbara Hughes. “Liberating Ministry from the Success Syndrome.” Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2008.