Success and failure—Max Lucado has tasted both. He is widely known for his best-selling books The Applause of Heaven, Six Hours One Friday, and No Wonder They Call Him Savior. He is pulpit minister of Oak Hill Church of Christ in San Antonio, Texas, a congregation that averages over 1,000 in Sunday morning attendance. On top of that, as his most recent book cover says, "He is the father of three terrific daughters and the husband of a one-in-a-million wife."
But he has also known discouragement. After serving a church in Miami, Lucado (it rhymes with "tomato") became a church-planting missionary in Brazil. He returned to the United States after three years of "the most challenging time in my ministry."
On the kind of day you expect in San Antonio in January, strong sunshine with a warm blue sky overhead, LEADERSHIP editors Marshall Shelley and Brian Larson visited Max and found him with his tie loosened, his smile broad, and his heart ready to talk about the dangers and glories in the mountains and valleys of ministry.
Do you consider yourself a success? A failure? Or do you even use those words to describe ministry?
I was taught to measure whether you're a successful minister by footsteps and checkbooks, by the number of attenders at your church and the amount of money they give. So I've tended to take pride when we've done well and been ashamed when we haven't. But I know there is more to it than that.
Success is relative. If I took a basketball and practiced until I could slam dunk it, for me that would be quite an achievement. If David Robinson slam dunks a basketball, on the other hand, it's admirable but not much of an achievement.
Some people have used what God has given them better than others.
Perhaps the best way to measure success, then, is to determine what God has called you to do and determine how well you have followed that calling. In other words, measure success by obedience.
Especially, obedience to the very end. The Brazilians describe a person who sticks with something with the word garra. If you look up garra in a Portuguese dictionary, you see that it means fingernails. If someone has garra, he has nails, he hangs in there. That to me is one definition of success because Jesus said, "He who endures to the end will be saved." He who has garra will be saved.
Was there a time when you had to remind yourself that earthly success and obedience may be two different things?
Our work in Rio de Janeiro was both my most fulfilling and challenging ministry. My wife and I went with nine other families to plant churches, but it proved harder than we expected.
We started with little—renting a small facility, distributing evangelistic tracts. We did everything from preaching to typing to sweeping.
I wanted a big church overnight. The church took root, but our growth didn't match my expectations. Like most ministers everywhere, I was frustrated with financial limitations and disappointed when new converts continued to succumb to besetting sins.
Our team also struggled with the unresolved philosophical issue of how much to rely on state-side support. Some leaned more toward staffing and funding from indigenous sources; others leaned toward priming the pump with state-side resources. These differences added to my frustration.
But Brazil was good for me because it taught me that my view of success and God's view aren't always the same. Obedience meant faithfully carrying out what God had called me to do even while I couldn't see the fruit, going out at night and visiting people though I didn't see them mature, teaching evangelistic Bible studies though we saw few converts, preaching in Portuguese though I knew I was boring the people.
Our sense of success or failure is often tied to our expectations. When you went to Brazil, what did you feel God expected you to do, and how was that calling communicated to you?
I felt God calling me to Brazil to build a great church. My heroes, men a generation ahead of me, had gone to Sao Paulo, Brazil, and built strong churches. I wanted to follow their example. As a young man, I observed them, and their success seemed to come easily and naturally.
When I returned to Brazil as a missionary, I thought, It I do A, God will do B. and x will result, but it turned out to be a hard time, a time of endurance. When the success I'd seen in my heroes proved difficult for me, I was discouraged. I loved the people, the culture, the language, but I didn't like the slow progress. God wasn't working according to my timetable. I was confused. I felt as if I had failed.
I still look back on that with a what-if, should-have syndrome.
Now, of course, I realize that my heroes also struggled to build their churches.
How did you know you were being obedient, that you were not spinning your wheels in some endeavor God never intended?
It needed to be done. My mistake was I didn't recognize what stage we were in. I thought we were in the roofing stage when actually we were building the foundation. A lot of work goes into a house's foundation, but it's not visible. The foundation is the slowest, toughest part of a ministry, and I greatly admire those who spend a lifetime at it.
Here in San Antonio, I'm building on a foundation that was already here. Although we've seen the congregation double, the staff increase threefold, and our giving increase, I know the foundation was laid before I arrived. I'm enjoying the fruit of someone else's labor.
To change the metaphor, ministry is done in chapters, and wise is the minister who knows his page number.
Why did you return to the United States?
We spent five years in Rio. My father passed away while we were there. His request, literally a deathbed request, was for me to come back and be closer to my mother, and we wanted to honor that. Otherwise we would probably still be in Brazil.
Yet, I never dreamed I would love preaching as I do. In Brazil I didn't see myself as a preacher. But I find that I thoroughly enjoy preaching and can't believe I get paid to do it. Though I say we'd like to go back to Brazil, I would be giving up a deep passion if I left the pulpit.
Why did you start writing?
When I was on the staff of a church in Miami, one of my jobs was to write a column for our weekly newsletter. I enjoyed it. Other ministers said, "You ought to send some of this to a magazine." In 1980 I sent a piece to His magazine, and to my surprise they published it.
Then I went to Brazil as a missionary. I was studying and speaking Portuguese all day and wasn't having much fruit in my ministry, so I wanted to do something that was both fruitful and in English. I pulled out my file of church bulletin articles and started cleaning them up. I loosely threaded them together into a book and called it On the Anvil.
I sent the manuscript to fourteen different publishers. Over a six-month period, fourteen publishers rejected it. The rejections really didn't bother me, however, because I wasn't expecting to get published. Finally when I sent the manuscript to Tyndale House, they accepted it.
I dreamt of being a missionary not a writer, but I kept writing because it was something tangible. I could control it. I could start it and finish it. Whether it got published or not, I enjoyed completing something.
Have you ever been tempted to lean toward earthly applause rather than obedience?
When two speaking invitations for the same date come in the mail, one to a rural, small, struggling church, the other to a convention of 4,000 that will give a great honorarium, I can certainly justify speaking to the larger numbers. But God may want to use me in that small church that desperately needs encouragement.
I don't know if I have always made the right decision. I have gone to some places that weren't glamorous, where I slept on a couch instead of in a motel room because they couldn't afford one. Every time it has been rewarding.
Have you ever felt a tension between being faithful to God and faithful to your congregation?
Not really, and there's a reason why. For the initial interview, I went through an exercise with the elders to clarify whether this was my place. I came up with fifteen different expectations people have of a pastor: preaching, study, hospital visitation, administration, and so on, and wrote them on fifteen different cards.
I handed a set of fifteen cards to each elder and said, "Rank these responsibilities according to what you think are the most important." When everything was tallied, the top three duties, though in different order, were the same for each elder: study, preach, and teach. When I came here, the elders gave me a one-word job description: message.
I knew what they wanted out of me, and I knew what I could offer. That's a large part of why I accepted the position. Undefined priorities are at the root of much of our success-or-failure frustration.
I told the whole church, "I'm not a counselor or an administrator. I can't keep my own checkbook balanced. I think I'm a decent preacher, and I pledge to you that I will bring the best sermon possible every Sunday. If you complain that so-and-so wasn't visited, I won't feel bad because that's not my main job. But if you say, 'We're not getting good preaching,' I'm going to work on that."
I have done something else to minimize the tension I feel between various responsibilities. When I returned from Brazil, there was a deluge of speaking invitations. I didn't know which to reject and which to accept, so we did two things.
First, I sat down with a piece of paper and set priorities. My number one priority, I wrote, is God. Number two, my family. Number three, our church. Number four, writing, and number five, speaking. That told me that before I arranged my travel schedule, I had to arrange my family calendar, my church calendar, and my writing deadline calendar. With the time left over, I travel and speak.
Then I formed a committee of two elders, two deacons, and my wife. I sent them all the speaking requests and told them, "Here's the time I have. You tell me where I can and can't go." I honestly don't have a vote.
If I'm really interested in something, I'll highlight it, but they've said no to many of my highlighted invitations. No is the hardest word for me to say, so they say it for me. I'm not a good traveler, and they know that. If I travel and speak three nights in a row, I come back suicidal. (Laughter)
I'm really a homebody who loves being with my wife and kids.
The writer Tennessee Williams once said, "Success and failure are equally disastrous." Which is the greater threat to a pastor?
Success. With success you can start depending on yourself, believing the praise.
Spurgeon said, "Every man needs a blind eye and a deaf ear," so when people applaud, you'll only hear half of it, and when people salute, you'll only see part of it. He also said, "Believe only half the praise and half the criticism."
Many people at conferences assume that everything an author says must be right. They think you're pretty neat. If you speak at enough conferences, you start thinking you're pretty neat. That's intoxicating.
In fact, that's the reason I don't plan to ever be just an author and conference speaker. This church keeps my feet on the ground by seeing me as I am, not as an author but as Max.
When success goes to your head, the quality that attracted others to listen to you in the first place is lost. What makes a messenger appealing is his honesty—honesty about his own salvation, his own sinfulness, his own brokenness. If I start believing the wonderful things people say, I lose that honesty about my own sinfulness, my own relationship with God. I leave the impression that I'm a red-hot zealot, that God's lucky to have me on his side. And pretty soon I'm out of touch with people.
When have you seen failure be redemptive?
Failure taught me to pray. The closest I have ever come to hearing God's audible voice was one night in Brazil as I was praying, "God, you have to help this church!"
It hit me, "It's my church, Max. It's my church." God was letting me know through one of those mystical, easily misunderstood experiences in life that he'll nurture the church.
Prayer only makes sense when you have quit trying to do ministry yourself. I've learned that as things go smoothly, I pray less. As our goals shrink, I pray less. As things become more manageable, I pray less. But as we reach out, stretch ourselves, and tackle God-sized dreams, I pray more.
How have the ups and downs of ministry affected your relationship with your family?
There have been hours when the only successful thing I had was my family. I was so thankful that I had a strong marriage and good kids to come home to. My wife has been my best friend, loyal through the good times and bad.
I can't think of any greater joy than standing before God with our circle unbroken, nor can I think of any deeper sorrow than to think it would be broken.
What haunts me is the picture of the traveling preacher who speaks to everybody but his own family. That's why I established that committee and put my wife on it. I have issued an open invitation to the elders to slow me down if I'm doing too much.
How should pastors measure their success?
I limit the areas in which I measure success to (1) what I can do well, and (2) what I can control.
I quit beating myself over the head because I don't do counseling well, for example. I can give a good listening ear, but I'm not a therapist.
Someone can be a good third baseman, but not a good pitcher. If I'm called to play third base, I'm going to be the best third baseman I can be. It was a liberating moment when I realized I didn't have to be great at everything.
And then I try to control what I can control. I can't control how everyone responds to my sermons. I can't control whether everyone will be happy with my ministry.
There's a story about a Sunday school teacher who asked, "Is there anything God can't do?'
One kid answered, "Yeah, there's one thing. He can't make everybody happy."
Neither can a preacher.
Do you set numerical goals?
I flip-flop on whether we should set numerical goals. Goals strongly affect our sense of success or failure, of achievement or frustration. Is it a bad year if we don't grow? A year of deepening our roots could be exactly what we need. If we are barely managing who we have, the worst thing that could happen could be an 18 percent annual growth rate. A good farmer won't plant a field every season because there's a time to let the soil rest.
We can't control response; we can't control numbers. We may set a goal for conversions but discover that God gives us growth in other ways. A lot of salesmen set call-goals rather than salesgoals since they can't control whether people buy, only how many people they contact.
The upside of a goal is it inspires a dream, a common focus. We can lay that dream before the Father and say, "Lord, we want to be baptizing people every day like the New Testament church." The downside of goals is if you don't reach them, you feel like a failure.
We focus on plans more than goals. Instead of looking at the year ahead in terms of "How much growth will we have?" we ask "How many new opportunities will be created to serve people?"
What is a successful church? When have you been able to say, "We've done it right. This is what church was meant to be"?
We have felt most successful when we've had a clear understanding of God's unique calling for our church.
There are so many good things to be involved in, everything from campaigning against abortion to fighting world hunger, that we have to stop and ask ourselves, What is our unique calling? We have had to say no to worthwhile projects to be effective.
Our church in San Antonio is in a middle-class, suburban neighborhood, so we probably shouldn't hound ourselves for not running a powerful ministry to the underprivileged. Whereas, when I served the inner-city church in Miami, we had a strong one.
One of our greatest growth areas in San Antonio has been singles ministry. The church never even considered a full-time singles minister until the demographics showed us that we are surrounded by
25,000 single people within a fifteen-mile radius. When the elders saw that, they decided that God was calling us to reach them.
We also feel most successful when we are at peace with our church's personality. Every church has a personality that is a reflection of its leadership and heritage.
Our heritage in the Church of Christ is an uncluttered, simple approach to faith. We have little ritual. We emphasize open Bible study. We downplay hierarchy; people here feel that every member is a minister. Yet I can honestly say we don't feel as though every church has to offer that. We see the place of the high-church tradition, with the mystery of worship, and if somebody wants that, they won't be happy at our church.
How did you come to understand Oak Hill's unique role?
Before I came, the elders had determined that.
One of the things that attracted me to this church was their fifteen-year game plan. They had analyzed the neighborhoods. They saw that we live on the edge of a medical-center complex, and so they decided to develop a hospital ministry and reach out to medical students.
We have a growing Hispanic population that they have determined to reach. Some of the things we've done, and some we haven't, but at least we know where we're going.
Our unique role also becomes dear when leaders surface to carry out a particular ministry and when resources become available. I wish we were more of a voice in the pro-life movement, for example, but nobody has come forward with the passion and ability to carry that banner in our church.
On the other hand, a man did come to the leadership and say, "I want to develop a benevolence program that helps the unemployed."
We can have a lot of dreams, but until those dreams have a leader, they're unreachable.
What role does God play in success and failure?
When Charleton Heston was training to drive the chariot in Ben Hur, he said to Cecil B. DeMille, "I can barely stay on this thing. I can't win the race."
DeMille replied, "Your job is to stay on it. It's my job to make sure you win."
That's what God says to us. The gospel will be preached. We are co-workers with the Lord. I am in a partnership with God, and the Holy Spirit is the one who takes what I do and makes it work.
The guy who feels the incredible burden of success or failure thinks, It's up to me to get the gospel preached. It's much more biblical to remember that the job is going to get done. The race is going to be run. It's my job to get on the chariot, point it in the right direction, and hang on. It's God's job to get me to the finish line and declare the victory.
Copyright © 1992 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
