Most of us have been taught to measure our success by external, or outer, markers:
- Add ten new small groups by August 1.
- Increase our budget by 5% in the next fiscal year.
- Expand our youth ministry by 20 new teenagers by June 1.
- Launch a ministry to teach English as a second language in 2014.
Few of us have been trained, however, to measure our success by monitoring internal, or inner, markers:
- – Twenty core members will begin integrating silence as a means of abiding in Christ.
- 50% of our key leaders will engage in Sabbath-keeping as a spiritual formation discipline.
- Ten of our married couples will invest time and energy in their relationship each week to serve as a mission to others.
- Each new member of our church will learn one emotionally healthy skill in order to love well.
Measuring the internal markers of success is challenging. Yet I suspect the difficulty for us may have more to do with how few models, and how little practice, we have of holding these two tensions together.
Pete
P.S. For a list of internal markers that will help you begin to think through inner success, see Characteristics of Churches Transformed by EHS: https://www.emotionallyhealthy.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/CharacteristicsofEHSchurches.Feb-2014.pdf
