The church I grew up in is one that many people would call a megachurch. It had thousands of members and spent many hundreds of thousands of dollars. It had a full worship band that played contemporary music and an ­altar call after the sermon each Sunday. 

From time to time, if there was a mission trip or youth event happening, we would announce how many people “got saved.”  

This was the only church I knew, and I loved it. I loved the perfect worship services. I loved that everything began and ended right on time. This church was a well-oiled machine. 

I thought that when I became a pastor, this is how my church would be. This church had a successful ministry, and it set the standard for how to do ministry well.

But how does one measure success? How can we tell if a church is successful? 

Do we go by the number of people in the pews? Should we deem a ministry successful based on how many “get saved”? 

What about the budget? Or involvement in the community or justice issues? 

It can be hard to pinpoint what a successful ministry looks like. Much of this is due to context. The church is a contextual community. A successful ministry in one place does not always equal success in another.

THe Gospel of Mark offers some clues. Mark’s version of Jesus has some introverted tendencies. We might think Jesus wanted to be around big crowds, because wouldn’t every preacher want that? But Mark’s Jesus seems to want time alone. 

Jesus sends the disciples across the sea while he goes up alone to the mountains. He hides out in a house hoping to escape notice. He hops in a boat to another location, only to be met by another crowd. 

No matter how hard Jesus tried, there was always someone or some group seeking him out. Some sought healing. Others sought wisdom. All were seeking Jesus.

What if the mark of a successful church is that it is a community seeking Jesus? 

The question then becomes what it means to seek Jesus. 

I think seeking Jesus means following him to the places he would go. It means deciding, within a community, where to search for Jesus. 

Reading the Gospels, we can see that Jesus was found in the places where people needed him. People in need had a way of finding Jesus. Those who looked often found what they were looking for. 

Jesus had a habit of being available for the oppressed and the downtrodden. That’s because Jesus was routinely among them. They were his kind of people.

Jesus is not hard to find. We are the ones who have to become seekers. And this seeking will bring us to the place where we meet Jesus. 

Having a lot of people in the pews is nice. A huge budget might feel good. But what really matters is what we are seeking. When we seek Jesus, our ministry will succeed. 

Where are the people who are hurting among you? If we walk alongside them, we will encounter the Jesus we are seeking.