6 Reasons Not to Quit

Andrew,

I am with you on your journey. Many of us, myself currently as well, have been or are in that “I feel like a fraud” state-of-mind. My faith and passion wax and wane as God seems fit to grow me into the man he wants to be while I still feel like a scared, tentative child taking baby steps into the arms of the Father and have no idea what I’m supposed to do next.

Trying to remain authentic and true to the calling God has placed on many lives, we must remember that, while we may sink when getting out of the boat, at least we get out of the boat. I, myself, would like to return to the comfort zone of the tried and true at times, but what would that accomplish. Insanity is doing the same thing but expecting different results. In today’s world, lost and hurting, those on the table, outside of the cup, are searching for crumbs from the Master’s table but are afraid that the body that brushes the crumbs to the floor may discipline them for begging. It takes a long time to cause a paradigm shift in thinking, changing from a culture of independence to interdependence, but that is what we are called to do and called to be.

While you share your journey, please know that your statements have already helped me to know that I am not alone and this too shall pass. As I struggle with the starting a dialogue in the local community as a patently charismatic, evangelical disciple of Jesus Christ, my own “ego demons” constantly rise to the surface. While this statement will send others screaming in protest and hopefully affirm others, I am a disciple of Jesus Christ by choice and gay by God’s design. It is never easy to be a pioneer in a strange land looking to build a culture of community. Most pioneers set out in search of something different, something better and the discovery is not in the destination, but in the journey. That is the process of character formation that the person of Christ we seek to serve builds within us.

Growing pains hurt. Period. End of Statement. Those mountain top experiences we long for are not as much for us, as for us to carry down to those in the valley. I don’t know if any of this has helped to encourage you other than to say that you are not alone and as we stive to make new inroads and build new communicational bridges, let us join and strengthen each other on the journey.

Peace and Grace, Rest and Restoration to you.

Brett Cook
Southeastern Virginia Cohort

Andrew…thank for the article. I’ve been in Paris for 2.5 years and identify so very much with your thoughts…especially those of redefining success, feeling like a fraud, and putting recognition in its proper place. May God continue to give us the strength to live outside the saucer! (great analogy…thanks to your friend for that one)

Thanks very much for your reflections, Andrew. A lot of what you wrote we need to remind ourselves of over and over to get us beyond looking at things the way the world does and getting discouraged because there aren’t a lot of obvious results.

As disciples and servants, we are responsible to listen to what God is telling us and to follow it as faithfully as we can. That in itself is very hard in my experience. But then we want to be responsible for the results. That is really blasphemy, because we are putting ourselves in God’s place then, but that’s what our cultures teach us to do.

We need to keep prayerfully seeking guidance. If what we’re doing doesn’t seem to bring obvious results, but God seems to be telling us to keep on with it, we need to trust that. We also need to listen to where we have gotten in the way of God’s plans, and to make any changes needed to be faithful.

And those of us who don’t have obvious success do need to talk to others doing similar work. It is encouraging to know that these experiences are not atypical in following Jesus.

One way God works is to put similar callings in the minds of different people in different places at the same time. When we started in Friends in Christ, we didn’t know others following a similar path. We had never heard of an emerging movement, and I don’t think the term had yet been coined for it, but we were being called in the same direction as others were which eventually began to coalesce into a loose movement. We never achieved what we ourselves dreamed, but I believe we contributed (and continue to in our reduced operations) to growth in the kingdom.

Andrew: Perfect timing on putting down your thoughts. I needed the encouragement not to quit the vision God has given me. Thanks again.

Andrew,

Thank you for writing.

Well said (and just the right length for this busy suburbanite) and encouraging—your thoughts put heart back into me. (-:

Grace & Peace.

This article is a timely reminder to not measure faithfulness by the standard of the world’s view of success. If the world indeed had the corner on success, the cross would have to be seen as a little bump in the road on the way to resurrection. But, the cross is the defining moment of Jesus’ absolute faithfulness to the Father and is therefore a very successful moment when it seems somehow less.

If this is true, then it becomes our task to be faithful regardless of the ‘results’ it produces (whose results anyway?)...

Thanks for the encouraging words!

I read your blog post with Jim Palmer’s Divine Nobodies in mind. Both your blog post and his book confront the false notions that are easily held by all of us about what “ministry” is supposed to look like and what “success” is. Palmer’s book outlines his discovery that in the new, humble, closer-to-ground faith he is practicing he is finding all kinds of “divine nobodies” who are being faithful and effective as witnesses for the realm of God.

I wonder at a deeper question that nags at my consciousness—what if all the ways our faith has been formed by a “labelized” contemporary church are false? What if the distinctions we would make between “Liberal” and “Conservative” and “Evangelical” and “Socially Active” and all the rest are false distinctions? What if the Master of the household has given each of us gifts appropriate for the tasks we face in ourpart of the household? In a household, would labels like “cook” or “gardener” or “bedmaker” or “window cleaner” really determine fitness for belonging? Or, would the only distinction be “servant”?

Thank you for this very timely message. As someone who has struggled but who keeps feeling called back to my current ministry context, I appreciate your words. We all live in a society that values the big results but our faith tells us something different. I am going to continue following a new vision which means reaching out to folks outside the box.
Sam McGregor
South Carolina

Blessings to you Andrew!

Take heart, for you are not alone. Even those of us still in the “realm of the saucer” share your point of view. Perhaps you have it exactly right and what we’ve been taught all along – “signing folks up to follow Jesus” – isn’t even the point. What if simply letting Jesus live through us in their midst is the goal?

Thank you for your honesty, but take heart, the path you’re on is the right one.

Well done, Andrew. I love it when Christians speak the truth in love. You nailed the reasons why we should hang in there, and I’m encouraged to press on…at 69 =^).
Rick Knox
Illinois

Hamo,
Fancy meeting you here! Nice to have to your influence around again on the net.
I am surprised that while we have ‘upgraded’ certain aspects of the way we do church and define who we are for our context, that our definition of ecclesiastical success is still largely based on a 1950s-60s understanding. I think we need to reconstruct what success looks like in our context.

I’m amazed (and then again not…because it’s just how God is) at how the Lord goes before us and uses people like you, Andrew, to remind “blokes” like me that I’m not alone in having these feelings. Thank you for your willingness to be transparent and vulnerable. The Lord be with you!

What you are saying applies beyond a church planting context. It completely fits the urban ministry paradigm. I’m going to pass this around. Thanks for sitting down at the computer and opening a vein.

Thanks, Andrew. I am a simple music teacher in a public school. I stepped away from teaching for two years to executive direct a Christian Camp because I thought I was being called there- which I was. In the process, I read the book “Good to Great” by Jim Collins- a seemingly unlikely source but definitely created the “God” voice I needed to hear. Those two years were filled with reflection on significant experiences in my life as a teacher of theatre and music and realization that executive directing was not my gifting. So, I got off the boat and found my heart.

From past life experience, I knew that God shows up in the daily grind through fleeting conversations and “still small” moments. God is in the music of life. I can’t always analyze the chord structure, form or movement and I may never know the distinctive time signature or the number of measures God uses to create the Body of music. I am just so glad that I can own and experience the music. That God can teach me to give up the doing and just be Christ-like is freeing. If God knows the hairs and the names, then every moment God allows me to catch a glimpse is worth it. And I am amazed. If I am used, I am blessed.

I confess- I still get caught up in the mess of family, children, friends, work and agendas. That’s the hard part. I am just as screwed up as the rest of creation. Somedays I feel no one should call me christian, it is too far from the TRUTH.

To live justly, love mercy and walk humbly is difficult at best, yet it is re-freshing in a world clamouring for instamatic purpose and meaning.

Keep on Keeping on. Blessings- Marvin

WOW – thanks for speaking what I too often feel and too often feel I dare not speak. The fraud part, especially. God spoke through you loudly and clearly. I couldn’t help but think of the guy on staff from Willow Creek who decided to work at Starbucks to meet people and get them to church. He thought it would take about 6 months. 2 years later, lots of conversations but no bums in seats. We live in a different age.

Thanks for all the stuff you gave me to meditate on, as I look for where God is leading me at this juncture – did I spell that right?! – in my life.

Thank you Andrew for this great post!
I have been struggling with a church planting process here in Sao Paulo, Brazil. We have been met weekly since the beggining of this year and so far we were not able to bring a single friend here!
It’s been difficult to keep up motivation of all partners (my family and another family) and lots of times I end my weeks asking for God why we have been such a failure or asking why I am unable to give up with such a situation.
Your words gave me power to move on.
Thank you

Andrew, your candid statements were right on point! It can be very hard to persevere in the face of little to no tangible results. My wife and I are involved in a new form of ministry at our own church and if we were to try to measure results based on a head count, we would be woefully lacking. My advice to you is to continue to be faithful in the mission field that God has placed you. Be happy in knowing that maybe you will be a catalyst for positive change. Blessings.
Kenny Lee
Lowell AR USA

G’day All

Its now morning in West Oz and I have woken up to your comments. Thanks a heap for the words of encouragement!

As some of you alluded to, it wasn’t an easy article to write. ‘Achievement oriented’ people rarely like to admit they aren’t ‘achieving’ – as it is commonly defined.

Strangely though, I know I’m not alone in the struggle and I really do want to spur on those of us who know we’re in the right place, but aren’t seeing the kind of responses we had imagined.

I accessed our 2006 census results for our local suburb and under ‘religion’ the biggest category was ‘no religion’ (30%), followed
by Catholic (26%) and the Anglican (24%). There is no Catholic church in the area! And the Anglicans have a congregation of 10 so it gives you an idea of the context :)

I was fishing with a mate yesterday who has been dramatically healed thru prayer when we laid hands on him and who had a vision of Christ telling him to ‘believe’ during a lectio divina. As we spoke I asked him how his spiritual journey was going. “I really enjoyed studying the Bible with you and our discussions, but I still don’t get it Andrew…” he said

And so we keep going…

Thanks for sharing the road with us!

wow…just what I needed to read on a grey morning when I so want to move to somewhere where I can do bums on seats and all the kudos that goes with that. thank you!!

Thanks for the encouragement! I feel so ‘out on a limb’. I see no friuit as such, but I know that out there is where I should be, and he odd seed gets sown. I had a ‘vision’ way back of the church as a sheep fold packed with people. The gate was open, and as I made my way out, I heard a voice say ‘This is all My land, not just in the fold” I seem to be bridging some sort of gap between the inside and outside, and believe that in my apparently useless way, the odd waft of the aroma of Christ affects those I meet.

Brighton UK

My husband and I started church planting 3 years ago. Last summer, we essentially gave up, and I started down a road of confusion, disillusionment, and even disbelief. I’m finding my way back, but I’m still having a hard time coming to grips with why this has to be so hard. It was comforting to read your words about feeling like a fraud, like a failure, because that’s exactly where we were, where I still am. I still feel crippled by all that has happened. Hopefully, one day I can look back and see His purpose.

Hi Heather – sorry to hear the journey has been so painful for you.

It can be so hard at times to make sense of it all. We really do ‘give our lives’ in the expectation that we will see fruit.

Its been one of the hardest roads I have walked. And yet at the same time it has been one of the most life giving and enjoyable parts of my life.

My wife who is the more relational one feels like she has ‘come home’, while I still feel like I am learning a new language and stumbling along.

It does make you wonder – why some find it easy and others labour so hard & long for so little response.

Andrew; God is so great and works in these wonderful ways. I just read your article and it just hit me right between the eyes. And the Lord knew that I have to read it. I’m currently a “failed” worship pastor of a closing church, here in the middle of “Bible-belt” North Carolina. Everything that you says rings so true, specially the last paragraphs. I have to thank you from deep deep inside for having the courage to post this message.

In His Name

Daniel

Andrew,
sharing your story can and does encourage others who are experiencing the same things. I know that many in Christendom seek success and that size matters to many. But it sounds like you are just now discovering what many of us have known for a lifetime and what God clearly teaches in His word – we are His servants and He alone decides the extent of our ministry. I remember a story that I have heard told and retold among missionaries about a couple that served somewhere in Africa. They served their little village for four decades and didn’t see a single convert. Were they failures? No! Because they were faithful to go where God told them to go, say what God told them to say, when God told them to say it. Now, decades later, that little village is a thriving Christian oasis in a spiritual desert. As Jesus said to His disciples after meeting with the woman by the well: ”... others have done the hard work, and you will reap what you have not sown.” That couple did the hard work of planting the gospel through word and deed, and others who came after them were blessed to participate in the harvest.
Andrew, please remember one thing: yes, many do think size matters, but the vast majority of us pastors in the traditional church don’t think like that. We have been caricatured by people perpetuating a myth that the few represent the majority. The church of modernity, at the grass roots level, is nothing like it is being portrayed by those who profit from slandering us.

HI Andrew, thanks for the post man. Like you say it’s good to know that others are feeling as though they just don’t “cut it”. Mind you i am sure that I am in the right place @ the right time so hey?! I suppose we just keep on keeping on. Can I tell you about boxers (like you got a choice:)). When they train in amateur circles they are taught to keep flicking out the jab, push it out and keep pushing out that jab. Eventually the boxer ends up with muscle memory where-in even though he is too tired to think his jab keeps on flicking out. It reminds me of that verse somewhere that says keep fighting the good fight and when you are finished fighting then STAND. I help run a little gathering of teens and we have not seen anyone of our non-christian folk take any more than a passing interest. But I have come to realise that even if God were to tell me tonight that none of them are going to be a step closer to Him when they die than where they are now I still don’t want to be anywhere else. Because I love those guys. I pray, not enough. I give less than I ought and Loose my focus and temper occasionally but still I love those kids and that’s enough cos God’s going to look after the rest of it for me so no sweat!!

Thanks alot great place to talk.

Paul

Hi Steve – I’m not sure what your experience has been, but I find many of us in new expressions of church are still trapped in old ways of ‘measuring’.

It wasn’t a dig at the established church – more a commentary on how deeply embedded our ideas of success are

Yeah, thanks for that clarification. I understand that the desire to measure success by tangible results comes naturally to all of us – I find myself struggling with it sometimes as well. I wasn’t sure if it was a dig at the traditional church, but I have read so many, many books and articles my emergents that are filled with those digs that I am probably overly sensative to it. But again please remember, that most pastors (at least those I interract with in person and over the internet) understand that size is not the issue. I am afraid that size is a measurement used by established denominations to judge how well a church is doing which leads to more attention and prominence being given to those who meet that criteria of success. Unfortunately denominations need a way to judge effectiveness and spiritual growth is a difficult thing to gauge from a distance. I have been a proponant of using different standards in my denomination (SBC)for the very reason that the present standards reinforce that faulty view of success that originates in man’s thinking and not in God’s.

Thanks for writing. I feel the sense of urgency: the old ways aren’t working, and in 50 years we’ve gone from Christendom to a world that often doesn’t care if we exist.

But it’s an exciting time to be a Christian because so much is on the table, in terms of what a “Christian life” will/should look like.

Thank you so much for your thoughts. I found your website via a link from Maggi Dawn. I am in a very different setting – for the past 3 years as Rector of four rural churches with mainly elderly congregations and where making the church here more ‘mission shaped’ seems impossible.So as well as doing all the usual ‘internal’ church stuff I plough around the village schools, playgroups etc and conduct Baptisms for children of families I will probably only wave too as they pass by, I conduct weddings, and funerals, and although I tell myself that one day that (as well as being a good thing to do!) all that will bear fruit. But when I get in my car with my wife on my day off and we drive and talk we fall into ‘what on earth are we going to do to shake the place up?’. Someone collapsed in the Eucharist on Sunday and I start to worry about falling congregations! Yet all you write could apply equally well to this place which seems different to where you are ministering but, in many ways, the same. Thank you for your encouraging thoughts which I shall continue to ponder (whilst doing less to be busy!).

Oh the numbers game! Haven’t we all played it to one degree or another. I think it’s safe to say that we will never know this side of eternity how much of a sucess we were and probably safe to say that we who have labored to help draw others to Jesus, will be pleasantly surprised at how fruitful our labors actually where. May I add that I do believe that we are only seed planters, that it is God who chooses and draws people to Himself but we are still called to spread the Good News wherever we go.
Thanks for your honesty.
Peace
Bizzy

We work in Montevideo, Uruguay, “the most secular nation in the Western Hemisphere,” and get to the point about once a year where we are ready to throw in the towel and move on… Your article makes me stand up and roar.

Thanks…

When a great ship is in Harbour & moored it is safe, there can be no doubt. But that is not what great ships are built for. -a quote jarrod got me to write down once & the writer’s name has left me. Thankyou Hamo, keep sailing

You know, Christ himself had to deal with this. Think about it: he slowly realizes he is The ONE who his entire people have been waiting for. And every.single.time he tentatively (shyly?) put it out there, what happens? He gets chased out of town.
The leaders of his faith tradition, who of all people I’m sure he must have anticipated would joyously recognize, love and support him, instead … well, you know how the story went. So, you and each commenter above are in very fine company.

Its cool article
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Yes, this rings bells for me. Thank you for your honesty. I’ve been leading a small church for six or seven years and despite faithful Bible teaching, prayer, door-to-door evangelism, community work and reliance on the Spirit we’ve not seen growth. Maybe it’s true: we’re called not to be successful but faithful.

This morning I was writting one of my daily journals, and I came to the realization that I was a quitter. I had come so close to so many great things in life and I had got in the habit of just quitting. I felt a terrible sense of pain and loss. I prayed to God to give me the strength to break this for he had never quit on me. I told him I knew I had to do the foot work but for him to please help me in someway. So, to get to my point, I googled “how not to quit” and your site came up. Even though it wasnt exactly what I was going through it still opened my eyes and I realized that God loved me and I needed to start loving my self in order to love others. And for me that means not quitting.
Overall, I just want to thank you, I believe God sent this message my way.

Hamo,
I have tagged you on Backyard Missionary and on this site for Thinking Blogger Awards. This post is fantastic. I am a church planter in Peoria and completely identify with what you have expressed here. I am highly competitive and success-oriented. And who wouldn’t want their greatest “success” to be in the on the field of ministry, where eternal matters hang in the balance? But like you, our ministry has moved much slower than I would have ever expected. There are moments of doubt and bewilderment, but that ever-present sense that God is still in it keeps you plugging. Thanks so much for sharing openly and honestly about your experience. I hope you can point some of your readers to blogs that have challenged you and m
made you think as well.

Be blessed!