The Successful Ministry

What is God’s definition of success in ministry?  What are the indicators that one is doing well or has done well in the assignments from God?  Is it the size of the followership?  Is it the generous reception that one gets from those to whom one is sent?  Is it the massive hosannahs and lavish palm fronds with which the way is paved for the sent one?  Or is it the cross that the call attracts?

In Exodus 3:16-19, God sent Moses to two groups: the elders of Israel and Pharaoh, the king of Egypt.  Of the elders, God assured Moses that they would receive his message, that “they shall hearken to thy voice.”  That was good news.  That is the kind of reception every messenger expects for his efforts.

Moses was thereupon to proceed with those elders of Israel to Pharaoh, announcing that they were messengers of God, with a direct message from God to him, that he should let them go on a three-day journey out of his kingdom into the wilderness, to sacrifice unto the God who had sent them.  Of this mission, however, God warned clearly, “And I am sure that the king of Egypt will not let you go.”  Hmm, even God knew and confessed that it was going to be ‘mission impossible.’

Here is my question: If God knew that their mission was not going to be ‘successful,’ why send them?  Why set them up for a mission that was doomed to ‘fail’?  The mission to the elders was going to have the clear signs of a ‘successful mission’ – the audience was going to believe him promptly and follow him massively; but the next was going to ‘fail,’ yet God was the Sender on both missions!

Moses and the elders were going to return from the second mission apparently defeated, yet they had been on a divine assignment no less than on the first mission that ‘succeeded’ tremendously.  One mission would have massive followership; the other would have no followership at all but rather attract terrible conflict immediately, yet both were the missions of God.  What is the sign of a ‘successful ministry’?

There were times Jesus preached and the people said in worshipful amazement, “Never man spake like this man” (John 7:46).  Then, everybody wanted to follow Him.  There were other times the same Son of God preached with no less grace, and the people turned upon Him to stone Him (John 10:31).  Which of the two missions was a successful mission?  Which one was a fiasco?  The one in which He was mightily hailed, or the one in which He was nearly killed?

What is God’s definition of the “successful ministry”?  What are the signs that God actually sent someone, and that they are succeeding?  The massive hosannahs or the murderous stones?

From The Preacher’s diary,

November 16, 2025.