How do we measure success in the church? How do we know if we are hitting the mark in terms of God’s call on our lives as a body of believers?

There are churches that measure success using the b3 method. The measure of success in these churches are the number of “Bucks, Buildings and Butts” that can be counted. The size of the budget, the square footage of their buildings and the number of people that they “run” is the sole objective of many churches in America. Quite frankly, it is easy to fall into this method of measuring success in a church. There are few Christians, and especially pastors, who do not want their churches to flourish financially, offer comfortable and effective facilities, and grow numerically.

I want to be careful not to get critical of other churches. I am personally thankful for the generosity of many of our members who move the mission of our church forward by their giving. I pray that more and more of our people learn to “excel in the grace of giving”. I am also thankful for the wonderful facility we enjoy as a church family and the enormous sacrifice many people made to offer this beautiful and functional building. Our facility has been, and will continue to be, a vital tool in helping us accomplish our mission. I am most grateful for all the men, women, boys and girls whose home church is the Heartland Vineyard. Our pastors and leadership team are honored to be leading your lives spiritually. We have experienced many seasons of rapid and numeric growth, and quite honestly, I believe we are headed into another one of those seasons.

The way we measure success here at the Heartland Vineyard Church is in the equipping of an army of fully devoted disciples who extend the Kingdom of God as they experience and then express the compassion and truth of the Lord Jesus.

We chose not to be a b3 church (bucks, buildings, and butts) but an e3 church. We want to measure our success based on our growing ability in assisting people to experience the presence of the Lord Jesus in their lives, to be empowered by His Holy Spirit, and then going out to express God’s love to a lost and dying world.  We want to be an e3 church (people who experience, are empowered, and express God’s love).

The first “e” in being an e3 church is to experience the presence of the Lord Jesus. We were all born-again into a life of experiencing Christ’s life. You may ask, “How do I do this?”  Next week,
I want to visit more with you about experiencing the life and love of Jesus. Suffice it to say that our six values God gave us at Heartland Vineyard Church are doorways into the experience of a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

  1. Enthusiastic and sincere WORSHIP
  2. Compassion driven OUTREACH
  3. Hands on, Spirit led MINISTRY
  4. Grace filled obedience to the WORD OF GOD
  5. Enabling and care-frontational COMMUNITY
  6. All done with a SERVANT HEART

As we grow in those areas of Christian living, we will experience the life and love of Jesus and find ourselves succeeding in fulfilling the mission God has given us.