What is Success?

I've been thinking a bit about success over the past few days. I often get asked to do presentations on sanctus1 and after I've given the presentation somebody usually ask me how many people come to Sanctus1? I find myself quite uncomfortable with the question because essential the person is asking: 'Are you a success in numerical worldy terms? I was then searching the web for references to Sanctus1 and I saw that we were referred to as 'one of the most successful emerging churches in the uk'.

I am uncomfortable with the language of success within the church.

We live in a success driven culture and unfortunately the church has taken on a lot of the values, a success driven church, Christ is the antithesis of this attitude. The language of success is not the language of Christ, Christ’ life was about radical failure. Failing to be the type of messiah that people were expecting, failing to overthrow the roman authorities, failing by hanging out with the failures, a life of upsetting the successful, a life of radical failure.

A life that ended with death on the cross, failing to live up to all the expectations, letting everyone down and being denied by his closest friends. Dying on a cross all alone rejected by friends and rejected by Father, crying out ‘ my god, my god why have you forsaken me’. why have you rejected me? Christ knew radical failure and that radical failure is what we are called to.

And yet paradoxically it is in the failure that there is success, it is in the defeat that there is victory. We tend to rush to Easter Sunday in our desire for success and forget the success in the failure of Good Friday. A day where a person was prepared to put every person on this planet above himself, a day where God became a servant for all, a day where Christ embraced suffering, embraced the beatings and embraced the cross. In Christ’s failure he was a success.