I’m betting zero. Not a one. (If you can name one, please let me know. I’d love to be wrong!)
Yet Paul was still a success, right? Right.
One clear marker of success worth mentioning is that clearly at some point those churches he started multiplied. People encountered the risen Jesus through those local congregations, their lives were transformed, and some of them went out to begin other new communities of Jesus followers. There is some untraceable lineage from those early churches all the way to the ones you and I now call home.
I ask this question about Paul to raise another the question about us: “How do we measure success or failure?” Numbers of churches started? Number of churches that lasted 10 years? 100 years? Numbers—whether of churches started, weekly attendees, or duration of said churches—can’t be our only measuring stick. We need a more comprehensive rubric.
Let me suggest one ingredient to add into the mix: Losses.
Losses can be wins in the economy of the kingdom of God. Paul himself seemed to favor counting something different as a gauge of success: his sufferings, his failures, his setbacks, his betrayals, his hardships, his persecutions. (I’m thinking of 2 Corinthians 6 or 12, for example). Maybe we would do well to start counting more than just our wins. Maybe we ought to tally up our losses, and then simply scratch out the header, replacing “LOSSESS” with “WINS.”
