Be A Success or Be A Blessing

I was over at Mark Batterson's Blog and he had a great quote on there that really got me thinking this morning.

He wrote:
I was listening to the Willowcreek case study on Matthew Barnett and the Dream Center in LA. He shared a defining moment where he felt like the Lord spoke to him: "I want you to die to the dream of being a success and live to the dream of being a blessing!"

Sometimes one of the hardest things with being a pastor is that we are people as well and we want to be a success or successful. But then there are the times where we have been taught that that is pride and with that pride we can't ever be used by God.

So then where is the line. How can you live the dream of being a blessing without having the thoughts of being a success? What really is the true measure of success?

We were having a meeting one night with some fellow youth pastors and one of them shared that them being faithful and being there even if only one or two showed up was good for them. For me I'm a numbers guy because I feel there are numbers of people that are lost and need to hear the "Good News." So my defining level of success is based on whether we are reaching students.

Now here is the big thing. My definition of success is not a fair measure to judge others by. My initial thought when she made that statement was, "Are you kidding me?" I wouldn't know what to do if only one or two kids were in my youth ministry. But then we are working at two different places. We are two different people.

So then how to die to the dream of success. We basically know that the way up is down. To be exalted you have to lower yourself to servanthood. When serving others and being a blessing are our priority God will bring us the level of success He knows our sometimes "prideful" selves can handle.