March 2, 2007
The False Gospel of Impact
And other ministry lessons from the creator of Veggie Tales.
How can a church leader keep their soul rooted in Christ and still keep pace with their ministry? The next issue of Leadership, due in mailboxes in April, will focus on that question. Phil Vischer may seem like an unlikely person to address the darker corners of a pastors' souls, but his new book, Me, Myself, and Bob: A True Story about God, Dreams, and Talking Vegetables (Nelson, 2007), wrestles with questions every church leader should be asking.
In 2000, Phil Vischer was running the largest animation studio between the coasts, had revolutionized Christian family entertainment by selling thirty million Veggie Tales videos, and was named one of the top ten people to watch in worldwide religion. Vischer's vegetable empire, better known as Big Idea Productions, seemed poised to become a Christian Disney.
But by 2003 the dream was over. After a heartbreaking court decision, later overturned on appeal, Big Idea declared bankruptcy and Vischer had to sell the company's assets, including his computer animated characters Bob the Tomato and Larry the Cucumber. We spoke with him recently about his life after Big Idea, and how God has transformed his understanding of ministry.
In the book you talk about growing up in evangelicalism. How did that shape your sense of mission when you started Big Idea?
In college I heard a sermon in chapel about knowing God's will. It was given by a former mathematician. He said that if God's will is not clear we should use the test of spiritual expediency. Which of the two choices in front of me will impact more lives? That one is God's will. My evangelical upbringing said more impact is better. It's better to be Bill Bright than Mother Teresa. Better to impact millions at once than one at a time. God has given us limited time and resources and we have to help as many people as possible - not just two or three. Mother Teresa should have franchised a system for feeding the poor on a massive scale. She needed an MBA.
When did that perspective begin to change?
Near the end we were selling a gazillion [Veggie Tales] videos and I was getting four hundred fan letters a day, but one day I was reading my Bible and I came across the verse that lists the fruit of the Spirit. It occurred to me that none of those things were present in my life. It didn't say the fruit of the Spirit is impact, large numbers, or selling lots of videos. I realized something was not right.
I began asking, how am I supposed to live? I thought I had that figured out, but evidently I was completely wrong. So over three months I went through all of Paul's letters and wrote down every directive or instructive statement he made. And when I read all of those statements it became clear that the gospel I had was a sham. It was more the gospel of Benjamin Franklin than the gospel of Jesus Christ. It was more about self-improvement, and pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, and going out and changing the world. It was American cultural values masquerading as the words of Christ.
What is your understanding of success now?
Now I understand God has a unique journey for each of us with unique measures of success. Now I ask myself, have I done what God has asked me to do? Am I walking with him daily? Success has very little to do with where I end up. I don't know exactly why, but we seem wired to look for numerical results for affirmation. But success in ministry cannot be about measurable impact.
What advice do you have for church leaders? How can we keep our souls healthy?
I think we all have to start with a good self-assessment. That is what I did when I was sitting in the wreckage of my world-changing ministry reading the fruit of the Spirit and not finding it in my life. We should have peace. We should have joy. And that doesn't mean we should force ourselves to have it, because we can't. It will come from us when we've let go of our life, when we've let go of our ministry, when we've let go of any aspiration for having an impact. When it's just us and God we'll find the joy and the peace. Then, we can get back to work and help other people follow that path.
You can read more of the interview with Phil Vischer in the spring issue of Leadership.
Posted by UrL Scaramanga on March 2, 2007
Comments
I am a failed church planter. I dreamed of planting a church that would last for a hundred years, like the church in which I grew up. I dreamed of being a Robert Schuller or Rick Warren. I am neither. I asked Steve Welling, a friend, a pastor then working as a management consultant, what the difference was between pastors and businessmen. "Pastor's are always wanting to be someone else... I've never met a businessman who wanted to be Jack Welch."
Through the tears of my own failures I have come to the same conclusion as Phil. It is really about obedience. Obedience brings blessing and joy. And, it will result in the measure of impact God intends.
The challenge I face is that I still have a bent to the old ways. I feel like a novice at what Peter Scazzero in The Emotionally Healthy Church calls making the incarnation my model for loving and living well. I am still, ten years after closing our church, learning to be aware of my limitations and losses, and trusting God day by day and with each passing moment...
Posted by: Paul Goddard at March 2, 2007
A wonderful lesson in approaching ministry with humility and an attitude of continual submission to God's definition of success rather than our own. Thanks.
Posted by: B-Dub at March 2, 2007
Paul-
I really appreciated your post. God has been teaching me that numbers do not = success in His eyes. Obedience does. We've worked in two church plants where there was significant numerical growth...and we looked at that as success. The place where God has placed us most recently has actually lost numbers...but we are seeing Him at work in the small places. And I think it takes more faith for me to "dream small" and to keep walking where He wants to lead me.
Posted by: Kat at March 2, 2007
Very interesting. Can't wait to read the rest of the interview. Unfortunately I just got my winter issue of Leadership. So I expect that I will receive my spring issue sometime in June. Hmm. You guys should have held off on the preview. I do like the redesign though. Looks very nice.
Greg Marquez
goyomarquez@earthlink.net
www.ivchristiancenter.com
Posted by: Greg Marquez at March 2, 2007
We can make ministry & life about everything else but Jesus at times. Echo’s of ‘behold I stand at the door and know’ spring to mind. We need to get back to the true focus of all life – Christ and his Kingdom. Truly its all that worth preaching, ministering, living and breathing. My concern is we can move from trying to make it happen – ‘what can I do for God’, instead of with Him, too doing little but pious navel gazing. Neither grasps the freedom of His enabling grace. I enjoyed the honest spirit of this article. Yet I hope it provokes us line our lives up with his word and continue the family business. For our world grows dark as the hour grows short.
Posted by: Mark McDade at March 3, 2007
One recurring debate in these comments is between those--and I'm going to try to be charitable to both sides of the issue--between those who criticize continually small churches for being stagnant and insular and those who criticize big churches for being impersonal and commodified (i.e. church activities have become commodities).
I really like this quote:
There are certainly some of us who are called to pastor large churches, to reach thousands of people. And there are some of us who are called to reach only a few. Let's celebrate the call God places on each one of us, how he continually weaves the infinitely complex and beautiful tapestry of his new Kingdom.
Posted by: Nate at March 3, 2007
It would be really interesting to have an entire issue of "Leadership" written by pastors who aren't impact guys in our evangelical subculture. Though the magazine features a few faithful and little-known names in each issue, what if those that help set the tone for the rest of us moved the microphone and spotlight away from the Impact Guys, The Big Dawgs and our Superstars and spent some good time listening to...
...Bi-vocational pastors of wee little flocks of 75 people
...associate pastors at mid-sized churches who have been passed over for the head job over and over again
...people who have run the nursery at the church for the last decade
...pastors who've been dumped by their "failure to launch" congregations and are now selling real estate?
I know these kinds of stories are in "Leadership" some of the time, but they're always alongside the Impact Guys' words of wisdom.
I'm not suggesting that those Impact Guys don't have a lot to say, but if real healthy change is going to come (and we all know we desperately need it), it would be a powerful thing to begin to shift and diffuse the spotlight.
Posted by: Michelle Van Loon at March 4, 2007
Yes. Small is not necessarily better. This article also hit me in a place where I am right now. I'm just finishing John Piper's "Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ." Great little book.
On the church planting thing, it sounds like some of you feel like failures because they're not big churches, as you had hoped.
The vision God is giving me is to plant more churches. Not big churches. Plant them as fast we can wherever we can (not just inner city, not just overseas). The more churches there are, whether 50 or 500 or 5,000 attenders, the more people who will be reached.
Plant churches that plant churches. Make disciples who make disciples.
Posted by: Dan at March 5, 2007
As a Lenten discipline, may I suggest a dose of Luther's Theology of the Cross?
Finding Jesus and His Church in numbers and success is a reflection of the Theology of Glory, the contrary theology to the Theology of the Cross.
There are numerous resources out there to find this theology, but Gerhard Forde's "Becoming a Theologian of the Cross" is a good place to start.
Blessed Lent.
Posted by: Pr. Dave Poedel at March 6, 2007
At some point we have to decide if Jesus' grace really is sufficient - if that really is all we need and desire. By knowing what we have in Him, we might just be able to let go of what we feel we lack in the flesh.
If He is our only pursuit, and He gives Himself freely to us, then suddenly I have nothing to gain or lose in my behavior and all the activity. I might actually experience true abiding.
Maybe when He said, "It is finished," Jesus meant we should stop trying to finish what He's already done for us. Somewhere in what He's already accomplished is found abundant life - not in the abundance of my activity, behavior, obedience, and impact. At some point, Jesus Himself really is "the Life".
I look forward to the issue!
Posted by: mike daniel at March 6, 2007
Numbers appears to be THE focus of many churches. Megachurch pastors have told media "don't come here to find intimacy" and a plethora of other similar statements. Church like this makes me feel like a "tithing unit" and not a person or a soul. I long for the little chuch of my youth when elders were respected and silence fell upon the sanctuary when they spoke. When everyone welcomed the new baby child, the new family. I feel church has lost it's community and has become a business, forcing me into the position of becoming a customer/patron. I long for the 200 member megachurch of my youth. And I long to be valued as a human and not have my family be referred to as a "tithing unit." I long for the emphasis to be returned to people and human need and not financing the building of bigger facilities with gymnasiums and media centers (built on a prosperous side of town where many of the children here already have memberships to TWO athletic clubs and access to high speed internet at home AND at school whereas children in the "hood" truly have nothing). And I can't help but wonder why it is the greatest preacher of all never had a "church" but always seemed to be preaching and teaching on His way to somewhere else. And why He sent His disciples out in like fashion. And how much they accomplished...without building gymnasiums, media centers with pool/air hockey/PlayStation rooms and theaters with popcorn machines. And I wonder how far we could really go and all that we would accomplish with all that we have if only we would follow in their footsteps. Oh yes....if only the church would be rooted in Christ instead of enslaved to "growth" and multimillion dollar loans for megabuildings.....
Posted by: T Ford at March 6, 2007
God has all of us on different journeys. We all have different gifts and different capacities. It doesn't matter where Rick Warren plants a church - it would turn into a mega-church over time, I'm sure - because that is the gift and capacity that God has given Rick. If I suddenly became the pastor of Saddleback, it would soon shrivel into a small church, because I simply don't have the capacity and gifting to lead a church like Rick. I don't think the issue here is whether we pursue success or failure - but whether we compare ourselves to each other on the journey. We are all different, and Jesus is the only standard. The answer is NOT to dream small, and somehow spiritualize failure. It is no more spiritual to dream small than it is to dream big. In fact, God has put it in all our hearts to dream big. But, we also need to embrace the journey, which involves peaks and valleys. I'm certainly not going to read Phil's book and abandon my "larger than life" dreams and aspirations. I certainly need to make sure the fruit of the spirit is at the foundation of it all. But please, let's not spiritualize failure, as though God is against success. Of course, God wants us all to thrive in life. Read John 10:10. But, we all need to embrace the reality of our lives. We are not where we were, and we are not where we are going. We all need a vision of where we are going, and hopefully that vision is larger than where we are now, or where we have been. I'm not giving up on my dreams, that's for sure. But I'm also not going to make Rick Warren my aspiration.
Posted by: Ryan Dahl at March 7, 2007
I think that this should not be an "either or" but it should be a "both and" discussion. In other words, I think impact is a good thing, but so is the fruit of the Spirit. We are called to both a life of devotion AND service. Measuring this is not easy on a spreadsheet, however. Impact really is about changed lives, not about decision slips, attendance sheets or cash flow. Those things are good indicators of behavior, but not real success. Only time and eternity can tell us real success.
Posted by: Rich Kirkpatrick at March 8, 2007
Ryan I have never heard it said better! ...Thanks for a great perspective without judgement...
Posted by: Troy Gramling at March 8, 2007
I saw you speak at the NYWC in Charlotte, NC this past fall/winter. I think you really hit home to many youth leaders as it seems that we too seem to get our self worth tied into how many are showing up to youth group.
Christ commanded us to "make disciples" and I often wonder with all the marketing these days if churches are trying to "make numbers".
God is really using you in both your success and failure.
Steve Blanchard
Posted by: Steve Blanchard at March 9, 2007
Thank you for reminding me where to keep my focus. One of my mentors has said to me, "God is more interested in us becoming like Christ, than in the "success" of our ministry." Of course, it's HIS ministry, and Obedience, He promises, will lead to blessing--not necessarily our ideas of what blessing is, but His idea. So, whether it's a ministry with the magnitude of Rick Warren's, or it's something on a relatively small scale, His plans are good, pleasing, and perfect....our part is obedience.
Posted by: Lisa Wen at July 12, 2007