From significance to security - July 23rd, 2008

If you’ve never read Bob Buford’s book, Halftime, it is well worth your time. Buford wrote the book a decade ago, but the principles still resonate today. Buford used a sports analogy to address the issue of a mid-life crisis. He examined how most people spend the first half of their life trying to attain success, and then he advocated using the second half of your life to achieve significance. Just like in a football game, halftime is designed to examine your progress, evaluate your success and chart a course for the second half that will produce something of significance in order to realize true victory because yearning for only success isn’t ultimately satisfying. Buford’s assertions are on target and the book provides questions for self-examination and a plan to chart your road to significance.

While the book is valuable, my one criticism is that the intended audience are those working in the secular realm where success is the driving force of our culture. For those who have spent their professional careers serving in ministry, the admonition to move from success to significance misses the mark.

It has been my experience both personally and anecdotally that leaders who choose to invest themselves in God’s business start their careers from a significance paradigm. Spiritual leaders enter the ministry with a desire to impact the world for Christ and to affect significant change in people’s lives. There is nothing more important or significant than having the privilege of serving God full-time in ministry. While most spiritual leaders desire to be effective, the success of ministry takes a backseat to the significance of the calling and task.

It seems though at some point in almost every spiritual leader’s path, that security supersedes significance and leaders stop taking risks and they limit the number of changes they will attempt to make in the church. The shift is eerily subtle and one day you arrive in the church office only to realize that your goal is no longer to win the world for Christ, but your goal has become to survive the situation you are in long enough so you can retire or your kids can finish school or your spouse can get a job with insurance or you fill in the blank.

Where are you today? Are you still striving for significance in ministry or have you settled into security while waiting for the world to end or for something better to come along? Sir Hugh Walpole said, “Don’t play for safety. It’s the most dangerous game in the world.”

In the book of Revelation, John recorded God’s instructions to seven churches and in the first letter to the church in Ephesus we read, “You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary. Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love (emphasis mine). Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first” (Revelation 2:3-5).

Have you forsaken your first love? Have you reduced your calling to security at the expense of significance?

Arthur Ashe, the great tennis player was asked how to be great or significant. He replied, “Start where you are, use what you’ve got, and do what you can!” That’s great advice. Take some time out for “halftime” regardless of where you are in your ministry career and honestly assess if you are spending more time trying to achieve security or significance. Overcome “destination disease” and realize that the solution to your problems is not a new ministry but a new you in your current ministry.

William Shedd said, “A ship in a safe harbor is safe, but that is not what a ship is built for.” Use the resources you have available and do something significant even when it’s scary, uncomfortable or unsafe–take a risk for God in your ministry and impact eternity!