“The world’s idea that everyone, from childhood up, should be able at all times to succeed in measurable ways, and that it is a great disgrace not to, hangs over the Christian community like a pall of acrid smoke.”
–J.I. Packer
Do you measure your success by visual results? Material success is material and you can see it. Spiritual success is spiritual, and mostly invisible.
A successful church is a church that is numerically growing; but a numerically growing church isn’t necessarily a successful church.