Am I doing my job?

What a question! So simple yet so profound - "Am I doing my job"? I think its a question EVERY minister should ask themselves. I know MANY churches have developed short term matrices to determine if ministers are doing their jobs. We may measure things like attendance, giving, # of people answering alter calls, number of small groups, etc. But what about our REAL jobs? Are we measuring the effectiveness of our REAL job?

Some may say "If the church [or youth group] is growing and people are getting saved, what else am I suppose to measure? Isn't that what my job is?" My answer to that question is NO. The Bible gives us our job description in Ephesians 4. Check this out:

11 Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. 12 Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ.

I know there are MANY other gifts God gives for the betterment of the Church (notice the capital "C"), some of which are covered in 1 Corinthians and in Romans. But, if you are an evangelist, prophet, apostle, pastor or teacher our ultimate responsibility "is to equip God's people to do His work AND to build up the church."

Now, I'm sure the "build up the church" part could be HOTLY contested in terms of its meaning. Does it mean to "edify and encourage" or does it mean to "add to numerically"? I'm not sure, but I think whatever definition you choose would be a good answer for what many church leaders focus on. It gives us short term goals.

But wouldn't it be better to ask ourselves "are people under my care being equipped to do the work of God?" I think that's the tougher and more realistic question we need to be asking ourselves. Its a question we can't answer during our weekly or monthly meetings. Its a question we can't answer on our quarterly review sessions. Its a question we really won't know the answer to for a year or even a decade. Although its a question that won't stroke our egos with the quick gratification of an instant answer, but I think its the real answer we should be asking ourselves.

So are you doing your job? Thoughts?