The Church's Batting Average

I'm reading a good book right now entitled 7 Practices of Effective Ministry by Andy Stanley and two others from his team at Northpoint church near Atlanta. Over the past few months, I've had several people recommend some of his writing to me, but this is the first one I've dipped into.

One of the things I like so far is the emphasis being placed on relationships and steps rather than programs and events. As I step back up to the plate of youth ministry (Stanley uses some good baseball imagery in the book!) I find myself kicking the dirt around a bit and tapping my bat on the ground establishing my familiarity with home plate. But what is home plate in youth ministry? or in ministry in general? What does it mean to hit a home run?

I suppose that in any kind of ministry setting or even just in our spiritual lives...home plate is a mature relationship (or I should probably say a maturing relationship) with Christ. Scoring a run in this context is helping someone move into ever-increasing Christ likeness. But in order to accomplish that goal, we've got to move people (or ourselves) through a series of steps which lead to that end. Unfortunately, what I've been a part of in most of my years of ministry (which is what I think Stanley is suggesting in his book) is just continual efforts to swing away and assume that any contact made with the ball is a win. But the only hit that counts towards improving the batting average is one which results in advancing someone to first base and beyond.

So we can crank one out of the park (like pulling off a great worship service or event) but if we don't help someone advance towards home plate (spiritual maturity) then we've definitely not accomplished our main goal. My concern and my insecurity right now has a lot to do with the gravitational pull I sense drawing me into a program-driven approach to ministry when I know the focus needs to be on steps, practices, and relationships instead.