Today I got to speak to a group of church leaders about effective communication. We discussed how you know if you "hit a home run" with a message, since this can be such a subjective task. The way we measure this at TCC is through our Connection Cards where people are encouraged to take very simple, practical, yet challenging next steps in their spiritual journey.
One pastor friend of mine gave some push back on this. His take on it was, "God didn’t call me to be effective, only faithful. After all, how can we measure our success by the response of others who may not be spiritually mature?"
Is it possible to be both faithful to God and effective? I believe it is. Ultimately, my goal is to present as many fully devoted Christ followers to God as I possibly can and squeeze the maximum redemptive potential out of my life.