I had someone ask me the other day… “How do you measure success at the end of the summer?” I had to admit I didn’t have any thing aside from the numbers of campers, Meals served or Souls saved etc. This question caused me to reconsider my own perspective. I am normally the guy that states “we can’t always look at numbers to see if God is working”… and then I find myself doing just the thing I criticized. After beating myself up for my mental response, I found myself going back to our “mission statement” and the statements that define our purpose. So how did the Facility and its Staff meet these standards?

“The mission of Verdugo Pines Bible Camp is to

Provide a God honoring environment away from the daily routine and distractions of life.

Where one will develop an Intimate Relationship with their Creator, Jesus Christ.

Through Gods Word and the Power of the Holy Spirit.”

The purpose of our staff (volunteer or paid) is to demonstrate the love of Christ through honoring our guest and serving them just as Christ did when He washed the feet of his disciples’. How we show HONOR to our guest is by giving them undivided attention and presenting them with “the little extras”, offering excellence in every thing we do for them. How we show LOVE for our guest is by serving them with a joyful attitude, anticipating their needs and going the second mile. I know we did do these things to show Honor and Love, but can this be measured objectively? And even if it could be measured, is this what we should be measuring as a standard for success? Maybe we should ask the Lord what His standard for success would be in our ministry. We sometimes hold our man made standards above Gods standards. So our question should be… “What is our LORDS expectation of us, in this ministry that He has called us to?”

I have been able to go to a few scriptural principles concerning evangelism and building the body of Christ, serving one-another and demonstrating the love of Christ, but none has impressed me as the expectation of “FAITHFULNESS” and “HOLINESS”. 2 Timothy 2:20 calls us to be vessels of honor “set apart” or sanctified for the Masters use. God desires to use clean vessels in His service, so one of our standards for measuring our success, we must be vessels that qualify. Then second comes faithfulness. It is only a FAITHFUL person who believes that God sovereignly controls his circumstances. To be faithful in every circumstance means that our loyalty and actions reflect our commitment to Christ. We will be faithful to our work, to serve others, even to the ministry. We can be faithful to the task of showing HONOR and LOVE, yet not being faithful to Jesus Christ. Sometimes our Lord is dethroned by our faithfulness to the service or ministry He has called us to. The goal of Faithfulness is not that we will work faithfully for God, but that He will be free to do His work through us. So now when we serve, Christ is glorified, and NOT the ministry. Please don’t misunderstand me… The “Mission”, “Goals” and “Purpose” of this ministry have been well thought through and written, but our success is determined on WHO we are committed to, not WHAT we are committed to.