The Measures of Service and Its Success
The Measures of Service and Its Success
*God’s measures are not the measures of people. God is the examiner of hearts and minds, the knower of the true realities of matters. He alone is able to evaluate the service of each person and to know the extent of its effectiveness or its routine nature—the truth of the service or merely its appearance. Undoubtedly, in eternity we shall find astonishing things that we never imagined at all.
Perhaps in eternity we shall see servants we had never heard of!! And perhaps some of the prominent servants now, we shall not see there!!
Indeed, our measures in evaluating service are not God’s measures… And here we wish to examine what are the measures of people regarding the success of service, and what is God’s judgment upon them. We shall study what are the wrong measures and what are the sound measures.
The First Measure of People: The Amount of Responsibilities
The Amount of Responsibilities:
People measure service by the size of the responsibilities laid upon the servant, whereas God has a different measure.
Take for example Stephen, the first of the deacons:
He was merely a deacon; he did not receive a higher rank than that.
Shall we measure his service by his rank?! Certainly not. For the Holy Church places his name in the Synaxarium of the saints before all the patriarchs. His service is measured by its depth—how he was “full of faith and the Holy Spirit… and wisdom” (Acts 6:3, 5). “And Stephen, full of faith and power, did great wonders and signs among the people” (Acts 6:8).
He stood before three councils and before those from Cilicia and Asia disputing with him, “and they were not able to resist the wisdom and the Spirit by which he spoke” (Acts 6:10). Therefore, after the laying on of hands upon him as a deacon, “the word of God spread, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests were obedient to the faith” (Acts 6:7).
Thus was the service and effectiveness of this deacon, to the extent that the Jews could not endure his service; so they seized him and stoned him.
And in his stoning he saw “the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God” (Acts 7:56). “And they saw his face as if it were the face of an angel” (Acts 6:15).
A person in his service before God is weighed stripped of his outward attributes and functions. He is weighed by the depth of his work, the depth of his heart, and the value of his service.
Take another example: Saint Mar Ephraim the Syrian:
And the great effort he exerted in service and in resisting Arianism, and in defending the faith even before he was ordained an Agnostos (that is, a Reader) by the hand of Saint Basil the Great. This rank is now received by tens of thousands of Sunday School servants, which he considered himself unworthy to receive.
Yet the Agnostos Mar Ephraim had his tremendous weight in the Universal Church, so that they called him “the Harp of the Holy Spirit,” and called him “the Malphān” or teacher, for his spiritual poems and writings of remarkable influence and depth.
Shall we measure his service by the rank of Agnostos?! Or by his prominent effect in serving the faith and in teaching—not only in his generation, but in many generations even until now?
Take another example: the deacon Athanasius at the holy Ecumenical Council of Nicaea:
At that time he was merely a deacon, in the first Ecumenical Council which included 318 great fathers—patriarchs and bishops—representing the churches of the whole world. Yet his work then was not measured by his rank as a deacon, but by his stand against Arius the heretic and his refutation of all his arguments, with strength and deep understanding of the Scripture and the sound meaning of its texts and their theological implications…
So much so that—while still a deacon—he formulated the Christian Creed at the Council of Nicaea, the Creed in which all the churches of the world believe… Here service was not measured by rank, but by its effect and effectiveness.
Another example is Saint Simon the Tanner.
What was his rank?! Not a priest, nor a deacon, nor even an Agnostos… but a simple worker, perhaps of no value in society, and with no function in the Church.
Yet the value of his service was in the depth of his work, the depth of his prayers, and in his saving of the entire Church by the miracle of moving the Mokattam Mountain in the days of Pope Abram ibn Zar‘ah and in his presence. Here it is the quality of the service, not the height of the rank…
Also take the example of Saint Anba Ruwais.
He was not a bishop, nor a priest, nor a deacon, and had no official function in the Church, nor any specific service. Yet the Church counted him among her fathers. And he had services in which the hand of God appeared with utmost clarity.
We may also mention: Ibrahim El-Gohary.
He was a layman and had a secular position in the state; that is, he was not consecrated to the Lord. Yet he had deep love for the Church and unforgettable services which he performed for the building of monasteries and churches and in caring for the poor in a manner that places him among the servants, indeed surpassing many of them.
An example outside the Coptic Church is Michelangelo.
He was an artist, but his services in the realm of church iconography recorded his name in history, especially in Saint Peter’s Cathedral in the Vatican.
Here we do not ask about his ecclesiastical degree or rank, but about the depth of his service. People know Michelangelo, and perhaps millions do not know the name of the pope who lived in his days. And if they know his name, they say he was the pope contemporary with Michelangelo…!
Another point we mention regarding the wrong human measures of service is the honor and greatness of the place.
The Greatness of the Place
They may attribute the importance of the servant to the importance and greatness of the place in which he serves, as though his service derives its greatness from the place—not from the person nor from the depth and quality of the service. But reality is otherwise.
Among the examples is Saint Gregory of Nazianzus:
He belonged to the town of Nazianzus, of which he became bishop—perhaps no one precisely knows its location, except that it was one of the cities of Caesarea of Cappadocia, which was under Saint Basil the Great.
Yet Saint Gregory did not derive his greatness and fame from the greatness of the city he served, but from his theological personality and his profound lectures on the Holy Trinity, to the extent that the Church granted him the title “The Theologian.” His diocese did not grant him fame; rather, he granted fame to his town Nazianzus, which was unknown to many.
Likewise Saint Augustine:
He was bishop of the city of Hippo. Many have asked me, “Where is this Hippo?” And I answered that it was within the diocese of Carthage in North Africa, presided over at that time by Saint Aurelius.
But Augustine, eminent in contemplations, in interpretation, in theology, and in defending the faith against the Pelagians and the Montanists and others, was the one who gave fame to the city of Hippo. Without him, history would have forgotten it.
Likewise Saint Gregory, Bishop of Nyssa.
He was the brother of Saint Basil the Great. His brother ordained him over Nyssa, whose location many do not know.
Yet it was within the diocese of Caesarea of Cappadocia. It was an uncelebrated town; the one who recorded its name in history was its bishop Saint Gregory, who wrote much against the Arians and had many contemplations and a book on the Beatitudes.
Let no one say, therefore, that my service lost its value because it is in a small town or village!! If only I had served in a great city, I would have had a different standing!!
The Lord Christ was born in a small village, Bethlehem “the least among Judah” (Matt. 2:6).
And He was called a Nazarene, from Nazareth, of which some wondered whether anything good could come (John 1:46). Yet He granted Nazareth fame in history and was called “Jesus of Nazareth” (Matt. 26:71). And He also granted fame to the village of Bethlehem, which became a holy pilgrimage site…
Other servants measure their greatness in service by the length of its duration and consider this a medal of honor for service!
Length of Service:
Some measure the strength of the servant by the length of his service. Hence came the expression “old servants.” In truth, this is not a sound measure. There may be servants whose period is shorter than others, yet more productive and of greater effect.
John the Baptist served one or two years at most.
Yet in that short period he prepared the way before the Lord and prepared for Him a people ready, “and he will go before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah” (Luke 1:17).
The Lord Christ Himself, the service of His Incarnation was short!
About three and a third years, of which He said to the Father, “I have finished the work which You have given Me to do” (John 17:4). He also said, “I have glorified You on the earth.” He accomplished redemption, teaching, gave the example, corrected errors, and restored the divine image to people.
Pope Cyril IV’s papacy lasted less than eight years.
Yet the Church granted him during that period the title “Father of Reform” because of the depth of the service he offered.
Time would fail us if we spoke of some priestly fathers:
Father Mena Yuhanna, priest of Mallawi, for example:
He reposed at the age of 30. In that period he presented thousands of sermons, the book Jesus the Crucified, The Way to Heaven, and a History of the Church which he authored while a deacon. He had wide spiritual influence despite the shortness of his service.
And Father Antonios Baki, servant of Queens:
He was the first priest sent to America in 1972. He served in America only five months. Yet his service was crowned with a phrase the people there said to him: “We knew the Lord when we knew you.”
Service, therefore, is not measured by its length, but by its depth…
A person may come to a church as a guest and deliver one sermon:
And that may be his entire service in that church. Years may pass, and people do not forget that sermon and its impact. While another may serve in the same church for many years delivering numerous sermons, yet not with the same effect.
One day served by the Apostle Paul is greater and deeper than many years served by others.
Another measure by which some evaluate the success of service is:
The Number of Those Served:
Just as the greatness of a military leader is measured by whether he commands a hundred or a thousand. Thus, the more the number of those served increases, they consider it evidence of success and growth. It may indeed be so, but it is not an absolute fixed measure…
The success of service is not in the multitude of those served, but in those whose lives the service has changed and whom it has led to God…
The Lord Christ preached to thousands, as in the spiritual service preceding the miracle of the five loaves and two fish. Yet He had another concentrated service in the Twelve, who were far more important than those thousands; for they later drew cities and regions to faith.
Beautiful is the saying of Scripture concerning the success of their service: “And the Lord added to the Church daily those who were being saved” (Acts 2:47).
Thus, the success of service is not in the number of those who hear, but in the number of those who receive the word with joy, in whom it bears fruit and leads them to repentance and to a life of holiness and perfection.
Hence we called for limited-number Sunday School classes, in which the teacher can care for each student and serve him with true and successful service, visiting and shepherding him. Likewise, we worked to divide dioceses into limited regions which the bishop can shepherd and visit, caring for every city and village within them, so that those cities and villages are not lost amid the massive responsibilities previously assigned to a metropolitan overseeing several governorates!!
The Lord showed us through many examples the importance of caring for the individual in service, as He did with Zacchaeus (Luke 19), with Nicodemus (John 3), and with the man born blind (John 9), and others.
Some set another measure for the success of service, which is:
Abundance of Production:
Such as undertaking a large number of services, or establishing many branches of service or activities.
One may become lost in all that and fail to supervise all those activities properly, or be compelled to appoint many servants without preparation. The service then loses its spirituality because of its expansion and lack of depth…
So what then are the sound measures for evaluating service?
And what are the elements of strength in service?
This is what we wish to speak to you about in the next issue, if the grace of the Lord wills and we live.
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