“The measure of a pulpit ministry isn’t its width, but its depth. Blinded by pride and the idolatry of success, we too often equate God’s blessing with a large congregation and failure with empty seats. But our greatest desire as pastors should be that our hearers hearts are formed to the image of Christ.”

Pastoring an existing church is stepping into a family. As you dig into the archives and sift through old photographs and letters, you take in the highs and lows through the years and are presented with the opportunity to reflect on the life and character of those who pastored before you. All this feels a bit like becoming acquainted with distant relatives.

In the church I pastor, Tremont Temple in Boston, Massachusetts, there’s a long list of pastors spanning back to 1839, and it wasn’t long after I swung open the massive, iron, bank-style vault door, that I took a special interest in Frank Ellis. He was the pastor of our church way back when it was called Union Temple Baptist Church, from 1880–1884.

Guy Mitchell, Tremont’s very own historian, produced an impressive unpublished manuscript in the mid-20^th century titled History of Tremont Temple. In it he reflects on Ellis’s short tenure as pastor:

Although most of the clouds which arise during Dr. Ellis’s pastorate had a bright and silvery lining, there was one which shed a depressing shadow over this pastor’s spirit. It was the shadow of the upper gallery, unillumined by the faces of attendants at divine worship. He greatly desired to see that gallery filled and fully realized this his ministry would not be considered as up to the standard required, if he preached to a but partly-filled house. No one felt his failure in this respect more than he did, and after a valiant attempt for four years he decided to give up the effort. He resigned his pastorate and finished his labors on November 4th, 1884, and immediately went to Baltimore to preach in a church where there was no upper gallery.

If Mitchell is right, Ellis was driven from his post, defeated. The “standard required” hadn’t been met. The upper gallery hadn’t been filled. He hadn’t filled it. And so after four and a half years, it was time to pack up the horse-and-buggy, and hit the road to plant the gospel in softer soil, in a church more sized and suited to his gifts.

As we consider this man and his ministry, the dusty vault offers up some clues that might help us understand his plight. In a separate document authored by Mitchell called Historical Sketchbook, he wrote that Ellis was “an extremely sensitive man with very high aims and ambitions and was easily disturbed by even a slightly apparent failure in their accomplishment.” It seems that Ellis may have had the dangerous combination of towering ambition and thin skin—like a fireman running into the blaze without his gear.

Here’s one more clue for understanding Ellis: his predecessor was a pastoral pillar. George C. Lorimer was born in Edinburgh, Scotland and came to the States as an aspiring actor. He was charismatic, striking in appearance, and beloved by the congregation. His reputation as a preacher and author was celebrated both in the States and abroad.

So Ellis followed directly after this heavy-hitter whose 21-year pulpit ministry regularly packed out Tremont Temple’s main hall. It’s also clear from two large volumes of meticulous minutes from the member’s meetings that membership dipped in the days of Ellis—something that never happened in the days of Lorimer. It’s hard to follow a beloved pastor, especially one who had such a dominant presence in the pulpit.

But maybe the greatest strike against Ellis, according to Mitchell’s account, is the way he perceived his own success. For Ellis, success was a numbers game.

But it’s exactly this view of fruitfulness in ministry that needlessly weighs down and even shipwrecks gifted pastors. Far worse, it leaves churches led by pastors who are like husbands with a roving eye—never satisfied, always looking beyond the bride because she isn’t enough.

Pastors, here are five encouragements that will serve to keep us from “pulling an Ellis.”

1. Fill believers, not buildings.

The measure of a pulpit ministry isn’t its width, but its depth. Blinded by pride and the idolatry of success, we too often equate God’s blessing with a large congregation and failure with empty seats. But our greatest desire as pastors should be that our hearers hearts are formed to the image of Christ.

In Ephesians 4, we find that God has gifted the church with preachers “for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” For Paul, the growth that comes from God’s Word is most essentially concerned with depth, not width. The burden of the apostles was to see God’s people grow in maturity. If our metric for success in the ministry is how many seats we fill on a Sunday, our goals are different than Jesus’—and that’s never a safe place to be.

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