Chapter Summary: Liberating Ministry From The Success Syndrome

Summary Kent and Barbara Hughes recorded their insights concerning their ministry experience in their book, Liberating Ministry from the Success Syndrome. In its first chapter, Kent Hughes revealed his calling and passion to preach. He discussed his early beginning in preaching. After completing his studies, helping a church, the church he helped decided to have him be the founding pastor of a church, and at first, everything seemed to be great. However, he wrote, “Our church was shrinking, and the prospect looked bad—really bad.” The second chapter revealed how Kent Hughes’s wife, Barbara Hughes, encouraged him and how they spent time reflecting what had occurred. Ultimately, they studied Scripture to see their standing in a biblical standpoint. Chapter 3 discussed how the Bible described …show more content…
From the first chapter to the last, Kent and Barbara Hughes were transparent. Furthermore, in order for them to author this book, they must be transparent since they are revealing their mistakes. It is difficult for anyone to reveal his or her mistakes, especially ministry failures, but Kent and Barbara Hughes recorded them and taught from those mistakes. For instance, in the first chapter, Hughes revealed how he was idealistic about his ministry career but when he started his church, in spite of the optimism of its beginnings, started to decline and he thought that his church was being unsuccessful. In addition, to include in chapter two how he doubted God’s goodness is extremely transparent on Hughes’s part, especially since he was a pastor at that point. Additionally, by revealing ways that changed his perspective on success in the following chapters is a bold and transparent move since he must admit that his perspective was wrong and, thus, he must change his perspective into the biblical perspectives of success that he included. Because of his transparency throughout the book, the book felt personal and