thrilled. But when numerical growth is idolized, so that churches and their clergy get rated failure for not achieving enough of it, my heart sinks. You will understand, then, why I got excited a few weeks ago when there came my way a new book titled Liberating Ministry from the Success Syndrome. The authors, Kent and Barbara Hughes, pastor and pastor’s wife in Wheaton, Illinois, tell how the quest for numerical success nearly broke them, and how they learned that faithfulness, godliness, and loving