Fruitfulness and failure

Jimmy Davis is moving on from an effort at church planting in the Knoxville area. The effort hasn't allowed him to stay in vocational ministry, but Jimmy still sees the effort as fruitful:

If our goal was to make something happen, we failed. If our goal was that we and others would be more conformed to the image of Christ, then call it success. Please do not hear me saying that these two goals cannot co-exist. It is certainly the goal of most church planters to do both: establish a growing, self-sustaining organization that exists to help its people mature in Christ and make disciples. We would have loved to accomplished both goals at Riverside, but one had to take priority over the other.

As Jimmy points out, fruit takes time to grow.