The Competition of Ministry

If you’re a pastor, you’ve been in the meetings.  You’re talking to another pastor and within 2 minutes the question comes up: “So, how many are you running?”  Or it may be the more subtle, “How are things going with your church?”  From childhood, it’s something that is ingrained in us.  We must compare ourselves to others to see if we measure up.

First of all, this obviously isn’t healthy or biblical.  But just as important, when we compare our ministry (it’s really God’s ministry) to others, we run the risk of ministry becoming nothing more then a competition.  Who’s church is bigger then whose?  Who has the cooler logo?  Who can pull of the Rob Bell classes the best? As dumb as this all sounds, we’re all guilty of it.  The question is, though, how do we kill it?  How do we kill the ingrained desire for competition in ministry?

It’s really a simple answer – not always easy to do, but simple.  The cure for competition is generosity. You want to kill that tendency to compare your church/ministry with the one down the street?  Find their greatest need and give towards it. Maybe that’s helping them paint their youth room.  Maybe it’s giving them money toward their building campaign.  Whatever it is, whether time or money, invest.

That might sound completely outrageous and counter-productive to you, but aren’t we all on the same team?  If you have something they don’t, it only makes sense you would help them out! If you were playing basketball and your teammate needed a pair of shoes and you had an extra pair – of course you would give them your extra pair.

So you want to eliminate the desire for competition?  Give…and keep on giving.