“Our church has the best youth ministry in town.”
“Everybody knows we offer the best children’s ministry in the city.”
“Our vision is to be the best church in the area.”
Over the last ten years I’ve heard statements like these with increasing frequency. Is this a good thing? Does our desire to serve God with excellence naturally lead us to want to be the best in town? Is the “best” classification the most honorable way to measure our success and effectiveness?
Most people probably view the quest for best as a helpful ambition. Driving to be better and better, at any endeavor, raises the level of quality for all. Right? Competition makes everyone better. Right? In many ways, that’s true.
But what’s necessary to be “best”? In any competitive field, in order to have winners you must have losers. In order to be best, you must conquer the others.
And that’s where the quest for best begins to turn ugly, especially in the church.
In the church, this spirit of bestfulness and competitiveness leads to pridefulness. This has not gone unnoticed by the public. A non-churched mom I interviewed said, “Churches today just want to be bigger and better than the next one. That’s not what church is supposed to be about.”
Yet, the quest for best seems intoxicating. Church gurus advise congregations to find something they can be best at in the community. “What makes you stand out among the others?” they ask. The trouble is, we’re not called to stand out. We’re called to stand behind.
In Mark 9 we see the disciples arguing about who stood out as the best disciple. Jesus confronted their quest for best. He said, “Anyone who wants to be first must be the very last, and the servant of all.” In other words, we’re not called to stand out. We’re called to stand behind those we’re called to serve.
If a church is not called to be the best in town, what is it called to be? It’s called to serve. Humbly. It’s called to touch lives with God’s love, one by one. It’s called to be faithful where God has placed it.
No disciple is called to conquer the other disciples in a quest to be best.
Jesus illustrated and summed up his lesson on humble servanthood by picking up one small child and urging his disciples to do the same, to faithfully welcome the small.
It’s not the kind of pursuit that will jetison a church to anybody’s Best 100 list.
I long for the day when each ‘building’ sees itself only as part of the whole, working together to give glory to Christ Jesus, not to a man or a team of people. One body, many members working together, directed by the Head and leaving His imprint behind wherever we are.
Amen!
It’s a real balancing act. Competition among friends is excellent and inspires toward mutual greatness. Competition driven by pride and fear (flip sides of the same coin) can’t help but put the focus on our own desire to distinguish ourselves rather than Jesus.
“This has not gone unnoticed by the public. A non-churched mom I interviewed said, “Churches today just want to be bigger and better than the next one. That’s not what church is supposed to be about.””
And for those of us who have worked in leadership and behind the scenes, we know all too well some of the tactics that are used that are more akin to salesmanship and slick marketing than about promoting the Kingdom of God.
I’ll play the other side… Competition is great for motivation. And if ones motivation is to be the best to bring glory to God and reach a city and it motivates the body to get it in gear… Is it ok to say amen?
We, individually and collectively, are called to be light in the darkness, salt to the Earth. That is being different, standing out (or shinning out if you prefer) from the rest – not churches but the World! I want to be, and strive to be, the best of who I am and my standard of excellence is Jesus, not someone else! Let’s stop comparing each other. It means exalting ourselves/our Church, and also in a sense we are judging others.
Jesus said, “let your light so shine BEFORE MEN, that they may see YOUR GOOD WORKS – and GLORIFY YOUR FATHER – not you (Matthew 5:16). Unfortunately, our mega-church, multi-campus, multi-services, mentality has us clamoring for being bigger and better in the sight of men. Instead of praying and hearing from God to find His strategy for reaching the lost in our community, we attend ‘church growth’ conferences and seminars to learn how to outdo the fellowship down the street. We are contemporary versions of Simon the sorcerer who tried to buy the Holy Ghost with money (Acts 8:18-19).
Having worked in the Sales and Marketing field, as a National Sales and Marketing Manager, I am versed in and comfortable with the idea of being the best and pushing oneself to achieve bigger and better things.
In fact it is a necessary requirement for a job like that. If I am not motivated, how can I motivate the sales staff. I took one company from near bankruptcy to solvency and success.
At the same time, I noticed that secular marketing strategies were entering the church as in they can do it so can we and if we do it we will be seen as modern and hip. As a result we became results orientated not God orientated. The methodology became the new paradigm and the rule book for success.
The end result was it turned the church into a business and the so called senior pastor became the CEO of a religious organisation, running it with a board of Directors (other staff) and setting out vision, mission and goals to be achieved.
Like most things, they work best when we keep it simple. The New Testament church had it down to a fine art.
Preach Jesus and worship him, care for others and die daily. Nothing could be simpler. How many churches have that as their goal? How many churches preach everything but Jesus? How many churches put others first? How many churches die daily to their own hopes and dreams and take on board the will and purpose of God?
Today the non-secular church is a rarity. I am not proud of my church. I am proud of the fact that as a dead man, I am available to God to do whatever he wants with me, whenever he wants, and however he wants.
That is very liberating and keeps things simple because I do not need a schedule, programme or goals to achieve what HE wants me to do as he has everything organised from A – Z.
“I am not proud of my church.”
Ha! You know, Roger, that very attitude is what got me met with scorn at my last nominating committee meeting for elder. I was asked by someone who really wanted to head up the pastoral search team (I was leading it at the time) about what I tell people about the church, I expressed how I talk to people about the Lord and about the ministries that we had to offer in terms of outreach, but I wasn’t all “rah rah” the church. Muttering under his breath, but loud enough for all to hear, this person said, “Then why do we have you running the search?” Soon after that, I ended up turning the search over to him. Granted, he is a businessman who has achieved some modicum of success and has successfully led some endeavors for the church, albeit not very spiritually. In fact, people tolerate him but secretly talk about not trusting him. But if results is what you want, then he’s your man.
I am so proud that I feel that I can say our Pastor feels this way.
Dale
I cannot believe what I am reading, someone else was thinking the same thing I was about the church being competitive and commercialized. I’m glad to read I am not the only one to think this. Thanks for posting brother.
The longer I am in ministry the more firm my conviction that Jesus was not just making an impossible request of God when he prayed that we would all be one. I think that means all one in mission and in respectful regard and love. This leaves no room for striving to be the best, have the most, or becoming most powerful. We have the same God and the same mission. There are plenty of people who need Jesus ministry (which is ours as his body on earth) out there and in our institutional churches to keep us all busy through long, long lifetimes. God has blessed us to be blessings to others. Why are we distracted and what are we waiting for??
One thing I’ve loved about Loveland is that churches do seem to have more of a partnership than other places I’ve lived. Many places I’ve visited pray for other churches in town by name from the pulpit. There’s a network of churches that takes turns offering housing to the homeless. It feels more about the body of Christ in Loveland than one church pitted against another.