Brenda and I have enjoyed a week at the beach and I have had time to reflect on things I don't typically. For some reason, I have been thinking about competition within Christianity, but that thought has been in my head for a few weeks.
As illogical as it is, there seems to be tremendous competition within the Body of Christ, the Church. To a casual observer this makes no sense, yet my observation is that this congregation is in an unspoken competition with that congregation, and this ministry is competing with that one. Even when ministry goals are almost identical, ministries compete rather than cooperate.
Here's an illustration. A young man in full-time ministry mentioned one day that he was very upset by a new minister who had moved to town and was working in the SAME fraternity as the young minister.
Outrageous!
What?
Whatever happened to those fields white unto harvest? Whatever happened to praying to the L^rd of the Harvest to raise up Laborers unto the harvest?
I blame our ministry competition in part on capitalism, and I say that as a fan of capitalism. Capitalism is built on competition and greed, and, given the natural fallen state of mankind, it works well, as a rational person might expect. It works so well economically that it bleeds over into Christianity.
Sad.
As illogical as it is, there seems to be tremendous competition within the Body of Christ, the Church. To a casual observer this makes no sense, yet my observation is that this congregation is in an unspoken competition with that congregation, and this ministry is competing with that one. Even when ministry goals are almost identical, ministries compete rather than cooperate.
Here's an illustration. A young man in full-time ministry mentioned one day that he was very upset by a new minister who had moved to town and was working in the SAME fraternity as the young minister.
Outrageous!
What?
Whatever happened to those fields white unto harvest? Whatever happened to praying to the L^rd of the Harvest to raise up Laborers unto the harvest?
I blame our ministry competition in part on capitalism, and I say that as a fan of capitalism. Capitalism is built on competition and greed, and, given the natural fallen state of mankind, it works well, as a rational person might expect. It works so well economically that it bleeds over into Christianity.
Sad.
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