the dark, sticky place deep down in the corner of my soul

Allow me to give you a bit of insight into one of the barren places in the heart of someone who knows better... should know better... but struggles nonetheless.

I'm a church planter. A pastor. I love my community. I love my people. I love other communities... but not like I should, I think. Because if I did, I'm not sure I would feel like I do sometimes.

How's that?

Competitive.

"It's kingdom, not competition."

How many times have I repeated that to myself? How many more times am I going to have to repeat that to myself before I get it?

Some transparency...

I often don't have a problem with this. I'm usually able to keep a level head. In fact, just yesterday, I saw someone I hadn't seen at our gathering in a couple of weeks. As we chatted a bit, she told me she had visited another community the week previous and really liked it. In fact, she thought from now on, she might divide her time and her Sundays between us and them. When I heard that, I immediately told her "No! Don't do that! If evergreen isn't home for you, go be a part of that community. But pick one community and commit. Dig in, know them and be known by them. But don't split yourself..."

Like I said, I often don't have a problem with this.
But not always.

This feeling, this resurgance of the darker part of me was brought on by a comment someone made to me today that made me feel as though perhaps they were going to jump over to another community in town. The hard part is that
a. I have been excited about this person being a part of evergreen and
b. they were introduced to this other community through us sending a group of people there to feed the homeless teens they work with.

I try to hold our people with an open hand, knowing that ultimately they are God's, not "ours" and that some people will journey with us forever, some just for a short time. We're not the community for everyone. I know that.

But... this brings up the competitive feeling in me. The dark, rank part of my nature that sees church as a zero-sum game and people as units to be counted, added, listed... possessed.

Yeah. Competition.

Which is complete crap. I have less and less of a problem with the people who come to us from a certain very large, very well-known emergent-esque church here in town (I hear "Yeah... we used to go over there, but it was getting too big" at least once a week). So why worry when some people trickle down to a slightly smaller community we are serving?

Why would this affect me like this?

I don't know.

It just does.

Damn that dark, sticky place deep down in the corner of my soul...

"Create in me a clean heart, O God.
Renew a right spirit within me."

Please.

Comments

[Pete Wmson]

so true...thanks

[Intheway]

I'm not a pastor, but I'm not surprised. It sounds like part of the pastor's heart. You care for those that God has put in your care... doesn't mean sometimes your not guilty of being overprotective, but that really sounds like what it is to me. Only you and God know your heart, but I wonder if you're not being just a weee bit hard on yourself?

[brian]

Honesty is good. I'm a pastor with the same struggles. I get jealous, possessive and downright ticked sometimes...but I try and come back and remind myslef of the same things you just said, they are God's. Easier said, though.

[Matt Payne]

I hear you! I'm launching a new church and I struggle with this on occasion too. It's especially difficult when you are a small group and when you put a lot of time into discipling someone and then they feel "called" to go elsewhere. I keep reminding myself that God is in control and He will build the church.

[Dave Lynch]

Hey bob

Listen to 'calloused heart' at Liquid church

http://www.liquid-acc.com/mt/archives
/spiritual_insight/index.php

Thanks for your honesty, you know we are all the same. Some of the best comedy in the world is observation stuff, people laugh because they recognise something of themselves in what the comedian is saying, that is what your post is, a reflection of all our hearts.

Dave

[Peter Shields]

I don't see competiveness as the problem I once did. I don't believe there are any good or bad traits ... just need to harness them in the right way. Fantastic book called "Now Discover Your Strengths" convinced me of that.

If you can, read the book and read how to get the most out of your competitve trait. Thank God for competiveness.

[Innes]

Hi Bob

Thanks for this. Few church leaders would be so honest about this struggle.

You won’t be surprised to hear that you are not alone with this struggle. I think it “comes with the job”.

I have been thinking though about the pros and cons of encouraging belonging to multiple expressions/communities/networks (whatever you want to call them).

The traditional view would be to belong to more than one “church” is bordering on spiritual promiscuity. Pick one and commit to it! However, I am processing whether it can be healthy for some of us to belong to multiple groups. Would this free us to express the fullness of who we are in Christ without trying to change one place to represent that fullness? Therefore, we can express ourselves in a big community environment best in church X, but to express our missional side we connect with church Y and small (intimate) community is with the group of Christian guys (in the gender neutral sense of the word) who meet at the local pub for bible read through and life chats.

I guess the challenges would include “who is your pastor?”

Each one of these expressions would have its own leadership structure, some may be flat, some hierarchical. You are accountable to these different groups in the context of your relationship to the community.

Does that mean that no one is responsible for you or that they all are? You would get no accountability or multiple layers of overlapping accountability?

It would challenge our ideas of membership and money for the individual expressions but maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe we have been operating so long in a one to one relationship between believers and communities that we can’t see any alternatives?

Anyway, something I am working through with my crew.

Cheers,

Innes

[JSC]

I appreciate your honesty to that dark --nasty place all church leaders and pastors struggle with at times. Thanks for being real with us.

[mark silvers]

Bob,
Your honesty is so refreshing. I know exactly the green heart you are talking about. It is hard to see people move not just from one community of faith to another but even from one small group to another small group within a group.

It makes me wonder what I am doing wrong or was it something I said or did not say.

As a pastor in transition from a more consumer driven church to back into church planting I appreciate my friendship in you, even though we have never met.

Please pray for me.