How Churches Should Respond to the "Competition"

How Churches Should Respond to the “Competition”

Posted on January 20, 2010
Viewed 915 times
(5) comments

What do you think? For more, read Dave's comments here.

Todd

Comments

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Leonard on Wed, January 20, 2010

WOW! Thanks Todd for posting this.
frasi on Wed, January 20, 2010

this is great ! thanks for sharing !
Matt on Thu, January 21, 2010

Oh, that is just lovely. Fantastic example of a church being The Church. Thanks for sharing.
Cliff Holmes on Thu, January 21, 2010

This is really great! I hope more churches can adopt this type of heart. Thanks for sharing!
Leonard Irvin on Sat, February 06, 2010

I love this type of cooperative acceptance and support. If we’re preaching a Gospel that points people to Jesus, we’re all on the same team - just playing different positions on the field.

I�m the pastor of Mt. Signal Baptist Church in Chelsea, AL; we have less than 50 members, but we support “competition” instead of discouraging it. Shelby Co., AL, where our church is located, is the fastest growing county in Alabama but is also the most unchurched county in the state. About three years ago, we became aware of a man that was trying to start a new Baptist church in Chelsea (yes I know that Baptist are just one of the many branches of the wonderful people of God). To shorten the story, as small as we are, we became the sponsor of this new church start, promoted and supported a three night “give-it-all-away” revival, absorbed a thousand dollars worth of expenses (speaker honorariums and promotional posters), collected $1700.00 through the offerings plates, added $1300.00 to it from our bank account, and gave this group $3000.00 to cover start-up costs and immediate expenses.

This church (Mountainview) originally met in the rented band room of a local middle school and is now renting a former church building that became available when that church (Church of God) built a larger sanctuary about two miles away. Mountainview has already put money down on several acres of prime land across from a new subdivision that is ideal for a church in an area where there currently isn�t one nearby. While they were still in the school building, we had several joint services with them when they needed a baptistery; it�s hard to find one of those in a school building. It�s a well documented fact that new churches usually grow faster than older ones, and Mountainview is now beginning to exceed us. We take the parent-child approach to this. Parents SHOULD be excited to see their offspring do better than they have and not be envious or jealous of them!

We recently had the privilege of helping another new church start in our area (a house church for the moment named Chelsea Village Baptist Church) that has only met since the first of 2010. During their organizational meetings last fall and early outreach efforts, several people made a profession of faith and asked to be baptized. Houses DO have bathtubs and showers, but they don�t have baptisteries either, so we offered them the use of our facility and prepared a fellowship meal for them; we plan to do this any time it is needed until the time comes when such assistance isn�t necessary.

Back in 2004 our church had an amazing encounter with a mega-church in another county that taught us some things, and we�ve seen another amazing work of God in our midst since then within the last year. When we see � up close and personal � what God can do when we cooperate with Him, it becomes easy, not hard, to rejoice at the growth of the Kingdom instead of complaining about the �competition.�

The bottom line of all this is that NONE of those people are attending or are likely to attend our church, but ALL of them are in someone�s church worshiping and serving the Lord. What did the apostle Paul say in 1 Cor. 3:6? �I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth.�