Seventeen years ago I came to Richmond to pioneer a new church. The prophet Joel described young men seeing visions, and at twenty-six, my vision was to see this infant congregation of twelve become a large, mature church.
When I shared my vision at a denominational fellowship, I expected encouragement. But one of the older pastors looked me straight in the eye and said, “Young man, you work your side of the street, and I’ll work mine.” That was it; no one even bothered to respond to his statement.
Driving home I risked asking the two ministers in our car if they felt bothered by what our colleague had said. They replied, “You have to understand that’s just the way a lot of ministers feel.”
The often-unspoken and invisible competition between churches had become spoken and visible. At that point I had to decide how I would respond to competition among like-minded churches-and their pastors. Since I didn’t want to play that game, I began to work out the plan I have employed over the years.
Focus on the Word. In those early years, I decided to concentrate on clearly preaching the Word. Parishioners expect fresh bread when they come to church. Everybody will not prefer my brand of bread, but at least I can serve mine fresh.
This decision has helped me deal with people who visit our church-or even join-but later decide they prefer another pastor’s preaching. If they leave because of preaching, I am free to say: “You need to be in a church where you can develop your Christian life, and under a pastor’s ministry that is meeting your needs. Go with my blessings.”
If I am investing time in the Word each week, then I am doing my job. I have not failed them. I can accept the fact that people may prefer another pastor. I don’t have to feel personally inadequate.
Focus on people. Besides the Word, I want to communicate “people priorities.” Our church slogan is “Touching people.” We’ve never conducted an attendance contest because we feel contests send a message that a church is interested in its image ahead of people. We want to put people’s needs first, and let numbers take care of themselves.
I pastor a church somewhat like my wife plays table games. Win or lose, she desires only to be with people and interact with them amiably. I hope to carry some of that spirit into pastoring. I don’t want to talk about winning or losing, only about how well we interact.
Focus on others. A common flaw in human nature is to think we make ourselves look better by making someone else look worse. Churches, like people, sometimes fall into this trap.
We make it a point not to try to polish our image by degrading others. Jesus said in Luke 16:12: “If you have not been trustworthy with someone else’s property, who will give you property of your own?” We feel being trustworthy means we respectfully acknowledge the good in others.
When I ask people in our Sunday evening service to share the good things God is doing in their lives, I often remind them of the ABCs of sharing: it must be audible, brief, and Christ centered. Occasionally someone will still make an inappropriately negative reference to another denomination or church. When that person is finished, I often refer to some friend in that denomination or church and tell how we appreciate the various churches God uses to benefit the kingdom of God. It diffuses any sense of superiority or competition.
Focus on missions. In forming our church, we decided “mothering” new churches would be one of our goals. Although we fumbled our way into church planting, we have, to date, planted five other churches in our city. By making clear that we were founding churches as part of our reason for being, we helped dispel the climate of competition. We’ve grown to about a thousand, but another thousand attend the other five churches we started. It’s hard to look competitive when you’re giving yourself away.
Our vision is not limited to home missions. We’ve sent teams to third-world countries to construct church buildings, and have been joined by participants from a neighboring Presbyterian church.
The key to this kind of unity is building friendships and trust so our common goal of reaching the world for Christ does not get crushed in the machinery of denominational chauvinism.
Perhaps you’re wondering what happened to the pastor who wanted us to keep our distance. I count him as a good friend. As we focused on the right things, we discovered Richmond can always use more churches working both sides of the street.
-Bob Rhoden
West End Assembly of God
Richmond, Virginia
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