Number Eight, Comparison - Christianity Today

The Eighth Deadly Sin Comparison

A commentator covering a golf tournament on ESPN interviewed one of the players, a champion of the sport, a PGA icon. His second question was about Tiger Woods. The rest of the interview wasn’t about this legend’s performance, his career, or his future. It was all about Tiger.I know how it feels to play the game in the shadow of a Tiger. Three years ago I gathered 20 people in my living room and shared a dream to launch a church. What made our start unique was our choice of location: less than ten miles from the nation’s second most famous megachurch, Saddleback Church. (There are also some 10 other megachurches within 40 miles.)Most of the people who visit our church stop off at Saddleback first—the same way tourists see Disneyland before (or should I say, if) they visit Movieland Wax Museum.Some visitors are seeking a Saddleback with available parking. “It’s a good church; it’s just a little big,” they say oxymoronically.A little big? A 3,000-seat sanctuary, a 60,000-square-foot office complex, a new $4.5 million bridge from the highway, and its own street named “Saddleback Way.” There’s nothing “little” about it.This megachurch with 15,000 attending weekly is led by sockless, flowered-shirted, purpose-driven Rick Warren. With an $18 million annual ministry and a book on church health selling over 1 million copies in 14 languages, Rick Warren owns church planting. Like Tiger Woods owns golf.I’m not certain how golfers feel about being on the course with Tiger, but it’s probably the way I feel ministering down the street from Rick. I can’t keep from comparing my ministry with his.And comparison, for me, is just a chip shot away from envy or despair over my perceived inadequacy. I know what it’s like to admire the man at the top of the game, yet wish he were playing somewhere else.

My new measuring stick

Not long ago, the pastors in my area sponsored an event, including big hitters from Southern California megachurches such as Chuck Smith of Calvary Chapel, Kenton Beshore of Mariners, and Rick Warren. My name followed Warren’s on the program. It felt really good to be listed next to him, if only alphabetically.Let’s be honest. Many of us leaders can identify with those players who want to outdrive Tiger Woods on national TV—especially veterans who have been around longer than the kid who is setting the course on fire.Like an athlete drawn to downplay the bigger star’s success, we pastors can be quick to measure each other. In a conversation between two pastors newly acquainted, one soon asks the other, “So, how big is your congregation?” It’s the sizing up that we feel compelled and embarrassed to ask. My enormous ego often leaves me feeling left out.My first responsibility in combating comparison is to confront my own ego. The more time I spend in God’s Word and before the Cross, the more I discover an arrogant person knows not Christ (Rom. 1:28-30). I will not stand before the Lamb who was slain as He is seated on the throne and say, “Have I told you how many attended my church?”Nor will the pastor of the church larger than mine.

Contentment in my calling

When I first mentioned my intention to plant a church a few miles from Saddleback, one pastor of a rapidly growing congregation in northern California challenged me. “Why there? Why not go somewhere that doesn’t already have a contemporary, seeker-minded ministry?”After all, that is what this man did. He thought I should analyze the demographics and do the same: find a place absent of the megachurch and become one.I’ve learned, however, there are better questions for me: What is God calling me to? Where is the most effective place for me to live out His will? What is the Lord already doing that He is leading me to join?Some of the best advice I received before we launched our church came from Denny Bellesi, a pastor who planted a church about 15 years ago that now draws over 3,000 weekly. Bellesi, a mentor and former boss of mine, said, “Doug, be true to God, and be true to who He called you to be.”His admonition freed me from the need to buy flowered shirts or solicit bids for a Jumbotron screen. I’m called to be myself. So is Rick Warren.My wife and I attended an event where Warren was also a guest. I spent a little time talking shop with him. (I know, I know, I’m name dropping. It keeps my ego-meter clicking.) While in conversation with Rick, I introduced another man to him. The man said, “Rick, you’ve got yourself quite a church there.”Without hesitation, Rick responded, “Nobody is more surprised than I am.”Warren’s answer was either a practiced reply to a question he has heard a thousand times, or it was a sincere response from a godly man who is humbly doing what God called him to do. I perceived the latter.

A tale of two Saddlebacks

Kevin pastors another church with “Saddleback” in its name. He often teases Warren that his church had the name first. His congregation is more charismatic than the megachurch. The walls of this small church are covered with pictures of students working in Mexico.Kevin took some time off from his sermon preparation to meet with me. A few minutes into our conversation, the big Saddleback came up. (I’m used to that by now. It happens all the time.) Thankfully, our conversation was neither bitter nor discouraging. Kevin spoke of a community that desperately needs the love of God. He is grateful that both Saddlebacks, the large one and the small one, are reaching the community.Not all conversations about our comparison-churches are so positive, especially those I have with myself. “The big churches are inferior in many ways,” I sometimes conclude, “despite their numerical success. People can’t know each other in a church that big. They can’t expect personal pastoral care.”(A megachurch pastor tells a story of visiting a member of his church in the hospital. Upon seeing the pastor, the sick person responded, “Wow, I must really be sick for you to be here.”)But whatever excuses we come up with, the truth is that our comparison-churches are reaching people and ministering to them in ways my church can’t.And visa versa.Comparison is no excuse for envying another pastor’s ministry. Nor is it adequate reason to stop hoping, dreaming, and giving my best for my own.Kevin sees his congregation as a wonderful complement to Rick’s. The name is similar, the ministry is different, the purpose is the same. Through differing size churches, the gospel has a profound impact on our community.A man in our church participated with me in an intense discipleship program I call “Joshua’s Men.” Before coming to our church, Jim was involved in a megachurch less than 20 miles to the north. He came to our church with hopes to meet the pastor, but little more. He didn’t expect to be invited into a year-long discipling relationship with me. Our church was able to complement and deepen a ministry to this man started in a megachurch.In our community, we are seeing the same partnership develop between Young Life, the veteran youth ministry, and small new churches like ours.Some ministries are notoriously competitive. I have determined that mine will not be one of them. The bride of Christ needs humble leaders who will complement one another, whether we stand in the shadow of a great church or if we cast one.

Champion the church

My final strategy for avoiding debilitating comparisons is to champion the church, rather than to be the church’s champion.I strive for “champion” as the verb, not the noun. The church belongs to Jesus. He is the head. He is the noun of the church; I am the verb.I have good days when I feel as though my head is bumping against heaven. I have bad days when I want to quit because many people in the congregation are, as one therapist shared with me, “looking for ways for you as a pastor to disappoint them.”Either way, I remind myself of God’s ownership of the church, bought with a price.The days when I’m bumping heaven are the times to revisit the organizational chart to see that the CEO is Christ, and I am just the pastor.When attendance is up, giving is good, the sermon connects, the music rocks, the Sunday school teachers show up, and my kids don’t do anything I would have to preach about the next Sunday—these are the days I need to know the church belongs to Christ. I just work for Him. Just like Rick Warren and Bill Hybels and Robert Schuller do.Christ is the Head, and His pastors serve Him.In this competitive world, some rise to Tigerian status, others caddy. Whichever is my case, I am not threatened by the success of others. I can stay in the game, regardless the length of the shadow cast by the players around me.

Doug Webster is pastor of Mountain View Church in Mission Viejo, California.

Nomination

Isolation that Begets Inferiority

I’m a pastor in a small, rural community. For many like me, isolation is deadly, not only to the church, but also to me as a pastor and to my family. Without support from denominations or other pastors, isolation leads to spiritual retardation (our most likely intellectual exercise happens at the donut shop) and to feelings of inferiority (if bigger is better, what’s wrong with me?).

And what about our view of God? Does he become god? Small like the churches we pastor?

Vince May, Molalla, Oregon