What if we were Colaborers instead of Competitors?
What if church were diffrent? What if we were colaborers instead of competitors?
The reality is that Christians are not competitors; they are brothers and sisters in Christ. Jesus’ Kingdom is not divided. Although Jesus’ Kingdom is made up of people from Sierra and Senegal, Armenia and America, China and Chad, Portugal and Pakistan, Mexico and Malaysia (and many, many more), in Christ, we are all one.
We may not always feel like we’re together or unified; we may not always want to be together, but the reality is that we are. We are united and one in Christ Jesus (Eph. 4:4-7). Believers in Africa and America, Iraq and Iran, Canada and Cambodia, all have the one Spirit in them. Although we look, act, and think differently, we all have this in common: We are temples of the living God. More significant than our culture and country is that God lives in believers.
All Christians have one Spirit and one Lord (Ephesians 4:5). This verse reminds me of marching in the army. As we marched together in a company of 200 soldiers, there was no distinction. No matter who you were or where you were from, there was no distinction. When our commander said, “Left,” we put our left foot down. When he said, “Right,” we put our right foot down.
We were very different, but we all had the same commander, so there was no distinction. It is the same for Christians, we all have “one Lord.” And we all march the same, to Jesus’ command.
Yet, “By nature, a consumer mentality creates a competitive market environment where each producer of goods and services tries to outdo the others. So churches end up competing for ‘customers,’ and the mutual cooperation of the Body is destroyed. That means we lose our unity—which is, in fact, our greatest, driving evangelistic witness that Jesus is who He claimed to be.”[1]
As comrades, we should not be competitors. Is Jesus’ Kingdom divided against itself? As Jesus said, “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every city or house divided against itself will not stand” (Matt. 12:25). We must work against being competitors and consumers, we are, rather, Christ-followers, together marching to the beat of our Master’s drum.
Jesus prayed that we would be one as He and the Father are one (Jn. 17:21), and He said that people will know that we are His disciples by our love for one another (Jn. 13:35). So, what message does it send when we value “our” building and brand over Jesus’ Kingdom? What message does it send when we single-handedly contradict Jesus’ prayer?
What if we were sold out for the Kingdom instead of the brand? Of course, we never outright say we put the church brand over the Kingdom, but it is nevertheless communicated in our particular structure and forms. Let’s be team Jesus, not team name-brand church.
The New Testament letters repeatedly model Kingdom collaboration. We see this in Paul’s appeals for support. Paul had many colaborers in the gospel. The Philippians, for example, partnered with Paul in gospel ministry (Phil. 4:15-17). The Kingdom is about Jesus the King, and all His people made up of every tribe, language, nation, and tongue. The Kingdom thus demands collaboration, not competition. There is no name brand, only the name of Jesus for whom every knee will bow.
in X 