{"id":1616,"date":"2015-12-01T03:00:32","date_gmt":"2015-12-01T09:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/focuspressblog.com\/?p=1616"},"modified":"2015-12-01T03:00:32","modified_gmt":"2015-12-01T09:00:32","slug":"church-we-have-to-stop-competing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tampaseo.expert\/focus\/2015\/12\/01\/church-we-have-to-stop-competing\/","title":{"rendered":"Church, we have to stop competing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">My generation never received participation trophies. If you wanted a trophy to put on your dresser then the team had to perform well. And yes, we kept score at our minor league games! There were winners and losers\u2014and each week young people would strive to be in the winner category. I grew up being taught that competition was a good thing. And I stand by that\u2014as it causes individuals to strive to do better.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">But there is an area that has grown competitive and I believe it is doing great harm. I don\u2019t believe God ever intended preachers or the church to be competitive. We\u2019ve become obsessed with how many \u201cfollowers\u201d a preacher has on social media, or how many hits they get on their blog page. Many congregations are building new and fancier auditoriums, adding new-fangled programs, and making worship more entertaining simply to increase numbers and be the \u201cbigger\u201d congregation in town. But friend, this isn\u2019t how it should be! Paul wrote, \u201cFor where there are envy, strife, and divisions among you, are you not carnal and behaving like mere men? For when one says, \u201cI am of Paul,\u201d and another, \u201cI am of Apollos,\u201d are you not carnal?&#8221; (1 Corinthians 3:3-4)<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Some of this competition has originated from things like lectureships, where preachers vie for keynote speaking slots. What used to be a practice of finding a man who was well qualified to speak in a particular area has grown into a \u201cyou scratch my back and I\u2019ll scratch yours\u201d practice of preachers selecting their buddies, who in turn put them on their lectureship.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">The competition was bred in things like commentary books, articles in brotherhood journals, and website articles. It became almost a \u201csport\u201d for many get their name in various brotherhood publications. This increased visibility conveyed the notion that these individuals were experts or highly knowledgeable\u2014and thus these men were sought out by others to write or speak for them. The competitive nature began feeding on itself.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Additionally, a great deal of the competition has developed from social media and having an major online prescience. How many Facebook friends does this speaker have? How many likes can we get with this article? How many Twitter followers do they have? <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">All of this competition has taken the focus away from God and focused it firmly on men. In writing to the church at Corinth, Paul said, \u201cNow I say this, that each of you says, \u2018I am of Paul,\u2019 or \u2018I am of Apollos,\u2019 or \u2018I am of Cephas,\u2019 or \u2018I am of Christ.\u2019 Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?\u201d All of this competition has caused division and strife within the body of Christ.\u00a0<\/span>Ask yourself a question: how many today would spend hours writing something if their name was not attached to it?<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Friends, it\u2019s time we take the focus off fallible men and focus on the only One that has contributed to our salvation\u2014Jesus Christ.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><strong>By Brad Harrub, Ph.D.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My generation never received participation trophies. If you wanted a trophy to put on your dresser then the team had to perform well. And yes, we kept score at our minor league games! There were winners and losers\u2014and each week young people would strive to be in the winner category. I grew up being taught [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1617,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[20,32],"tags":[145,316,731,229],"class_list":["post-1616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all","category-church","tag-brad","tag-christianity","tag-competition","tag-ministry","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Church, we have to stop competing - Focus Press<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/tampaseo.expert\/focus\/2015\/12\/01\/church-we-have-to-stop-competing\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Church, we have to stop competing - Focus Press\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"My generation never received participation trophies. 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