Last Sunday my wife and I were running way late for church due to a slip of the snooze button, and decided upon exiting our serene housing community that we should check out another local church in town, because by the time we would arrive at our church, the sermon would be well underway (yes we were that late).

So we drove down main street gingerly checking out all the church signs along the way, waiting for a Holy Spirit moment of enlightenment or a bolt from heaven showing us which one to attend. None came so we kept driving and finally we decided we should visit the next one we saw. We did…. and it was good!

However the thing that really disturbed me this week about our little “Sunday stroll”  was this: We counted a staggering 28 church signs…… within a 10 minute drive!! Some would say that fantastic!! Church saturation (and remember I live in Spring Hill TN….. the Christian south). About 15 of those were from one particular denomination, the rest were a spatter of non-denom, and others. Most of these churches were brand new church plants….. at least 75% of them. Small, trying to outdo each other, fill a niche, gather a crowd, impact their community in hopes of establishing a thriving church. Most of these are “church plants” from larger, mother-ship congregations in neighboring cities.

I did some math in my head. To plant a church in Suburbia requires a sizable financial commitment…. and most we passed had built out premises, probably with one or two staffers. So assuming that, I think its safe to say that each church would have an average operating budget of around $100,000 a year. 15 of those is 1.5 million dollars. WOW! So my question was…. Why didn’t all the “mother-ship churches” get together and pool their resources and build a dynamic faith community, together in unity in Spring Hill? Rather than each individually building small fledgeling churches, vying for the same people and competing against one another?? Wouldn’t that be more effective? A wiser use of funds…. the community will see churches working together in unity….. and remember scripture teaches that there are “blessings in unity” (Psalm 133:1-3). 

I’m sure there are many reasons why these said churches did not work together? My experience with the churches here in the south has shown me that most are so consumed with building their own ministry, that they don’t take the time to look up and see what’s going on around them. Most pastors I know embrace the idea of partnering with other area pastors in ministry….. but the practical outworking of that embrace falls with limp arms. They never attend pastoral get-togethers, partner in outreaches or collaborate in any other ministries. But they all say they WANT to.

So I think this is a challenge to ALL of us. Let us make working together a priority in our ministries….. Let us allow our communities to see Jesus in the way we live and interact with one another. Let us focus on building THE KINGDOM and not our own.