Copying, Coveting or Calling

copying. I’ve watched an incredible amount of time and energy wasted in failed efforts to copy from someone else. Copying occurs when you decide that someone else’s success is the answer to your problem. It’s when you ask for directions and follow them in the same way that a cook carefully follows the steps in a recipe. This kind of copying rarely works because every church or ministry is unique. At best, the good ideas from one must be filtered and adapted before they’ll be effective in another. When you peel back the motivations for copying, you’ll often find a deeper problem: coveting. It’s not a word that we use very often, except when reciting the Ten Commandments. But I don’t know a better word to use to describe a ministry decision that is driven by a desire to be as successful as a peer. Coveting is not God-honoring or God-directed but instead is driven by ego or insecurity. The real problem with both of these is that they get in the way of calling. As ministry leaders, we should seek to discover God’s unique call for our lives and the churches or faith-based organizations that we lead. Copying may look like a shortcut toward greater effectiveness, but it is often short-circuits our listening to God. Coveting imposes someone else’s standard for success in place of God’s standard. Discovering “call” is hard work, but ultimately it will produce the only fruit that matters. So as you attend conference, read books, and meet with colleagues, be an eager learner. But be even more eager to listen to God’s call so that you avoid the traps of copying and coveting. It’s easy to receive my blogs by email. Just sign-up on Feedburner by clicking here.]]>