Merge For Strength

Merge for Strength

Note: I've been doing some thinking and writing for the Iowa Ministry Network of the Assemblies of God. The topic for all of this is the word "Merge." Part of the reason for this is the upcoming Merge conference in September. But the word has sparked some memories of things I've learned about the idea of merging as opposed to standing alone. It is much better to merge. Here is the first of two short articles on the topic of "Merge." 

A number of years ago I was the Christian Education Pastor at a large church in northern Illinois. There were several pastors on the staff and each one had been encouraged to develop his own little "kingdom" so to speak under previous leadership. The current pastor wanted us to work together and build one great church instead of several good churches.

On my first Sunday at this church, I was in the Christian Education Office when one of the other pastors walked in, looked at the offerings that had come in from the various classes that met during that hour and announced to me that the offering from his class was not mine. It went into his budget. I said okay and let it go. After I had been there for a few months, it was time for new budgets.  I approached the pastor who expressed concern about his class offering and ask him if he wanted to merge budgets. I discovered that the CE budget was many times larger than his class budget and I thought it would give him access to more resources. I had no desire to control him or even to influence him. However,  he declined. He wanted his budget. He didn’t want to be a part of something bigger.  He missed a great lesson.

We are stronger together; we have more resources together; we will reach more people together.  No one ministry or person in our church is going to be enough. When we merge ourselves with one another, we will be able to do more.