Months ago, I walked out of Sunday morning worship excited and grateful. We baptized four new believers, a family joined our congregation, and the sermon went well. But by mid-afternoon I was questioning whether my work at Germanton Baptist really mattered. Why? What changed so quickly in my heart and mind? My focus.
Leaving service I was grateful for my calling and all that God was doing in and through my congregation. But after lunch, I scrolled through Twitter for a few minutes and saw posts from other pastors celebrating thousands in attendance and dozens of new believers baptized. In seconds, I was comparing myself and my ministry with theirs. Rather than praising God for His work at Germanton and all over the country, I immediately began to struggle with feelings of insignificance.
Theodore Roosevelt famously said, “Comparison is the thief of joy.” He’s right, and comparison can also steal our assurance of significance. We know that ministry is significant, but comparison makes us second-guess what we know. As pastors, when we begin to compare ourselves and our ministries to other pastors, it won’t be long before we doubt the significance of our ministry.
Comparison and Feelings of Insignificance
To the Christians in Corinth, Paul wrote, “Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain” (1 Cor. 15:58, ESV). Paul exhorts the church to persevere in gospel ministry because all of their work is profitable and significant. Christians don’t need to constantly look around at others, comparing themselves to other Christians. We are different members of the same body (1 Cor. 12), and but whatever we are doing for the Lord, our labor is not in vain.
While Paul’s words apply to all Christians, pastors need to pay special attention. Everything we do in ministry for the glory of God is significant in God’s eyes. Whether you shepherd children, youth, or adults, lead a twenty-person church or a ten-thousand-person church, your work is significant, and nothing you do for the Lord is meaningless. Even if you never write a book, preach at a conference, speak on a podcast, or pastor a megachurch, your work for the Lord is still important.
Unfortunately, I believe most, if not all pastors struggle with comparison. Maybe we compare our degrees or the size of our platforms. Maybe we compare our accomplishments or our salaries. Maybe it’s the size of our church or the amount we raised for the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering. Regardless of what we are comparing, whenever we begin to play the comparison game, we always lose. Comparing ourselves and our ministries to others either stirs up pride—“My ministry is more significant because __________”—or it steals our joy, contentment, and assurance of significance because we feel as if we don’t measure up to other pastors. Nothing good ever comes from comparisons.
When we take our eyes off the ministry God has called us to and begin to do comparisons, we will eventually begin to second-guess the importance of God’s calling on our life. Rather than pursuing faithfulness in ministry as our goal, comparison makes another pastor or another ministry our goal. Suddenly, five sinners coming to be saved is not enough because the pastor down the road just baptized fifty. Growing from twenty to fifty in our small groups is no longer significant because a church across the country has six-thousand people in their small groups. Comparison distorts everything, including the way we see ourselves and our ministry and the way we believe God measures significance.
Lessons from the Ministry of Philip
For too long, some of us have been disappointed, frustrated, and joyless in ministry because we continue to compare ourselves to everyone else. We frequently battle feelings of insignificance because we don’t think we measure up to other pastors. The story of how God uses Philip in Acts 8 is exactly what some of us need to hear.
Because of persecution, Philip leaves Jerusalem and begins to proclaim Jesus throughout the city of Samaria. By God’s grace, the crowds listen to his preaching, and they are astonished at the signs that God works through him. Even the famous magician, Simon, hears the gospel and believes. Many men and women are baptized, and Luke tells us, “So there was much joy in that city” (Acts 8:8).
I don’t know about you, but that sounds like success to me. Faithfulness in preaching. Crowds listening. Crowds responding. Crowds finding joy in Christ. Crowds being baptized. This story checks all the boxes of successful ministry for us. But then, God does something that probably confuses us if we are paying close enough attention to the text. He pulls Philip out of Samaria.
Philip’s ministry in Samaria is significant, but God gives him another assignment. With great results in Samaria, we might assume God will send him to an even bigger city, but He doesn’t. In fact, as we read through the rest of Acts 8, we learn that the angel of the Lord instructs Philip to go into the desert and to hop onto a chariot with an Ethiopian. Philip learns that the Ethiopian is reading the scroll of Isaiah but is confused as to its meaning. Philip preaches the gospel, the man believes, and Philip baptizes him. Afterward, “the Spirit of the Lord carried Philip away” (Acts 8:39).
Was Philip’s ministry to the Ethiopian significant? Of course. But was it as significant as his ministry in Samaria? Absolutely! Unfortunately, the metrics some of us use to define success and significance would cause us to struggle if God did this in our lives. Philip goes from crowds to a single man, and yet, Philip is faithful to his calling, and his work is just as significant in the desert as it is in the city.
Philip’s ministry is a wonderful reminder of what God cares about. God cares about the single Ethiopian as much as He does the crowds, and He is honored as much with Philip’s ministry to one as He is to thousands. Where we struggle as pastors is in the comparisons we make. We see one person saved, but we also see that a pastor down the street had ten people saved, and we begin to compare our ministry to theirs, feeling insignificant because their ministry seems more successful in our eyes. We all know that the one lost sheep is worth pursuing (Luke 15:1–7), that pursuing the one lost sheep is significant and glorifies God. But as soon as we begin to compare our work to the work that God is doing through other pastors, it’s easy to begin questioning the significance of our ministry.
Stopping Comparisons with Contentment and Gratitude
God doesn’t need you to be like the pastor across the city, He wants you to be faithful where He has called you. This is not always an easy lesson for us to learn or accept, but it’s a lesson that’s too important to ignore. We are all prone to compare ourselves and our ministries to others, but when we do, we will soon lose our joy for ministry. Instead of playing the comparison game, what if we cultivated contentment and gratitude.
Contentment helps us persevere through the good and the bad, all the while trusting that God’s plan for us is good and right. Gratitude reminds us that pastoring God’s people is a gift. It doesn’t ignore difficult times, but it does help us maintain the right perspective. In ministry, to keep from being overwhelmed by feelings of insignificance, we must stop comparing ourselves and our ministries to others. Your joy depends on it.
