How do you compare?

Read this post by Matt Heaton, president of Bluehost.com. It got me to thinking, Don't we compare our churches to the other churches in our area, demographic, style, and/or size?. Sure we do. We offer this in children's ministry. We have this for your students. Looking for something for all ages and stages of life? We've got what you're looking for.

I tend to agree with Mr. Heaton - we need to stop comparing ourselves to each other and begin asking a few hard questions of ourselves. Here are just a few I thought of:

1. Are we focusing all our efforts to reach our community?
2. What real and felt needs are going unmet in our community that we could meet?
   
3. How can we meet those needs in context of the church without compromising our message?
4. Are people falling through the cracks of the church - losing track of them, tragedy in the family and no one knows about it, leaving and no one noticing?
5. What are God's expectations of us?
6. Do we still care what other churches are doing?
7. Do we celebrate when another church has a victory?
8. Do we help other churches - each other? (This one can get sticky)
9. Are we trying to blow another church's trumpet or are we hammering out our own?
   

I'm sure there's more if I were to stop and think about it long enough. What about you and your church? Still comparing yourselves to another church? What questions do think churches need to ask of themselves?

Mike