"...worrying about the competition quickly turns into an obsession. What are they doing right now? Where are they going next? How should we react? (That mindset) leads to overwhelming stress and anxiety. That state of mind is bad soil for growing anything...When you spend time worrying about someone else, you can't spend that time improving yourself. Focus on competitors too much and you wind up diluting your own vision...(and)...You wind up offering your competitor's products with a different coat of paint." (p.148)Their words have real application to the life of the church and its mission in the world. Of course, the church needs to know the world it is engaging with, no question about that, and to know it well and deeply. But that kind of knowing is to be grounded in a settled vision (gospel) that allows for the engagement to be redemptively creative.
Or so it seems to me.
