In my estimation, I think “our” problem (I say ‘our’ for the sake of generality) is not that we don’t want the lost to be saved, but rather we don’t want to lose folks from our churches to neighboring congregations. Everyone that has lost a saint to a neighbor church has at least some slight tinge of apprehension when another church moves into “their” city. A larger issue is that of a lack of ministerial ethics, in these cases. Oh, there are more reasons, too… fear, inadequacy, slothfulness, history, and others.
In general, though, I think territorialism is more about flocks of saints than it is about geographical areas of lost souls.
If we are going to reap the harvest, we MUST move beyond this.

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Tags for this post: church growth, ethics, harvest, ministerial ethics, territory