The grass isn't even greener in your head

In ministry you often hear, at the neighbouring church, the grass is NOT greener.

You might imagine it that way, but it isn't the case.

The people aren't nicer.
The politics aren't less.
The opportunities don't arise easier.
The kids aren't more receptive.
The traditions aren't more flexible.
The facilities aren't everything they appear on the outside.

As anyone who has worked for a church, any church, can tell you, every church has its own, unique, crop of problems.

And... deep down... we know that.

But we covert anyway.

But we also play "the grass is greener" game in our minds.
With ourselves and our past.

We wonder if we should have taken the alternate option and walked through that sliding door of ministry past.

We wonder if life would be better if we'd stuck it out just a little longer.
Or had that difficult conversation just a little sooner.
Or focused our efforts in an alternate place.
Of made that change at a different time or in a slightly different way.
Or cared for those people better.
Or caved into their demands just once more.
Or... whatever...

But, just like the church down the road, it's just as harmful to what you have now to be perpetually looking in the rear-view mirror as it is to be gazing over the back fence.