Pettiness

You know what can hinder the effectiveness of any organization (especially the church) is pettiness.

Michael Yaconelli has written, "The problem with the church today is not corruption. It is not institutionalism. No, the problem is far more serious than something like the minister running away with the organist. The problem is pettiness. Blatant pettiness."

I just looked up the word "petty" in the dictionary and it means, "trivial, trifling, narrow-minded, mean."

Kind of sounds like some Christians that I know.

He goes on to say:

"Petty people are ugly people. They are people who have lost their vision. They are people who have turned their eyes away from what matters and focused, instead, on what doesn't matter. The result is that the rest of us are immobilized by their obsession with the insignificant.

It is time to rid the church of pettiness. It is time the church refused to be victimized by petty people. It is time the church stopped ignoring pettiness. It is time the church quit pretending that pettiness doesn't matter. ...

Pettiness has become a serious disease in the Church of Jesus Christ--a disease which continues to result in terminal cases of discord, disruption, and destruction. Petty people are dangerous people because they appear to be only a nuisance instead of what they really are--a health hazard."

His words have caused me to pause and look in my heart and ask the question, "am I petty?" Do things have to always go "my way"?

I especially want to avoid (as I grow older) the trap I see so many who are older than me fall into. Becoming sour. Critical. Mean. Petty.

May God help us all to remain flexible, pure, walking in the grace and love of Jesus Christ.