The Grass Is Always Greener in Someone Else’s Sanctuary
Every person wants what they do not have. Churches are no different.
I have watched this play out for years, often quietly, sometimes painfully.
• Church A is full of children and young adults, but looks around, sees a lack of diversity, and decides it has failed.
• Church B reflects a beautiful mix of cultures and stories but has no children running the halls, and concludes it is dying.
• Church C worships deeply and serves faithfully, yet lives budget-to-budget, convinced they are one crisis away from collapse.
Each one looks across the fence and thinks the grass is greener. Each one quietly carries the same ache: We must be doing something wrong.
A Spiritual Dis-ease
This is a spiritual dis-ease, not a strategic problem. It shows up when we measure faithfulness by comparison instead of calling. Churches begin to grade themselves against an imaginary ideal congregation—one that exists mostly in conference brochures. That imagined church has diversity, kids, money, mission, and perfect worship all at once.
No real congregation lives there. Real churches live in particular neighborhoods with particular histories, gifts, wounds, and limits. When we forget that, gratitude dries up. Joy shrinks. Faithfulness starts to feel like failure.
The Biblical Cure
Scripture keeps interrupting this pattern if we are willing to listen.
1. The Cure for Envy (1 Corinthians)
Paul reminds a church obsessed with comparison that the body has many parts. The eye cannot scold the hand for not being an eye. The problem in Corinth was not lack; it was envy. The cure was remembering that God arranges the body just as God chooses. That truth still stings, which is probably why it still heals.
2. The Cure for Ownership (The Laborers in the Vineyard)
Jesus tells a story of workers hired early who cry foul when latecomers receive the same wage. The landowner’s rebuke cuts deep: “Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me?” We struggle with this because we think the vineyard is ours. But Jesus reminds us that the vineyard belongs to God; faithfulness is measured by trust, not outcomes.
3. The Cure for Distraction (Jesus and Peter)
In John’s Gospel, Peter asks Jesus about another disciple’s fate. Jesus responds with a line every church needs stitched on a pillow: “What is that to you? Follow me.” It is not harsh; it is clarifying. Your call is not their call. Comparison only distracts from obedience.
From Comparison to Contentment
The cure for this dis-ease is not pretending limitations do not exist. It is learning to receive them without shame. Paul learned to be content in plenty and in want—a sentence we quote easily but practice rarely.
Contentment means starting from gratitude rather than anxiety. It means asking not, "Why are we not them?" but "What does faithfulness look like here, now, with these people, in this place?"
When a church stops chasing what it does not have and starts tending what it has been given, something shifts. Children become a gift rather than a statistic. Diversity becomes a calling rather than a scorecard. Scarcity becomes a teacher, reminding us that dependence on God is the normal posture of the church.
Scripture never promises churches everything they want. It promises God’s presence. That has always been enough, even when we forget it.
Peace,
Pastor Jon
The View from the Rafters
by
Gloria, our banner hovering Advent Angel
(Here is a typical week for Gloria, our Banner Angel of Advent,
in her own imaginary words, as overheard this week by Pastor Jon.)
Sunday sighs and slips away,
hymns hanging in the rafters like held breath.
Monday moves in mild and muted,
pews politely empty, aisle asleep.
High on the banner,
aloft and amused,
the angel balances eternity
with a stitched grin and invisible feet.
No clock can catch her.
No calendar can corner her.
She watches hope hover and humans hurry.
Tuesday tiptoes.
Wednesday wears purple with purpose,
solemn but secretly smiling.
The cross stands steady,
silence doing its quiet work.
Gloria listens for the promise beneath it all.
Thursday hums.
Friday flutters with half remembered joy.
The sanctuary stills itself,
like breath before a blessing.
The wreath whispers,
Near now. Near now.
The angel nods. She already knows.
Then it happens.
From a purple hymnal,
pressed polite
between prophecy and patience,
a Christmas carol sneaks out.
Just the high notes.
Silver and daring.
They climb the air,
tiptoe up the banner,
and tickle the angel’s foot.
She laughs. Quietly.
Holy laughter.
The kind that loosens light.
Saturday scurries and scrambles,
lists lying about necessity.
The pews practice patience.
The angel hums along,
a story stretching its voice,
ready to sing.
Sunday strides in singing.
Doors swing wide and willing.
Candles chase shadows into corners.
Gloria goes bold and bright.
The organ swells.
Voices rise, rough and radiant.
Below, the faithful gather.
Above, the angel beams.
Hope arrives again,
soft and sure,
walking in on ordinary feet.
After the service,
“Go!” Gloria whispers,
not as dismissal
but as commissioning.
“Walk the shoreline.
Let the edge teach you.
Remember that love keeps time
better than plans ever will.”
Congratulations Christine
We celebrate a joyful milestone in the Dobbin family and offer our warm congratulations to Linda Dobbin on her granddaughter’s achievement. Christine Dobbin will graduate this December from New Mexico State University, a moment that carries both pride and promise. We give thanks for Christine’s hard work and perseverance, and we pray God’s blessing over her as she steps into whatever comes next, trusting that the gifts God has been shaping in her will continue to grow and bear good fruit.
Thanks to the Money Men
Here's to Tad and Barm, our 2025 finance guys at St. John's. Thank you for your incredible work this year. We appreciate you.
Alice Rubio update
We are delighted to share an update on
Alice Rubio, pictured here with her granddaughter (and Austin’s daughter). Alice is doing well as she manages daily dialysis.
We are especially thankful for her faithful presence on our church Facebook page; her comments on nearly every post are a source of encouragement, planting gospel seeds each time she interacts. Alice shared, “My church has a right to know about me. Thank you for all your prayers.”
Alice, we love and appreciate you deeply, and we continue to lift you and your family up in prayer for God's abundant blessings.
Peace,
Pastor Jon Burnham
St. John's Presbyterian Church in Houston
5020 West Bellfort Avenue
Houston, TX 77035
713-723-6262
