The Hidden Sin That Cripples God’s Work
There is a danger in ministry that rarely appears in mission statements, strategic plans, or committee agendas. It seldom announces itself openly. Instead, it disguises itself as loyalty, stewardship, organizational excellence, or protecting one’s assignment. Yet beneath the surface it is something far more destructive. Scripture gives it another name: the spirit that asks, “Who will be greatest?” In modern ministry, we often call it territorialism.
This spirit is especially dangerous in medical missionary work because medical ministry is, by its very nature, collaborative. Physicians need pastors. Pastors need health professionals. Churches need administrators. Administrators need volunteers. Communities need all of them working together. The work flourishes only when everyone understands that the kingdom belongs to Christ—not to a pastor, a physician, a church, a conference, or an institution. Unfortunately, that is not always how ministry unfolds.
When God’s Work Becomes Our Turf
Years ago, I worked closely with a pastor who made his expectations unmistakably clear. If I was going to labor with him, I needed to labor with him exclusively. The resources I brought to ministry, he believed, belonged to his district. His expectation was not merely partnership; it was exclusivity.
The conflict surfaced when my family prayerfully decided that another congregation better met our families spiritual needs during Sabbath School and worship. My commitment to ministry with him remained unchanged. I assured him repeatedly that our friendship was strong and that I intended to continue working shoulder to shoulder in evangelism and medical ministry. My family’s church attendance was never meant as a rejection of him or his church. Yet offense was taken.
Years later, after he had moved into a broader supervisory role, he surprised me. He apologized for the position he had taken years before. By that time I had long since forgotten the incident. Forgiveness had already been given, though never formally discussed. His apology revealed something beautiful: God had continued working on both of us. Experience and conversion had softened a heart that years earlier had been guarded by ownership.
That experience taught me an important lesson. Territorialism is usually not born out of malice. More often, it grows quietly from sincere people who gradually begin confusing their assignment with God’s kingdom. The disciples fell into exactly the same trap. Shortly after returning from their missionary journey, they were overflowing with success. Christ had sent them throughout Israel with authority to preach, heal, and cast out demons. They had witnessed miracles with their own eyes. They had experienced the power of the Holy Spirit in remarkable ways. Then they began arguing over who would be greatest.
It is astonishing when we stop to think about it. Men who had just healed the sick and cast out demons were now competing with one another for prominence. Even after Christ repeatedly warned them against this spirit, they continued the discussion privately, assuming He did not know what occupied their thoughts. The argument did not end there.
The Sin That Drives the Holy Spirit Away
When Jesus ascended the Mount of Transfiguration with Peter, James, and John, the remaining nine disciples stayed below. It is difficult not to wonder whether their discussion continued while they waited. Their hearts had become occupied with rank rather than surrender. Then a desperate father arrived carrying his demon-possessed son. This was not simply another healing opportunity. The father had determined in his heart if the disciples of Christ did not show power in their lives here, that he would not believe in the saviour. Many of the scribes and religious leaders had already been working tirelessly to discredit Christ. If the disciples failed, it would appear that Christ’s entire ministry rested upon empty claims.
The disciples attempted the healing. Nothing happened. Again, they tried. Still nothing. The failure was public and embarrassing. The scribes rejoiced. The critics found confirmation for their unbelief. The disciples stood humiliated. The father stood disappointed, and if Christ had not intervened directly, he would have lost his faith in the saviour. Why? It was not because heaven lacked power. It was because heaven lacked vessels prepared to receive it.
Jesus later explained, “This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting.” His statement addressed far more than demonic possession. Prayer and fasting represented the death of self. The disciples had become preoccupied with themselves rather than with Christ. The Holy Spirit had quietly withdrawn because selfish ambition had quietly entered. The power had not disappeared, but their humility had.
At What Point Does Building God’s Kingdom Become Building Our Own
We do this today, and medical missionary work today faces exactly the same temptation. Every church wants to become “the church that made the difference.” Every clinic wants to become “the clinic everyone talks about.” Every ministry hopes to become “the ministry God is using.” None of those desires are inherently wrong. We should long to make an eternal difference. But there is a subtle line between wanting God glorified and wanting to be personally lifted up and known as the place where God worked. The difference is often invisible to everyone except heaven.
I experienced this again with another pastor. Early in our conversations, he expressed skepticism that working together would accomplish much. What surprised me was not merely his doubt about the effectiveness of colaboring in medical missionary work. As we continued talking, it slowly became apparent that not belonging to his congregation seemed to be the factor that was influencing his assessment. The issue was not whether Christ’s method of teaching, preaching, and healing worked. The issue quietly became whether someone outside his immediate circle could contribute meaningfully to the growth of his church.
That conversation left me asking a difficult question. When we evaluate ministry, are we asking whether it builds Christ’s kingdom, or whether it builds ours? The difference matters. God is building a kingdom, not establishing turf.
The Ministry We Destroy While Trying to Claim It
I have also watched territorialism unfold on a much larger scale. For seven years, a regional medical ministry slowly developed. Hundreds of volunteer hours were invested. Relationships were built. Systems were created. Teams were recruited and trained at great effort and personal expense of the workers. The vision was never for one congregation. From its inception, it was intended to serve an entire region by strengthening churches wherever doors opened. Yet repeatedly the same accusation surfaced. “This ministry belongs only to that church.”
No amount of explanation seemed to change the narrative. The misunderstanding resurfaced again and again, and not just from churches but from regional leaders. Eventually, the pressure became so great that the team was divided into smaller groups to meet the competing demands of multiple congregations. Ironically, this weakened the very teamwork that had made the ministry effective and even left the home church without adequate support that year. Still the accusations continued.
What made the situation especially painful was not merely opposition from individual churches. The same spirit appeared within administrative structures. Instead of providing clarity, some voices fueled suspicion. Voices criticizing the ministry became louder than voices explaining it. Eventually, that spirit reached back to the congregation that had faithfully supported the volunteers for years. Now discontent began to spread within the supporting members who began asking, “What has this ministry done for us lately?” Discontent spread, and as it did, support diminished. In the end, funding disappeared, leadership dissolved, and volunteers who had given a year of their lives to ministry left prematurely. Within a remarkably short period, seven years of ministry development collapsed. Looking back, the greatest obstacle was never a shortage of physicians, volunteers, finances, or opportunity. It was territorialism.
The Spirit That Divides God’s Workers
One observation has remained with me ever since. Jesus taught that the wheat and the tares would grow together until the harvest. This reveals a sobering reality: until the end of time, those who are faithfully building the kingdom of God will often labor alongside those whose words and actions weaken, hinder, or even drain the life from the very work they claim to support.
Our natural response may be to remove those who appear to be obstacles—to separate the faithful from those whose motives seem harmful. Yet Christ gives us a clear warning. We are not called to uproot what we perceive to be barriers to God’s work. The wheat and the tares must be allowed to grow together until the harvest, when God alone will reveal what is truly in each heart. If even the angels, who see far more clearly than we do, were seen as incapable of the judgment necessary to remove the tares (because only God can judge the heart perfectly), then I must be careful not to assume I can eliminate what I percieve as selfish motives, weakness, or imperfection in others within ministry. My responsibility is not to purify the work by removing others; my responsibility is to ensure that I am not a tare myself. That requires coming continually to Christ through prayer, fasting, humility, and a willingness to labor in unity with my brothers and sisters in the faith.
Until Christ returns, every ministry will include sincere workers alongside those who are still struggling with ambition, insecurity, fear, or pride. Recognizing this changes our expectations. Instead of being shocked when territorialism appears, we should understand that it is a battle we will encounter—and prepare ourselves to respond with the patience, humility, and grace of Christ. At that point our ministry and response must become one of drawing together in an attempt to gain unity and reconciliation.
Cash, Credit, or Control Versus The Remedy
A second observation is equally sobering. There will always be those who desire the benefits surrounding ministry more than ministry itself. Sometimes that benefit is financial. Sometimes it is recognition. Sometimes it is influence. Sometimes it is control. And if none of those can be obtained, there are occasions when individuals, by way of gossip or personal influence, would rather see a ministry fail than allow it to succeed. That sounds harsh, but history—and Scripture—both confirm it. At its heart, it is still the disciples’ old argument: Who will be greatest? Every form of territorialism traces back to that single question.
So what is the answer? It is not found in better organizational charts, clearer policies, stronger personalities, or force. The answer is conversion. Jesus gave the remedy long before we recognized the disease when He said, “This kind comes out only by prayer and fasting.” Prayer and fasting accomplish what committees cannot. They expose hidden ambition, humble the heart, and remind us that the kingdom is not ours to manage but Christ’s to build. They move us away from protecting personal territory and toward protecting the unity of God’s work. Ironically, the greatest territory every one of us actually has to conquer is not a church district, a clinic, a conference, or an institution. It is the territory of our own selfish hearts. That is the only territory God asks us to conquer and through pray and fasting He provides the power to do it.
God Is Still In Charge Of His Work
Even then, we must remember one final lesson: we may honestly have no territorial spirit ourselves, yet others may sincerely believe we do. Misunderstandings, taking offence, and jealousy work like that. Good motives do not prevent misunderstanding, and we cannot control how others interpret our actions; we can only control whether we respond with humility, patience, and prayer rather than defensiveness. When we recognize territorialism—in ourselves, among coworkers, within churches, or inside administrative structures—our first instinct should not be confrontation but consecration. We should become unusually quick to call ourselves, our coworkers, our pastoral friends, our medical teams, and our administrators to seasons of prayer and fasting, because if we fail to address the spiritual disease beneath the organizational conflict, history will repeat itself. Another ministry will fracture, another generation of workers will become discouraged, and another decade of kingdom work may be lost.
Medical missionary work was never intended to produce competing kingdoms or create turf for us to claim for ourselves. It was intended to reveal one King. May God teach us to recognize the subtle spirit that asks, “Who will be greatest?” before it takes root in our own hearts. May He give us the humility to rejoice whenever Christ’s kingdom advances, even when the credit belongs to someone else. And may we never forget that the greatest victories in ministry are rarely won in committee rooms or board meetings, but on our knees, where ambition dies, humility lives, and the Holy Spirit is welcomed to remain.
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