This might sound like a funny thing to say, but sometimes the biggest competition a ministry has is within itself.

When Herb walked into the room, I knew we had a challenging conversation ahead of us. Herb was in charge of the Senior Adult ministry in a church we were working with. He had a long standing relationship with the senior pastor and had been leading this ministry for more than a decade. Herb was used to getting his way. He saw the Senior Adult ministry as one of the most important ministries in the church. And because of his friendship with the senior pastor, he had learned how to bypass the communication process, skip the proper channels, and get announcements from the stage even when other ministries were told no.

That day was the day I, as the consultant, needed to tell Herb he could not do that anymore.

When Ministries Compete Instead of Collaborate

What led up to that meeting is incredibly common. You see it in churches of all sizes. As churches grow, ministries grow too, and what used to work does not always work anymore. Systems get outdated. Communication patterns break down. And the leaders who have been around the longest are often the ones who struggle with the change.

The Senior Adult ministry was not growing the way Herb wanted it to. So in his mind, the solution was obvious. It needed more stage time. More visibility in the bulletin. More presence on the website. More social media. More everything.
The only problem was that everyone else was thinking the same thing.
Children’s ministry wanted more visibility. Youth ministry wanted more visibility. Men’s and women’s ministry wanted more visibility. Every ministry believed that their ministry was the most important and suffering the most. And in the middle of all that noise, no one was asking one very important question:

What does the congregation actually need to hear from us right now?
Instead of aligning around mission, ministries had started competing for attention. And Herb unintentionally made it worse by breaking process and going straight to the senior pastor. The senior pastor would reluctantly agree just to keep the peace, which created even more frustration among the rest of the team.
People were hurt. People felt ignored. People felt like the system was unfair. Herb felt that way too. And all of this internal friction was slowly hurting the church.

When Communication Becomes Clutter Instead of Clarity

The announcements had become the least meaningful part of the service. Everybody had learned to tune them out. The bulletin was stuffed with so much content that it stopped being helpful and started feeling like advertising space. People in the congregation had no idea what was important anymore because everything was presented as urgent and essential.

When everything is important, nothing feels important.

This had to change. And it meant sitting down not just with Herb, but with every ministry leader and reframing how communication works inside the church.

The Breakthrough Moment

The turning point was when leaders began to understand something simple but powerful:

Communication exists to move the mission forward, not to elevate individual departments.

Once leaders stopped advocating for their ministry and started advocating for the church’s mission, everything began to calm down.

Fewer announcements. More clarity. Clearer priorities. Better teamwork. Less maneuvering. And something surprising happened.

Each ministry actually became more visible and saw more participation, even with fewer announcements. Why? Because when communication got clearer and more unified, people could finally understand what the church was doing and why it mattered.

And the best part? None of this happened because the church added big marketing campaigns or fancy promotional strategies. It happened simply because the team got aligned and stopped competing with each other.
Funny how things get better when we start talking and start working together.

So What’s the Lesson Here?
Here are three quick thoughts to help your church avoid the same trap:

1. Talk about the mission more than you talk about ministries
When ministries focus on their own numbers, needs, and visibility, alignment quickly falls apart. When everyone focuses on the mission, unity grows. Make sure every ministry leader understands how their work contributes to the overall purpose of the church.

2. Establish a clear communication process and stick to it
The quickest way to create tension is to allow people to bypass the system. Create a simple, clear, and fair communication process for announcements, newsletters, social media, the website, and internal requests. If you want trust, consistency matters.

3. Evaluate communication based on clarity, not quantity
More announcements do not create more engagement. Clearer communication does. Just because someone speaks louder does not mean the message is more effective. Decide what really needs to be communicated and when. Then build a rhythm around that clarity.