In Tom Halliday’s post on ‘Pastors.com’ he asks the question “What is your Spiritual Growth Pathway?”
He starts by saying that; “Every week we have an audience who gathers to worship, listens to preaching, and considers being on mission in their community and around the world.
However, it’s not an audience you need. To impact your community and fulfill your church’s mission in the world, you need an army. You need to mobilize your congregation to do what God is calling you to do. You don’t mobilize an army on accident. You do it on purpose. You do it by meeting the specific needs of the groups of people your church should regularly engage – and moving them toward a life that’s on mission.”
This is something that I for one have been trying to put my finger on as we start to look at how we can do better in the area of discipleship as a church going forward. For many years in our ministry we have ‘toyed‘ with a variety of strategies and different models of discipleship and have had a variety of studies, classes, courses and programmes for people to voluntarily come to, but often with little uptake from congregational members that are “time poor” or at least use that as a common excuse.
Within The Salvation Army we have a plethora of studies, programmes, courses etc. available to us, and also many studies to help people in their spiritual growth – yet many of our members still struggle in this area (just like many other denominations).
Therefore I think that one of the key turning points will come when we admit that we are the ones that are the issue! – That we haven’t put an emphasis on Spiritual Growth and Discipleship! – That we haven’t allowed ourselves the time required to be ‘in the word!’ And that we need to become intentional not only as the providers but also as the end users. We need to reclaim the importance of our own Spiritual Growth and that of discipleship in the church!
Tom goes on to say; “If you’re going to build an army, you can’t leave any group out. You need a system that reinforces the progression of people from one group to the next.”
At Saddleback they have developed the CLASS system, which is designed to move people from the community to those that are commissioned. Along the way people in these groups make the commitments necessary to move from one stage to the next.
So, over the coming months we will be exploring how we can develop a system of discipleship that assists people in their Spiritual Growth and reinforces the commitments necessary to move people through the different stages. For the thing is even when we think we have arrived we still have a huge journey ahead of us and for those that would identify with the commissioned we still have much to learn.
As Tom says “we live in an unfocused world” and as people mature in the faith many of the commitments we have made lose their importance as we have this mind-set that we have arrived – but these commitments matter!
“And when we regularly talk about them within our church, people will realise the value we’ve placed behind the commitments at each stage.”
The thing is; “people are more likely to make these commitments with the support and encouragement of others who are making the same commitments.” An obstacle that keeps people from making spiritual commitments is when they feel like they are doing it alone. “When others are making the same commitments, they share a sense of community.”
So will you reclaim the importance of your own Spiritual Growth and that of discipleship in the church? Be intentional!
The life and times of Perry... 