Life in the Spirit

If we are to grow rich in the life of the Spirit, we must first open to what God is actually doing among us. In this driven age, faith does not require that we pack still more items into a meeting agenda or stuff more activities into our already overcrowded days. Faith demands that we recover the good sense to stop, bow before beckoning wonders, and let the divine mystery breathe forth again in our midst.
--Steve Doughty, To Walk in Integrity

Bold Love

If I asked you, “What is your plan for increasing your capacity to give and receive love,” how would you answer? If love is the greatest, if love is what God wants more than anything else, and if the world needs more love—what is your workout plan to make it happen? What is your strategic plan to increase love in your life and church?

If my capacity for giving and receiving love is to increase, I have to regularly drink from the fountain of the love of God. Remember the passage that says, “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19)? That teaches that I am never going to increase my love capacity until I increase my capacity to receive love from God.
--Bill Hybels, Bold Love

Practice Sharing Faith

Practice sharing faith with the other members of your small group. Invite each small group or committee in the church to forgo their usual business for one meeting and ask each person take three minutes to answer the following questions:

• When did you first know that God loved you?

• What event has recently made you aware of God’s love?

• What has been your most significant spiritual experience?

• Have you ever tried to share your faith with another person?

-- Bill Kemp, Ezekiel’s Bones: Rekindling Your Congregation’s Spiritual Passion

Try it. It's easier than you think. - Ed

What is it that today’s spiritual seekers seek?

• Spirituality—Let us offer them a congregation that prays with an expectation that God is listening.

• Guidance—Let us offer them the word of God in a way that lines it up with the questions they are asking.

• Loving Relationships—Let us offer them a community that cares for their eternal salvation as well as their current loneliness.

• Transcendence—Let us offer them a worship experience that points them towards the ultimate higher power.

--Bill Kemp, Ezekiel’s Bones: Rekindling Your Congregation’s Spiritual Passion

Is God is killing the church?

Back in the 1960s there emerged some theologians that claimed “God is dead.” Many people took that claim literally and angrily argued that God was alive and well. They missed the point. The real claim was that the “image” we had of God (from the '50s) was dead and that a larger image was needed.

More recently theologian Stanley Hauerwas claimed that “God was killing the church.” While I am not a follower of Hauerwas’ writings, I think that he is saying something similar to the theologians of the '60s. I believe his claim is that God is killing the “image” we have of church left over from the '50s which still guides many congregations. God is killig that "church." While that image may have been appropriate in it’s time, the world has continued to evolve and the church has not. We are reminded of the admonition not to put new wine in old wineskins.

While the Gospel remains the same, instruments for that proclamation must continue to grow and develop or they will die a very embarrassing death. - Ed

A Church Self Evaluation

The marks of low spiritual passion are:

• A reluctance to witness or share faith with others;

• A lack of genuine expectation of prayer to change things;

• A loss of interest in studying the Bible or expecting it to have truth that can be applied to daily life;

• An inability to show any joy when talking about faith;

• A lifeless feel to worship, even though the worship performance may be of excellent quality;

• A disconnect between the work of the church’s committees and the faith that the church professes, that is, what we believe doesn’t affect what we do;

• A loss of hope for the future coupled with a reluctance to try new things.

--Bill Kemp, Ezekiel’s Bones: Rekindling Your Congregation’s Spiritual Passion

Congregational Passion

No committee at your church may ever have voted to lower the congregation’s expectations of God. A motion may never have reached your council urging you to abandon God or to forsake the task of being faithful witnesses, aggressively engaging the surrounding culture. Yet here you may be, lacking spiritual passion for today’s religious race. Loss of zeal for the Lord is not the fruit of one bad choice or the fault of certain people in the congregation. It is, instead, woven into the very culture of the organization and evident in many things we do or fail to do each week.

Congregations with low spiritual passion do not need to change everything. They do, however, need to realize that it is normal to feel good about faith. Further, they need to practice new behaviors that will shift their attitudes about prayer, scripture, and the sharing of their faith. The proof that the depression has lifted comes when they become enthusiastic about sharing who they are as a congregation with those around them who don’t have a church home.
--Bill Kemp, Ezekiel’s Bones: Rekindling Your Congregation’s Spiritual Passion

This is true at a personal level too. - Ed