Growing Up

I expect spiritual growth to happen. In me and in those who call themselves Christians. I see the role of the church to seed and fertilize Christian faith in others. This process is a corporate effort meaning we all share responsibility for nurturing faith in one another. The preacher's 20 minutes of "this is what I think it says and here's what I think it means" is only a small part of how God nurtures faith in the believer. Its take a whole community to raise a disciple of Jesus Christ. We claim as much in our baptism liturgy where the entire congregation vows, "With God's help we will proclaim the good news and live according to the example of Christ. We will surround this person with a community of love and forgiveness, that he/she may grow in his/her service to others. We will pray for them, that they may be a true disciple who walks in the way that leads to life." Its been my experience that when people aren't growing in their faith its for one of two reasons. Either the church as a whole is failing its role as a spiritual mentor to the individual or the individual is resisting the pull of the Holy Spirit in his or her life. The difficulty is measuring spiritual growth. There are no tests for it. Bible knowledge is no guarantee of spiritual maturity; consider the TV evangelist! Nor is frequent church attendance or Bible study any guarantee of growth in faith, though it would be difficult to grow without it. Ultimately spiritual growth is about nurturing a personal relationship with Jesus where the Christian not only recognizes Jesus' presence on the journey of faith but depends on it. And perhaps its the "depending" that is the most difficult. Until our dependency on Christ becomes as natural as taking a breath of air, we remain infants in the faith.  In the words of Hebrews 5:12-14,

For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic elements of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food; for everyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is unskilled in the word of righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, for those whose faculties have been trained by practice to distinguish good from evil.