Following up from my last post, On the market I want to reflect for a moment on what I believe God's motivations are for moving me on from one church to the next (wherever that is).

We were reading through James chapter one in my bible study last night and a passage that really hooked into people was:

 4Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. 5If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him.

Mature and complete, not lacking anything, that really resonates with me. In my mind it links to a Scriptural principal that I live my life by. It is the lesson from the parable of the talents: "Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!"

Our maturity and completeness is borne out of our faithfulness to God in the small things that he has given us. When we show faithful with that He gives us more. This is no "Prayer of Jabez" increase my borders nonsense but a call to Christ likeness.

I believe that over the past 10 years of my Christian life God has been calling me to ministry. This wasn't something I was able or prepared to do in the beginning. It started with a call and in faith I answered and that began a journey.

In just answering the call of God he began to add more to me. I found myself leading a bible study, leading the congregation in worship and other things that I will label small, not to belittle them but to put them in context.

Being faithful with those things came more responsibility, soon God opened the door to bible college so I could further learn and grow. Along with it came the role of Student Pastor at my church. The role stretched me, made me think differently and brought me to a higher place in my relationship with God.

From there God has placed more responsibility on me with a pastoral position and the position of Elder in his church.

At each turn God has taught me something, entrusted me with something and allowed my care of that something to stretch, grow and test me. After every instance of faithfully dealing with that something, he has given me more.

Leaving my current church is a real stretching time for my faith. I have been ministering in the same place for the past 8 years, the church that I was brought to faith in and with people I have known for up to a decade. But in many ways these circumstances make it difficult for me to reach a new level with my relationship with God.

It's not that I am complacent, or totally unchallenged, but God wants to finish a work in me, to make me more mature and complete and I can not do that where I am.

I want to challenge you, it doesn't matter if you are a pastor or not. Where are you in your relationship with God? Is your faith complete? What is the last thing he entrusted to you? Where you faithful or has your faith stagnated?

My observation is that when we fail at the task at hand most people just plain give up. They say "I've failed God" and cease to look for the opportunities he is bringing their way.

Is that you? You can continue to grow even after failure if you repent. When you admit your failure to God, I can almost guarantee that he will find another way for you to grow and mature in him.

Fully Committed

Garibaldi had an incredibly committed volunteer army. He would appeal for recruits in these terms: "I offer neither pay, nor quarters, nor provisions; I offer hunger, thirst, forced marches, battles and death. Let him who loves his country with his heart and not with his lips only, follow me!" Jesus invites you to discipleship. But He lets you know up front that it is a commitment that will cost you something. It's not going to be easy. To paraphrase Garibaldi, "Let him who loves the Lord with his heart and not with his lips only, be Jesus' disciple!"

We Need More Church Fans
Source: National & International Religion Report, 5/2/94. "To Verify," Leadership.

The Bible tells us that where your treasure is, there your heart is also. That means we could accurately say that many folks are more committed to professional sports than they are to the church. In 1993 the total attendance at worship services in the U.S. was 5.6 billion, while the total attendance at U.S. professional baseball, football, and basketball games combined was only 103 million (less than two percent of the worship attendance, or for every 100 people who attended church less than two were at a sporting event.)

Now the rest of the story: Contributions to churches for the year totaled $56.7 billion (that's just over $10 per person), but the amount spent on professional baseball, football, and basketball totaled $4 billion (that's nearly $40 per person or almost four times what people gave to their local church per person). Is it any wonder that we look at some fans and say that they really are fanatics? They are more sold out for their team than many church attenders. How could we change the nation if the church quadrupled its commitment of resources, discipleship, and evangelism?

Accepting the Marginal
Source: Dallas Willard

The leading assumption in the American church today—and the Australian one I'll add—is that you can be a Christian but not a disciple. That has placed a tremendous burden on a mass of Christians who are not disciples. We tell them to come to church, participate in our programs and give money. But we see a church that knows nothing of commitment. We have settled for the marginal, and so we carry this awful burden of trying to motivate people to do what they don't want to do. We can't think about church the way we have been.

The True Nature of Spiritual Life
Source: James Emery White, You Can Experience the Spiritual Life (Nashville: Word Pub., 1999), 194.

Christian spirituality isn't about sitting at the feet of some guru for a seminar at a retreat. It isn't about having a nice comfortable, safe dose of spirituality in your life to make you feel good whenever your thoughts run deep about ultimate questions and eternal destinies. Jesus called people to follow Him—and there was only one place He was going: a cross. The true nature of spiritual living involves sacrifice, duty, and commitment.

Commitment Challenges

A common source of challenge in life is commitment as illustrated in the following story: The church choir director was frustrated with the sporadic attendance of all the choir members for rehearsals for the Christmas Choral Concert. At the final rehearsal he announced, "I want to personally thank the pianist for being the only person in this entire church choir to attend each and every rehearsal during the past two months." At this, the pianist rose, bowed, and said, "It was the least that I could do, considering I won't be able to be at the Christmas Choral Concert tonight!"