Had an email waiting for me this morning from http://www.outreachmagazine.com/ which led me to a post which led me to another post which led me to the subject matter totally consuming my husband these days. An excerpt from the article, "5 Ways to Overcome Church Boredom" reads:
Pull away. Break the cycle of redundancy. Disturb the routine of your life and ministry and refresh yourself (Mark 6:31-32).
Look within. Evaluate yourself for predictability, staleness, loss of passion, excitement and joy. Examine whether your faith, experiences and stories are more focused on God’s work in the past or present (2 Cor. 13:5).
Look around. Open your eyes and seek to be more observant of God’s creation. The wonder of His work is all around you (Ps. 8:1, 3-4).
Fill up. Pour yourself into God’s Word or, better stated, pour God’s Word into yourself. As you know, the Bible isn’t just about who God was and what He once did; it’s about who He is and what He’s doing in the present. We need to experience Him and hear His voice today. When we do, we start to sing new songs (Col. 3:16).
Change it up. Simply, do something new. Change up your devotions (where you have them and how you do them). Listen to and learn new forms of worship music. Get to know and expose yourself to some new authors, teachers and believers or nonbelievers. Serve in a different way (Ps. 33:3).
Whoa! Good stuff. The best part of this solution is that it focuses on the parishioner, not the church. If you're bored with church, does it really mean that you're bored with worshipping God? Has the Holy Spirit vacated you or the building?
There is not a pastor on earth that is without some bit of information that God wants you to hear. However, you must listen in order to hear. If you are consumed by the presentation, the person, or the surrounding would be listeners, you will not catch that bit of information. It's funny how even bad preachers can stimulate seeking knowledge. If you hear something that doesn't sit right in your brain, seek out Truth.
Last week was Camp Meeting which is something that I could write volumes about, but that is for another day. Our evangelist for the week is a Seminary professor so you can imagine how much information he gave us that God thought we should hear. One of the beautiful aspects of this Camp Meeting (it was the 129th year) was that we were fed meat instead of milk this year. Most of that congregation should be on meat by now.
If you are going to your church still looking for a warm bottle of milk, you should probably consider that if you've been a Christian for very long, it's time to be weaned!
Hebrews 5 11 We have much to say about this, but it is hard to make it clear to you because you no longer try to understand. 12 In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! 13 Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. 14 But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.
No comments:
Post a Comment