All Cheeses Mature --- so why don't ALL Christians?
When I lived in Africa my Christian life was very active. I belonged to a growing church with an average age of around twenty three, and it was a lively and happy Christian community. Christianity was most definitely a way of daily living, yet upon returning in the mid-1980's to the UK I fund a very different situation here. I belonged to several different churches in this country prior to my joining my current denomination, of which I have been a minister for the past nine years, and yet none of them have the same active Christian life that experienced in Africa.
Here, unfortunately, my experience is that very few people who attend church extend their involvement beyond the Sunday service. If they do, then it is more likely to be a leisure group than a spiritual growth group. Prayer Meetings and Bible Study Groups are very poorly attended, and few people --- if any --- take their Bible to church in order to follow the readings. I wonder why this is? The problem is that if people do not get spiritually involved, and try to become more immersed both in Scripture and Prayer, then they will never mature spiritually.
I am an evangelical New Testament preacher with a great concern for the lost. I am on fire with the Holy Spirit, with ambition only to serve my God in and through His only on, my Lord Jesus. My prayer, which ask you to join with me in, is that each and every person who claims the name of Jesus, including you and me, will ask God to search them, refresh them, and renew their zeal. To be part of a Living Church is to be part of a growing church, and that is something that includes all of us. We are commissioned to share the Gospel message!
When I lived in Africa my Christian life was very active. I belonged to a growing church with an average age of around twenty three, and it was a lively and happy Christian community. Christianity was most definitely a way of daily living, yet upon returning in the mid-1980's to the UK I fund a very different situation here. I belonged to several different churches in this country prior to my joining my current denomination, of which I have been a minister for the past nine years, and yet none of them have the same active Christian life that experienced in Africa.
Here, unfortunately, my experience is that very few people who attend church extend their involvement beyond the Sunday service. If they do, then it is more likely to be a leisure group than a spiritual growth group. Prayer Meetings and Bible Study Groups are very poorly attended, and few people --- if any --- take their Bible to church in order to follow the readings. I wonder why this is? The problem is that if people do not get spiritually involved, and try to become more immersed both in Scripture and Prayer, then they will never mature spiritually.
I am an evangelical New Testament preacher with a great concern for the lost. I am on fire with the Holy Spirit, with ambition only to serve my God in and through His only on, my Lord Jesus. My prayer, which ask you to join with me in, is that each and every person who claims the name of Jesus, including you and me, will ask God to search them, refresh them, and renew their zeal. To be part of a Living Church is to be part of a growing church, and that is something that includes all of us. We are commissioned to share the Gospel message!
It saddens me to think of the number of people who merely 'attend church' because it is the thing to do. It frightens me to think of the number of sad and frightened individuals who, on Judgement Day, will be banished to Hell, having believed that sitting through a few church services was enough to 'earn' them salvation. But most of all, I cry for those people who never have, and never will, experience the feeling of being passionate for Jesus Christ.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't trade my love affair with Christ for anything. He makes me alive!