Is our church pursing its intended purpose? I think the plurality of churches are in a state of perpetual infancy. We keep trying to define the word “Is.” The writing in the bible should be straight forward. Yet we quibble over every sentence in the bible. The bible is straight forward yet we stuck in the doctrinal phase of the church. Our teaching doesn’t challenge us as much as it should. Nothing controversial is proclaimed from the pulpit. We leave our church stuck in infancy. Our church should be in the light instead of being taught what it is.

Hebrews 5:12-14 (NASB):

“For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant. But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.”

Defining Truths

Many church services have a bad habit of continually defining inherent truths. Examples of those service are What is Love, What is Jesus, What is Salvation, and what is anything. These are truths that we here described all the time. It is ironic when agnostics and atheist can answer those questions just as good as Christians. Some teachers use scripture hopping and logical fallacies to define these terms in heretical ways. Why can’t we get past this? If you are a Christian, you should already know basic definitions. Our goal of a church is to prepare you for the world. The purpose is leading others to Christ. How can we do this if we haven’t got past defining truths in the gospel? Still more perpetual infancy.

Relevant Struggles

There are sins that are preached that are not collectively relevant. The United States Christian church does not deal with the sin of murder, theft, and other sins. Continuing the food metaphor, we are consuming food with empty calories. We are not receiving enough nourishment from our teachers. Then what struggles should we discuss?

-Porn
-Idolatry (Hero Worship specifically, even among Christian leaders)
-Wealth
-Marital Struggles
-Time

Play To Win

The finish line should always be in front of us. We should always have a call to action with every message. Knowledge without practice is pointless. We come home on any given Sunday with knowledge we don’t put into practice. Small groups and friends should always push you. We should be constantly spurring others on to good works. Instead our small groups in many avenues are focused on analyzing a few sentences of scripture for an hour. Scripture is not as hard as we make it. Making it harder keeps us in infancy. Our small groups need to be focused on the groups individual sins. Small groups need to be in constant accountability. This accountability should NOT be only designated to that one hour in the week. We cannot win if our sin is holding us back from God. The goal is to win as many heart and minds to Christ as possible.

This small group idea a will discuss in detail in a later post. Our world everyday is needing the Truth of Christ. When we are stuck in our own head that’s where it will remain. An inconvenient truth is that our infancy created the word agnostic. Infants have an idea of an ideal word. This ideal word does not exist, and agnostics get that. We want everyone to see Christ in heaven one day. Let’s act mature enough to accomplish that end.