I began reading “The Imitation of Christ” but Thomas à Kempis. From the outset, he targets the main problem of Christianity—a lack of action.
“Now, there are many who hear the Gospel often but care little for it because they have not the spirit of Christ. Yet whoever wishes to understand fully the words of Christ must try to pattern his whole life on that of Christ.”
Clearly, we all know churchgoers guilty of this, and are probably prone to it ourselves. We attend church out of habit or guilt, refusing to see real change come from it.
This past Sunday, the worship service was structured to lead people to respond with their gifts—tithes and talents to serve the church. At the beginning we handed out service surveys for people to sign up for various ministry opportunities. I just happened to be standing at the front door where they were being handed out, when I man I only saw on Sunday mornings came in. The greeter handed him a bulletin, and said, “Make sure you get a service survey (from the other greeter).” Taking offense at such a suggestion, he replied, “Survey? What do I need that for?” The answer of, “To help God’s work for the kingdom in this church” would probably not have helped so I let it go.
But that attitude is so prevalent, and I wonder what can be done to change it? What can we do to encourage ourselves and our congregations to imitate Christ through action? All the education and the ministry opportunities are worthless if people don’t want to actually become like Christ. I suppose this sums up my frustration with myself and the church I serve.
Thomas à Kempis encourages us to, “turn your heart from the love of things visible and bring yourself to things invisible.” I suppose this is a good starting point. Get people focused on Christ, but even that seems so theoretical. So, I offer it up to you, my faithful readers. Before Thomas tells me how to do it, let me know what you think.
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3 comments:
Imitation of Christ is the only devotional book that I have ever ran across that I enjoyed and that challenged me.
You're in for a joy ride.
And sorry that I didn't answer your question. My solution is to plant a church and don't make minimal Christianity an option in it.
One way that helped my church begin to focus more ont the invisible was the encouragement to report "God-sightings". This could be anything from a pretty sunset, to cured sickness, to a lost person seeking spritual answers, to answered prayer. Asking people to report these things got them to open their eyes to them and begin grasp how involved God is all around them. We did that over a year ago and people are still reporting them.
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