This winter, in the life of our church, we have chosen to journey through the book / letter we know as James, in the New Testament. We could have selected most anything in the entire Bible and it would be applicable because God did not waste any part of His revelation… all of it is good for our hearts and minds. However, we want to be prayerful, mindful and purposeful in what we use as a base for engaging God and His Word over the next several months.
With the haunting question in my mind of “what will the Christian church look like in thirty years” and “what will it take for the church to relevant both now and then,” I am convicted and convinced that the answer is profoundly different than all the bells and whistles, entertainment and show that we are often tempted to pursue in an effort to look ‘cool’, ‘hip’, ‘rad’, ‘with it’, ‘progressive’, etc. But we can’t settle for simply being traditional, old fashioned or comfortable either.
I think the answer is that the church (the body of Christ, both in it’s whole and in the individuals) will have to be mature, trustworthy and faithful in order to be relevant… useful, fruitful and stable… relevant both to God and to our community. Therefore, the exhortation that James puts in our laps to Walk the Walk, to be mature and to have a deeply ingrained spiritual integrity, allows us to endure the trials of life knowing that God is in the process of refining our hearts and minds to be more and more like Christ. That is simply what it means to be a disciple – to be on the journey of walking with Christ and having that define our lives.
Therefore, the next several months will be both exciting and challenging. If maturity is grown through various trials that fall on us (either by others dropping those trials on us or us digging our own sink holes we fall into) that in turn develops steadfastness, which then makes more complete all the time it will be both an exciting time as well as challenging…..and don’t be surprised if the challenging parts precede the exciting parts.
The challenges have already begun and some of you are already experiencing them. They are a part of life and they always will be. They come in all sorts of forms: sickness, tragedies, loss, pain, failures, disappointments, confusion, change, circumstances, attacks, rejection, etc… they are all part of the deal. The amazing thing is that God says He will use them all to transform us if we let Him. Along the way and at the end of it all, He wants to make us mature. If the church is going to be effective and relevant, we will have to mature.
So, here we go.
First challenge will be seeing if the weather allows us to meet this Sunday, but one way or the other, God will use the day to mature us. Get ready.
With love,
Kevin Hughes