I’ve had this topic on my mind for the past several days and after hearing someone share how this applied to them, I decided to go ahead and write about it.
As a follower of Christ, we are suppose to be making disciples, but I think we often miss the meaning of this. I know I have missed opportunities in the past to pour into someone because I was too distracted by other things. I can’t help but wonder what the effects are and what we will have to answer for.
A Leaderless Generation
Most of us have probably heard of the term “Church Leadership“. This is suppose to reference those who are leaders within the church, those disciplining others. The problem is many of those leaders are distracted by so many other things that we’re not seeing our disciples or brushing them off for other interests.
A Christian who’s passionate about God is like a sponge, ready to soak up and learn more about our incredible Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. But many of us have forgotten the need to pour into their lives and lead them in the way they should go. We’ve often abandoned them to figure it out on their own by recommending books or other resources because we’ve got another conversation we’d rather be having with someone else or something else we’d rather be doing. After all, how we played those 18 holes of golf IS important to share or the Season Finale of our favorite show can’t be missed and if they’d just go read their Bibles, they’d find the answers to the redundant questions they’re asking.
Maybe we feel threatened by the fact the “on-fire” Christian makes us look bad and their relationship with God is much closer than our own, so in a ditch effort to not be discovered, it’s easier to blow them off than engage them. After all, aren’t leaders suppose to be ahead or more on-point than students? How embarrassing would it be if we as leaders were to confess that we aren’t at a point in our walk with Christ to disciple and/or help them? It’s much easier to fake it and pretend we’ve got it together and avoid the uncomfortable conversations and switch it to something secular, right?
Passion-less Followers
After being blown off and turned away so many times, we as Christians eventually reach a point of discouragement and loose our passion in following Jesus. It’s hard for us to struggle to find our purpose, answers, and understanding on our own when the leaders we’ve reached out to almost act as if it’s a bother or inconvenience for them to help us. In turn, we begin to loose our dedication to God and drift away since it’s too hard. After several seasons of this in our lives, many of us settle for something far less than what God truly desired for our lives because discouragement has warped the fullness and limitless potential God has for us.
A few of us will find the strength to keep on trying despite past let-downs, but many will give up and become passion-less followers of Christ.
The generation that is going to make up the church majority in a few short years will struggle to even see a reason or purpose for it outside of it being a social group to go and pretend we aren’t screwed up and share what we’ve done for the past week since we last met. Following Jesus and living lives dedicated to Him won’t be the primary focus because that will become a difficult and impossible goal since no one took the time to show us what it even looks like and that it IS achievable.
The Heart Of The Matter
It always comes back to a heart issue. We start loving activities, things, and our secular lives more than we love people. If we love God, then we will love what God loves. We share His priorities by making them our priorities. When we live our lives focused on Him and completely surrendered to His will, we are able to see what He sees and share our passion with those who are seeking Him.
“These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.” Matthew 15:8 NLT
One day we all will stand before God and answer for what we’ve spent our lives doing. What will you say when He points out all of the people He sent for you to disciple and be a servant to and you were too busy catching up on the latest scores when someone was hungry for His truth?
Will the answer you give Him be acceptable or be to your shame?
I just came from a growth group tonight and I sorta felt much like what you just described. I have been attending my church for a while. And I left because of this exact feeling. I ended up going to a huge church that had a great worship program and really great pastor. Unfortunately I was over whelmed by its size and I never connected. I heard a small quiet voice tell me that i was going to the big church to serve my needs and I needed to return to my small church to serve him. This article has inspired me to be more receptive to new members of our church. Thank god that that the bible and the internet do have the necessary food for a hungry christian. God Bless Bob