This past Sunday Paul talked about how knowledge isn't king - hearing God and doing what He says is what a real relationship with Jesus is all about - that's spiritual maturity. So with that in mind, we do thing different at The Journey. With my past church experience, it seems like many churches philosophy to help people grow is to have them participated in many church activities - Sunday School, Women's/Men's ministry, Church, Bible Study or Prayer Meeting, etc. It was about engulfing yourself in a church community. While I don't want to discredit these opportunities, we take a different approach. I would also like to apologize to people who have asked us to start many different programs. We have a different philosophy and we don't mean to be rude and it's not that we aren't listening - it just that we function in relationships and we want people to take more personal responsibility and not depend on programs. I know this isn't the easiest to understand because the other philosophy of programs has been ingrained in us for years.
Our goal is for people at The Journey to be in a self-feeding, personal relationship with Jesus and to look beyond yourself to invest in others to help them take first and next steps. While it's good to gain knowledge and Bible understanding, unless you apply it, it's worth is void. If we really want to understand Jesus, it's found in putting Him first, then others - looking beyond ourselves, living life together, caring for each other and helping those who don't know Jesus find a relationship with Him. The church shouldn't have to try to persuade people to take time to invest in others, but life becomes busy, complex and it's easy to just become inward focused as people and a church. We don't want that to happen. The best steps you can take isn't a program but it's to develop a personal relationship with Jesus and to experience Him by looking beyond yourself.
Here is some more thoughts on this from LOS
Comments