New truths I've learned from my sunday school class.

Church is a funny thing. When its good we really enjoy it and want to participate, other times it feels like work and we fail to recognize how God wants us to relate to it. I think the church in general is suffering these days because of the spiritual condition of the body.

So in response to that my friend and fellow elder are trying to take meaningful action. We've decided we want to focus on male leadership, and we've started a men's group. We've gone through a study by John Eldridge, "Wild at Heart," and to some degree it has stirred some of the men. It urges men to step out and be bold and passionate as men about the things men should be passionate about. He parallels this with Christ and his passion for the church.

It probably affected Norm and I mostly. We want to develop something that has a lasting impact, something that will turn the hearts of men back towards God, even men that call themselves christian. More recently we've both read "No Man Left Behind," and we believe some form of this ministry model is what we will pursue. It proposes a way to disciple men. We are also introducing some of these ideas in our sunday school class that we co-lead. The first week we discussed the topic of discipleship there seemed to be resistance due to varying opinions on what discipleship is and how it should be done. On week two some important truths came out from various people. Change is good when we prepare for it, when we pursue the work of the kingdom we need support from the body to help respond to spiritual warfare, and sharing God's truth can be offensive, therefore we also need to exhibit God's love in proportion to the truth in order to achieve maximum effectiveness.


I know the significance of all I am describing is vague without going into more detail. It needs life experience and context to become meaningful. Hopefully I will continue to develop my communication skills in a way that allows release the thoughts in my mind that have stirred this excitement in me. I am blessed that God has made church exciting for me.