Don't be Effective

Be faithful.

Here's a fantastic article on How to Shrink Your Church.

Dependent Spirituality

“I’m just not able to do anything anymore. I feel like a burden to my congregation because I can’t help out the way I could before.”

Such was the lament of an aging member of a sister parish. The older she got, the less she could contribute. Most of the time we look forward to old age and the frailties it brings with anxiety. “I don’t ever want to be a burden on my family,” people wish. “I don’t ever want to be that dependent on others.”

More often than not, God leads us out of this life the same way he brought us into it: completely dependent on others. As infants, we relied on others to give us food, change our messy diapers, bathe us, clothe us, keep us safe from harm every minute of the day. We were completely dependent.

Then, as we grow into adults, we treasure our burgeoning independence. We can dress ourselves, bathe ourselves, feed ourselves. The more independent we get, we can cook for ourselves or even grow and gather our own food. We can transport ourselves wherever we need to go. A significant part of the American Dream is independence. So, naturally, growing older and more dependent upon others is looked on with shame by the world.

But not the church.

In fact, that God brings us down from our illusions of independence to reveal how truly dependent on others we are is a healthy lesson in humility. To learn to be dependent it to learn to be a Christian. When people were bringing infants to Jesus—yes, infants, the helpless, completely dependent, constantly-needing-to-be-fed-and-changed kind of people—He extolled them as model Christians: “To such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” (Luke 18:15-17)

So whether at the beginning of your life, at the end, or numerous times in the middle, God is teaching you through dependence on others to be a Christian, a child of God, to inherit the kingdom of God. You did not make yourself a Christian; God made you one. You did not produce faith; God gave it to you. You do nothing to earn God’s favor; He gives it to you completely as gift. You are completely dependent on Him for every spiritual need.

So as your faculties decrease, as your strength wanes, as your ability to contribute to your congregation diminishes, rejoice. God is teaching you away from independence to complete dependence on Him.

When speaking of God, the old adage is false: it is not better to give than to receive. Faith receives what God gives. It is always better to be receiving from God than to be giving to Him. That’s what happens in the Divine Service: God comes to lavish His gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation on us. We respond, giving Him our thanks and praise, of course. But the most important thing is that we receive what God gives.

In this season where giving is so highly exalted, don’t neglect the most important things: to be receiving from God. It’s a season chocked full of services, times when God and His Church interrupt your regular routine to bless you with more of His gifts. Don’t get so caught up in all the giving that you neglect the receiving.

Growth

“To neglect your church, your prayer, your Bible study, your devotions, is to tell God that you have no desire to grow, to become more and more His child, that you are satisfied with being a weak and shaky Christian, and that you have had as much as you want from Him. How perilously such a person is slipping away from God. Everything that is not in accord with God's will is given over to death and the power of darkness. But, my friends, if we cling to Christ and His Word, growing daily in the will of God, striving to bring our lives into harmony with that will, what strength is ours, what then can harm us? When we are given over to the will of God, nothing can destroy, no more than God and His will can be destroyed. The unshakeable strength of the will of God is in us, though the world turn upside down.” (Dr. Norman Nagel,Selected Sermons, p. 245.)

Plain and simple, Christians grow.

So, are you growing? Or are you, as Pr. Nagel warns against, neglecting your church-going, your prayer life, your Bible study, your devotions?

How do Christians grow? Jesus describes it: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:1-6).

If a branch grows, it’s not because the branch is particularly healthy but because the whole plant is healthy. Jesus is the vine. Every branch grafted into Him, every branch that remains in Him, grow and bears fruit.

We grow by abiding in Jesus and in His Word.

So I want to challenge you to set a goal for growing in Jesus, for growing as His disciple. The only way you will grow is with more Jesus, with more of His Word. The end result of the goal is not more of you, but more of Jesus.

Here are some sample goals. Pick or modify one or more to suit you and help you grow in Jesus.
• I currently attend church less frequently than I should. My goal is to attend every Sunday that I’m healthy.
• I do not currently attend Bible class (or Sunday school). My goal is to grow in the Word by studying it at Bible class.
• I do not currently have family devotions every day. My goal is to begin using the Congregation at Prayer to have family prayer and devotions every day.
• I currently do not attend the catechetical Service of Prayer and Preaching on Wednesdays. My goal is to make this a regular part of my weekly hearing and studying the Word of God.
• I currently do not begin and end each day with prayer. My goal is to use Luther’s orders of morning and evening prayer as a basis for beginning and ending each day.

You will have the opportunity to make one of these or a similar discipleship growth goal during the month of September. Every Christian grows. We grow by being in Jesus and in His Word. “If we cling to Christ and His Word, growing daily in the will of God, striving to bring our lives into harmony with that will, what strength is ours, what then can harm us? When we are given over to the will of God, nothing can destroy, no more than God and His will can be destroyed.”