A Subtle Myth...

I had the great privilege of preaching at Eden Baptist Church in Cambridge today. Subsequently over lunch I considered the question of why people stall in their Christian life with a group of students. One of the answers is worth blogging. One of the student said that he regularly heard the argument (not, I think, at Eden), that the way to bring God the greatest glory in our life was to strive to be the best and most prominent doctor, lawyer, politician, academic. After all to have high profile Christians exemplifying godliness in the forefront of public life is potentially greatly strategic. But the student went on, with some disquiet, "this case can clearly be made with integrity. However exactly the same case can be made to justify Christians being exactly as careerist as everyone else, just with a holy-looking gloss."
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Miracles and Make-Believe and Acts 13

Feuerbach was an influential secularist whose thought was widely held to have demolished religion. He claimed to show that the Christian God and Heaven are merely the projection of our own best ideals. Therefore God only exists in as much as He is the object of our faith and mature reflection will reveal that to be truly human we need to replace love for God with love for Man and faith in God with faith in Man.
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5 Random Thoughts...

Sitting at the desk doing preparation. Lots of thoughts in my mind. Hope you don't mind if I blog some at you to download them out of my mind and into cyberspace...

1. Bible reading and Bible teaching are not the main causes of Christian growth. Bible reflection and application to life for worship, obedience, submission and sacrifice are. It is possible to read and receive teaching passively rather than actively. The growth comes through putting it into practice. Don't confuse the two because you will assume you are growing in maturity merely because you know more

2. Why don't the majority of churches in the UK actively train new converts in spiritual disciplines? Perhaps we might teach them Bible study and we certainly model it from our pulpits. But we don't actively teach people to pray, fast, repent, forgive, seek God, desire spiritual gifts and witness as "New Believer 101."  

3. It is normal to assume that children of different ages need different material and approaches and learning styles. But as soon as you get to be an adult we assume one size fits all. Why is that?

4. Is every small group leader equipped and comfortable asking their members how they are getting on with their personal spiritual practices, identify where people have stalled or are not going on with the Lord, asking what we could do differently that would help them grow spiritually? 

5. Do we assume that old people who have Christians a long time need spiritual stimulous or have less desire to keep growing in the Lord than younger ones? If so, we will neglect their spiritual well-being and provide fewer opportunities for those with the longest, deepest faith to exercise it