COVID-19 was rough for many people. The isolation, sudden and drastic changes in life patterns, and the ever shifting expectations of an uncertain world pulled many people into a world of anxiety that they have not come out of.
“But Stephen,” you say, “the world has moved on… of course people have come out of it!”
Have they? Have you?
The pandemic stirred up a whole swath of new emotions in people, and detached them from their primary form of spirituality: a Sunday service centric spirituality. Those months of isolation highlighted how the church has done a poor job of discipling people to be with Jesus. Remove the service, and many completely fell apart.
Many of our conversations in Nanaimo center around how individuals are unmoored in their relationships and faith. They are rebuilding community, but that often doesn’t include God. They’ve moved on from their previous spirituality, and are grappling with whether they will ever come back.
Perhaps you find yourself there today. No doubt you have others in your network who are in this place. God isn’t waiting for you or them to come to Him, He’s coming for you.
Intentional Mission
In the mid-2000’s, Willow Creek published results of a survey into their own discipleship practices. They learned that while they were effective in the early stages of spiritual growth of seekers or early growth, they were ineffective once individuals became committed or more. Fifteen years later, we have to ask if the church has changed anything for the better?
According to Peter Scazzero in Emotionally Healthy Discipleship, the church needs to address four fundamental failures in the church:
- We tolerate emotional immaturity
- We emphasize doing for God over being with God
- We ignore the treasures of church history
- We define success wrongly
The whole book is more than worth your time, but these four challenge us to spend some time reflecting on our own personal walk with God, and our corporate communities priorities.
On a deeper level, these four failures invite real change in our lives and practice. We need to love others in tangible, real ways and acknowledge our emotional selves. Our doing needs to flow out of a deep, intimate relationship with God, not the other way around. We benefit when we know and learn from the mistakes of the past, rather than demonize the other. And lastly, God has called you to become and do something specific, in His time and His way – being obedient in that is success.
Where Do We Go From Here?
The beautiful thing about these questions is they are not about the form of church (large, small, micro), but about the function and intention of the church. They force us to answer the question: What is a healthy disciple? From that question, our practices can reform.
Each week this month (starting today!), the practices will help us reveal our own unbelief in these different areas, and practical ways that we can start to live differently that week.
What do you think about Scazzero’s assessment of the church?