Rev Bill

Gordon MacDonald, one of my favorite contemporary Christian writers, has posted an article at Leadership Journal.Net that asks the question: Why are there so many immature Christians?

He states:

I have concluded that our branch of the Christian movement (sometimes called Evangelical) is pretty good at wooing people across the line into faith in Jesus. And we’re also not bad at helping new-believers become acquainted with the rudiments of a life of faith: devotional exercise, church involvement, and basic Bible information—something you could call Christian infancy.

But what our tradition lacks of late—my opinion anyway—is knowing how to prod and poke people past the “infancy” and into Christian maturity.

Part of the problem - he writes — is that:

we have a rising (I daresay, a life-threatening) problem in the modern church. Older people—above 50, let’s say—don’t want to be tutors or mentors. Too busy, too distracted, too secretive, too afraid. So a younger generation of spiritual infants is really struggling because an older generation doesn’t want to tell its stories, doesn’t want to get involved. They prefer Christian cruises, Christian golf tournaments, and more Bible studies where information can be piled upon information.

And the result — he writes — is that:

we could lose a large part of a new generation of Christians who couldn’t get past spiritual infancy and went somewhere else

Strong words — but true. More mature Christians need to get involved in discipling others.

You can read MacDonald’s post here.
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What do you think?

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