Five Practices of Fruitful
Congregations – Week 3
Intentional Faith Development
Midweek Meditation – October 10, 2012
BMC- Prov. 22:6
Introduction:
This evening, we turn our attention
to the area of Christian nurture or as our author names it, Intentional Faith
Development. This often leads us to
think about how we raise our children in the faith. Proverbs 22:6 may even come to mind, “Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will
not turn from it.”
As I thought about my childhood and
the ways that my faith was nurtured, I realized that I benefited greatly from
my mother’s intentional faith development.
My mother was intentional about exposing my sister and I to the faith
community and to teaching us stories from the Bible.
From about kindergarten through
most of middle school, my father did not attend church and was pretty
antagonistic toward faith. But my mom
took the nurture of our faith pretty seriously.
Every Sunday morning, she took us to Sunday school and worship. Every summer, we went to at least one
vacation Bible school and a week of church camp. We even changed churches for a time in part
to provide us with a stronger Sunday school education.
Some of my best memories of Sunday
school were during my 5th grade year. That year I was the only child in my Sunday
school class most weeks; but a dear elderly woman of the congregation committed
to coming and teaching me every week, even if I was the only one. She never seemed to be bothered by the
numbers, but instead focused her attention on me and my faith development.
As I grew older, we returned to our
previous congregation and part of my faith development continued to be what I
was taught at church, but more importantly a shift started in which my faith
also developed through what I was doing.
I was no longer only receiving. I
was also participating and adding to the ministry.
Going into my freshman year, I was
invited to serve on the stewardship ministry.
My sophomore year, I became the president of the youth group. A friend of mine and I taught a VBS
class. I served on the Northwest Ohio
Association youth council of our conference.
I benefited from intentional faith
development that feed me and gave me a foundational knowledge of the gospel,
but then also mentored me into a contributing member of the church. And through my involvement in the church I
came to own my faith more deeply and to continue to grow in my understanding of
God.
Where do we practice Intentional Faith Development?
In the
Church Building
So if we are intentional about our
faith development, where does this need to happen and what does it involve? I fear that we have a tendency to relegate
the bulk of our faith development to Sunday morning when we gather in the
church building. And certainly, our
times of Sunday school for children and adults are important parts of our faith
development throughout our lives. And
our times of worship together are also significant times to be nurtured in our
faith.
In our homes
But it seems to me that if we are
going to be intentional about our faith development, we need to be intentional
about practicing this in our homes as well.
We need to be spending time in personal devotions and family
devotions.
Most mornings when I get the kids
up for school, I read a page of the Bible to Elam and then to Maggie, they each
journal and then we work on Bible memory before saying the Christian Pledge and
Lord’s Prayer. That is part of their
getting ready for the day routine.
Though we have gotten out of the
habit of doing it, one of the most significant things in my mind that Beth and
I did while we were dating was to have to a devotion time together and to
journal about what we talked about. As
we grew in our faith in the Lord, we also grew closer together.
For some of us, we bring faith
development into the home by hosting or participating in a small group of the
church. As we gather to fellowship and
discuss matters of faith, we are intentional about our faith development and we
move it beyond the church building into our daily lives.
In the marketplace
But it also seems to me that if we
are truly intentional about our faith development that it moves beyond the
church building and the home into the marketplace. Faith development is more than internalizing
the truth of scripture. And faith
development is more than applying scripture to our lives in ways that help us
to be good people. Truly intentional
faith development requires us to articulate and testify to what we know.
This doesn’t mean that we go out
and pass out tracks or that we stand on the street corner and preach, though
God may work through that as well. To
me, this means that we are able to share of what God is doing in our lives and
to help others to see the ways that God is moving in their lives. Now you may say, “’Risk-Taking Mission and
Service’ is next week, Dave. You’re
getting ahead of yourself here.” But I
don’t think I am and here’s why.
Any of you who have taught a Sunday
school class, led a discussion on something about faith, or preached a sermon
know that in the process of preparing to teach others, you learn more
yourself. And even more than that, in
the process of teaching others, you often come to learn more from them than
what you did in your preparation. The
act of articulating our faith deepens the understanding and the learning within
us. Therefore, a piece of intentional
faith development needs to be the work of articulating what we have learned and
experienced.
Intentional faith development is
made up of receiving, applying, and testifying.
That’s RAT for short. ;) Perhaps I need to develop a better abbreviation,
but intentional faith development is not just internalizing ideas and it’s not
just living out principles. It is also
articulating that which we have come to understand.
Bible Study Netflix
With all
this in mind, I have a very practical question that I need your input on. As we talk about intentional faith development,
and as I suggest to you that it is something that we need to work at moving
beyond the church building; I wonder what you need from the church to help you
in doing that. What tools and resources
would help you to be intentional about faith development beyond Sunday morning?
In
particular, I have been presented with a resource option that would in essence
give us the Netflix of Bible study resources.
There is a subscription service available that would allow everyone in
the church to stream Bible study videos of Max Lucado, Andy Stanley, Francis
Chan and others right into your homes, laptops, ipads, or iphones.
This means, you could use it for
personal or family devotions in your homes or on the go. You could use it as the content for hosting a
small group in your home. I could use it
for leader training sessions that everybody could watch on their own
schedule. Or you could use it as a way
of sharing faith with people outside of the church. Is that something that we at Bethel would
find valuable and put to use to aid our intentional faith development?
Intentional
Faith Development is the nurture of our faith.
It takes place here on Sunday mornings in Sunday school and worship. But it also needs to take place in our homes
through personal and family devotions and small group meetings. And to be truly intentional, our faith
development must involve testifying of that faith to others both for their
benefit and of our own faith development.
Intentional faith development is receiving and applying but also
testifying.
Each table
has a sheet with some starter questions.
Feel free to use them in any order or to go in a different direction as
the spirit leads. If one person could
serve as a facilitator and take some notes, I would be very thankful as it will
help me in my sermon preparation for Sunday.
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