Month: <span>April 2004</span>

Ever thought of categorising churches by comparing them to breakfast cereals? What would your church be like?

It seems that churches tend to one of two types of breakfast: either they are the overly sweet, all taste and no substance of the sugar coated variety, or they are the very good for you whilst tasting awful of the muesli variety.

We either ignore God’s word and go for experience over truth or else present the truth in such a dull insipid manner that it is hard to get excited over it. I know that truth is objective and stands on its own, but if the people delivering that truth can’t get excited, how can they expect it to affect the hearers?

Has anyone ever produced a genuinely healthy and tasty breakfast cereal? I don’t know! Has anyone ever produced a healthy tasty church that presents God’s truth with the joy and excitement that it deserves? Very few!

How does your church taste?

Following on from the last blog. There is a general principle that people will tend to mimic our vices rather than our virtues. We are naturally inclined to sinful behaviour. I believe it was Spurgeon who illustrated how much easier it is to drag down than to pull up by standing on his desk and asking a parishioner to pull him down!

Building up requires, to use modern jargon, a pro-active approach. We need to admit that we can’t do it on our own and seek the working of the Holy Spirit in us to enable us to build up rather than tear down.

Ephesians 4:29 sums up what our attitude should be:

“Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is good for edifying, as fits the occasion that it may impart grace to those who hear it.”

Are we seeking to impart grace to others by our speech?