“Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to
offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and
proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what
God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” Romans
12:1-2
Like kids, churches are cute when
they are little. You almost wish they could stay little and cute. But you want
them to be healthy and when they are healthy they will grow. You don’t want
unhealthy kids or unhealthy churches because even though they get expensive
when they grow it costs a lot more when they are not healthy.
At FredWes we have valued spiritual
health believing that it will lead to growth. We are seeing that develop.
During the 40 Day Emphasis we are getting a new vision of what spiritual health
looks like. It looks like running the bases in the proper order during a game
of baseball.
There is a pattern to running the
bases if you want to score and win. You can’t run the bases backwards and hope
to win.
Home plate is the connection base.
It is at home where you connect with God to enjoy His presence, to gain His
power and find His purpose. Nothing happens until you connect with God by faith
at home plate.
A healthy church is populated by
people who connect well at home plate. A
healthy church points people to home plate and promotes healthy connections
with Christ. When you have considerably more people who are connected with God
at home plate than those who aren’t you have the makings of a healthy church.
First base is the character
development base. Connecting with God at home gets you right with God but then
God wants to get you thinking right, believing right, deciding right and doing
right. A healthy church understands the importance of first base and challenges
people to spend time there. When a church has a significant number of its
people who understand the value of and place a priority on character
development that church has a chance to be healthy.
Home plate is where healthy churches
win with God. First base is where healthy churches win within. And that brings
the focus to second base.
Second base is the community base. A
healthy church develops good community as a result of its people connecting at
home and at first. Learning to love God passionately and love self properly leads
to loving others powerfully. Healthy churches are filled with people who know
how win with others.
Third base is the competency base
where the results of loving God and loving self and loving others brings
results. Third base is where you turn to head home, getting people to third is
vital. Healthy churches grow at third base but they grow at third as a result
of healthy things that are happening at home and first and second!
Healthy people produce healthy
churches and God uses healthy churches to produce more healthy people!
Healthy churches produce healthy
people because they play by God’s pattern. The order of the bases is vitally
important! Getting God at home plate, growing in God at first base, glorifying
God at second, and gaining for God at third base are what healthy churches are
made of.
A healthy church, like a healthy
person, respects the process and the pattern and pays the price to stay healthy
and produce healthy believers.
FredWes is healthy but MUST continue
to touch ALL the bases!
Are you on base with that?
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