milk or meat?

​There is an old joke that has been around the church for decades. How do you get rid of the bats in a church belfry? You confirm them – they’ll never be back again. I say it is a joke, but it is also sad. Beguiled by the world around us, too many believe that once we have had a short course of instruction in the Christian faith as pubescent teenagers, we are done learning about and growing in Christ.

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The questions I hear and struggles I witness as I try to provide some spiritual direction to adults of all ages proves that this notion of “graduating” from growth is nonsensical. Living each day brings a host of new challenges and changes that call for deeper reflection and knowledge than any eighth grader can fathom. Baptism begins a journey that lasts until death, and each day calls for growth. As life gets more complicated, we cannot survive on what we learned in junior high.

As the preacher of Hebrews (and the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians) counsel, we need to move from a diet of milk (which is for infants in the faith) to meat that can sustain us and strengthen us.

12 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic elements of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food; 13 for everyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is unskilled in the word of righteousness. 14 But solid food is for the mature, for those whose faculties have been trained by practice to distinguish good from evil. Hebrews (5:12-14)

We live in a world of fear. Our anxiety is out of control. We have no answers when it comes to our future. Christians who have had a steady diet of “meat” will not be as susceptible to fear because their roots are deep and well fed. Only those still living on milk find little solace from their faith.

We live in a world where denial is more than a river in Egypt.  Death, suffering, struggle are all to be avoided because we can’t handle the truth. No meat in our diet. As Ernest Becker said in his book, The Denial of Death, “Modern man (sic) is drinking and drugging himself out of awareness, or he spends his time shopping, which is the same thing.”

We will not be able to stand before the onslaught of chaos, fear, and violence if we are not growing in our faith. We seem too small for the task and too weak for the challenge. Becker again: “Man cannot endure his own littleness unless he can translate it into meaningfulness on the largest possible level.” That meaning comes through growth in Christ.

We want to offer opportunities for the adults of our congregation to move from spiritual milk to the spiritual meat that will equip us to grow and be strong in the face of all that is happening in this world. We want to offer opportunities to learn, deepen our relationship to God and one another, and to reflect Christ in our daily life.

We need your help. We are asking you and all the adults of the congregation to TAKE A SURVEY to provide direction on this diet of faith formation. Once we have heard from enough of the congregation, we will formulate ways to build your faith and so, build up the body of Christ. Please help!
 
Pax Christi,
Tim Olson – Lead Pastor


​SURVEY LINK: https://lp.constantcontactpages.com/sv/yESeXi8/adultfaithformation
 
 
 
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