When preaching on the one another's isn't enough!

We have all heard sermons on the one another's of the New Testament - bear with, love, and so on.  My hunch is we have all heard more than one of those.  yet let's be honest it so often remains a theoretical rather than a practical reality.  We've all heard talks on every member ministry.  We know and we know our pastors know we know that they are not paid to do ministry but to equip us to do ministry.  But so often we still sit back and wait for someone else to do it.

So what do we do when preaching on the one another's isn't enough?  What do we do when people ascent to the idea of enquiring after one another's spiritual well being but the ascent never gets traction in the conversations they have with one another.

We have to model it.  Pastors, elders, deacons must not be Pharisees and tell the church to do something they are not doing.  We have a responsibility to be modelling one another-ness.  Our people should realise that we will be asking them how they are?  How they are finding prayer at the moment, where the gospel is changing them, what sin they are battling with, who we can pray for them to bear with?  And we will be sharing with them how we are doing too (nothing like a leader confessing their struggle and their joys to ensure we aren't put on a pedestal).  Not once a year but regularly, if not weekly then certainly monthly.  It helps to get this started if as a leadership team you take a chunk of your monthly meeting to ask those questions of each other and pray about the responses.

And if they see us modelling this pastoral care, this spiritual oversight just maybe it will become the norm.  But we also need to give other opportunities, more formal opportunities, so that we facilitating this.  What about in the prayer meeting, how about having people break of into twos or threes and share the answer to those questions with each other?  We did it last night and it created a real buzz, not for the first time and it certainly won't be the last.  How about in Gospel or Home Groups?  Could you start with small groups prayer for one another?

At the end of the day this will only become to norm if we make it the norm, if we as leaders model its norm-ness.  And just imagine the impact more people praying for one another, rejoicing with one another, mourning with one another.  More people coming open and aware of their needs and joys to the word of God on a Sunday morning.  More people readily able to discuss and apply the Gospel to one another's lives in real tangible ways.  More loving open honest community and communication.  And all for getting over a little social awkwardness!

How to stop drift

On Sunday night we were looking at Hebrews. It is a book of warnings, in particular it warns believers about the danger of drifting, of gradually becoming apathetic about the gospel and drifting into a sterile legalism and religiosity. But how do you avoid such a drift because if its so gradual we may not even see it coming?

That's where understanding Hebrews and reading it in its entirety helps. Chapter 10v19-25 says this:

"Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching."

The key to avoiding drift is one another, it is other believers keeping us gospel focused and applying the gospel to each others lives again and again and again. God knows it is a potential problem we face and so he graciously gives us other believers, he gives us the church.

There are however a number of trends in society that makes this difficult. The first is that we are commitmentophobic - and such relationships require commitment - we must allow the gospel to challenge our individualism and heed its call into community.

The second is that we are proud, we don't like to admit we are drifting and we certainly don't want someone else pointing out what we haven't seen for ourselves. Again the remedy is the gospel where God points out our need before we are aware of it and shows us his love.

Thirdly we devalue the church - it is fashionable to moan about the church; discontent seems to be endemic. There are things in local churches, which if there, we ought to be concerned about; a refusal to teach the Bible, poor/wrong Bible teaching, unchallenged sin. That concern shouldn't result in moaning but prayer and then an approach to the elders of the church. But some things; music style, things just not being quite how I would like it, etc... should not cause moaning. I was always told that if I found the perfect church not to join it because I would ruin it. God gives us one another to gospel one another.

Fundamentally if we don't want to be in relationships which have elements of accountability to one another, if we will not engage in gospel-ing one another then we have failed to understand the call of the gospel and we open ourselves up to the danger of drifting.

Home?

Looked at Acts 2 again on Sunday as we revisited what the church is and why its exists and it is striking how totally counter cultural the picture of the church there is to today's society, especially in Britain.

One particularly striking area is devotion to each other, or to togetherness. We do friendly very well, we do polite very well, we even sometimes verge on the loving in our churches (at least with the people we like). But all too often we fail at being devoted to one another.

Acts doesn't just leave us with a principle but a picture - they sell fields when another has a need, they are in and out of each others houses - no castles with the draw bridges drawn up in that church.

It has given us much to think about. Am I devoted to my church family? Do I refuse not to see them? Do I do all I can to be with them? Do I welcome people who just drop by? Have I encouraged people to just drop by? Will I just drop in on others? Will I go out of my way to love and care for them even when it is inconvenient to me?

That is what God's love and a devotion to the Bible should lead me to do.

What I really need?

It's a question which we ask ourselves a hundred times a day in subtle ways, what is it I really need? It's what the advertisers seek to answer for us; what you really need is a new car, or a plasma TV, or a PS3.

What we all think we really need is what we desire, what we crave. The challenge is to mould our cravings in the light of what the Bible says. There are both good and bad cravings, the Lord's prayer is a means of reminding ourselves that we should crave what God craves "your kingdom come".

But that is a battle. Maybe that's why one of the most consistent images of the Christian life in the Epistles is that of a battle. A battle in which we stand with, alongside, in support of one another. The church is the barracks room where the soldiers help each other prepare for battle and engage with the enemy. A vital part of that is our need to engage with each other and be accountable to each other, moulding each others cravings in the light of the good news of Jesus.

If God gave his Son in our place so that he no longer views us as rebels but perfect sons then I can trust God for everything and not crave the things he will not give me, but seek to crave the things that God craves.