Appetite, Affirmation, Ambition
Mike Breen's latest post on ChurchLeaders.com is an interesting one, not least for his practical application of the temptation of Christ as a lens through which to see the devil's strategy on the contemporary church:
I think we do pretty well at Journey Church against these threats. Over the years we have developed a church culture that is not about self-seeking. Our leaders and so many members are serving people, not consumers. They produce rather than take. I think we are a consumer-friendly church that is easy to invite people too. It's quite a balance. To have understood the consumeristic nature of every pre-Christian that walks though our door - to provide a place that meets the high expectations of society, and yet to plainly proclaim the ancient gospel faithfully. This has been my goal over the last 10 years, and I do take grateful satisfaction that Journey Church does it well. We work cooperatively with some other churches (not all are easy to work with) and we do work hard to not steal sheep from other churches. That said, I think it is possible to grow a large church, or a large network of churches, from 'home Christians' that have no church roots. I am continually astonished at how many rootless-Christians there are out there, many of them carrying partial understandings of God and the gospel.
The value for me personally was to let those three words speak into my own heart - appetite, affirmation, ambition. Which are my frailties? Appetite and ambition are not my drivers. For me, the chink in the armor is probably 'affirmation'. I need to be affirmed by God. Not often, but every now and then. Perhaps one day I will grow beyond this, developing a spiritual maturity that rests more, but for now, if I don't sense God's pleasure for a while, I get fretful.
How about you?
