CHURCHY VS. MATURE

MYTH:
Fish and other cold blooded amphibians can only grow as large as the environment in which they live, such as living in a small aquarium.

FACT:
The below factors directly influence the size of a fish, just as they will in other animals. These factors include quality of diet, available nutrients and resources, cleanliness, volume of diet, and available space. Not only will these influence the mature size of the fish, but they will also influence the growth rate and overall health of the animal. A fish that does not have enough protein and vitamins in their diet will grow more slowly, stay smaller, and be less active, however, this fish will also be more prone to injury, heal more slowly, be more susceptible to disease, and have a higher risk or organ failure. The same is true for insufficient space or poor water quality. Additionally, the decrease in overall health in fish is far greater than the small change in their adult size.

So the reason fish do not grow to their typical size is not because they wont, but because of the many factors that slow their growth, which leads to premature death.

Replace the word “size” with “Spiritual Growth” and “fish” with “Christian” and what do you have?

The typical Christian, one that lacks “Spiritual Maturity”.

So the first question is, what does “Spiritual Maturity” look like? This is the person that takes personal accountability serious. They are self-motivated; self-sustaining in their spiritual devotions; slow to anger; quick to forgive; avoids gossip; lovingly resolves conflicts; places their needs and wants after others and exhibits this life style far beyond Sunday morning. They live it 24/7 because they know that that is what the Father desires of His children.

If that is what a spiritually mature person looks like, how does it differ from a churchy person? That’s easy to sum up. They know the programs; Talk the Talk; Love the Vocabulary and dress for their Sunday appearance, where is stays.

If we are not careful, we can easily promote people to churchiness. It is so much easier to put our congregations into boxes. A box is easy to handle, it has perimeters and conforms whatever is inside to the available space. When that happens, both the leadership and congregation are negatively effected. If the congregation is not nourished with the proper diet and given ample space to grow they will never challenge the leadership to continue in their spirituality either.

Even though all Christians do grow spiritually, the growth level is so minimal that they usually die (physically and/or spiritually) before any measurable amount of maturity is ever reached.

BOTTOM LINE
Christians typically don’t live long enough in the tank they’ve been put into to see any remarkable growth, because of all the other factors that directly effect and cause slowed growth.

It’s death before maturity syndrome

Larry out