Phil Cook

My last column in this space was abruptly cut off halfway through and mid-sentence. Here’s the rest of that sentence: “growth thereafter.”

Hope that helps.

What was I talking about? Oh, yeah, maturity. The sentence should read, “But we must do the hard work of pursuing…”.

I was making the claim that our modern lifestyle, when we’re used to instant everything, assumes that just making a decision to attend a church, however frequently, is all we need to do as if life in the Kingdom of God is somehow just a spectator sport where we run through some religious sounding activities for an hour or two and then revisit it again the following week.

I called that Church 360 because a full turn in the opposite direction would be 180 degrees. Could we have people who attend church year after year without progressing in maturity? Could we have many people spending decades in “church” and never change, with their maturity levels remaining the same year after year, 360 degrees?

I mentioned some barometers of maturity:

How well does one handle conflict? How well does one love unlovable people? Are character traits like love and joy and peace and kindness… and patience… not only evident to outsiders but especially evident to one’s family members? Can I stay relationally stable and good natured even during times of stress or difficulty? How quickly can I return to joy from negative emotions? How well do we help others remove the obstacles that hinder their relationship with God?

Emotional regulation should be a major focus of discipleship in a church. And it’s not just filling people with more left-brain “teaching.” Information transfer is not discipleship. The early church, a time of explosive growth and fruitfulness, did not feature lectures when they met together. We need heart-focused discipleship instead. Yes, teaching is necessary, but as educators know well, lecturing is one of the least effective strategies for growth.

I have a friend who was hiking in Colorado and came across a huge boulder the size of a truck in his path. He pondered a crack in one spot with little bits of growing grass. He had a sudden urge to see the whole rock covered in grass. But how? He noted the temptation is to do it quickly: just stick a bunch of fake turf all over it so it looks right. Fast and easy.

God stopped this thought and explained a better way. It takes time and pressure and the right circumstances to break down the rock surface into soil so that real grass can thrive.

We live in a dangerous time where we want everything instantly. Instead of planting an orchard in well-prepared soil, and waiting, we’d rather glue plastic fruit on a post. We lack patience. But patience breeds maturity and maturity produces patience. Gotta start somewhere.

But time alone isn’t the answer; there are real steps we can take to increase our personal growth rather than spending 50 years in the same place, as the same person, with the same problems.

I’m currently working with a spiritual director. He likes the term “companion” better. He’s walking with me through a series of prayer and meditation exercises. It requires about 90 minutes a day from me. I’m at it at 5:45 a.m. and then again for a review of the day before bed. We meet once a week to talk it over and share encouragement and advice. Powerful stuff. It’s a nine-month commitment. I don’t want to be the same person I was a few years ago.

In addition to personal growth, we need mature companions. We need a loving community, a small group of trusted ones with whom we can be honest, ones who will hear and accept us and who will want to be with us joyfully no matter what. The size of the group is a key factor. In the first of Paul’s letters to the Corinthians (14:26), he instructs a simple but powerful maturity-producing strategy: When you meet together, each one should have something with which to bless, to “edify,” the others in the group. The meetings must be participatory. That can’t happen in large gatherings as spectators.

Maturity is serious business. Our culture, broken as it is, is in deep need of mature people who can thrive well alongside others. A quick handshake or two on Sunday morning will not foster the deep relationships that are essential to a healthy life-giving community. And community must advance in the good soil of healthy people.

Don’t settle for Church 360 and remain the same year after year. God is calling us to a great adventure of growth and service. Our country, community, church, family, and selves all depend on it.

But, of course, be… patient… with us until we arrive.