Neighborhood Ministries

A firm foundation- Catechism. When I began my ministry, it was common for churches to have a concentrated time of study for those coming of age, generally considered about age twelve, to give them a basic foundation of understanding of the church and its beliefs. Few churches today, particularly evangelical churches, have any organized classes for twelve year olds to teach them the basic tenets of the faith. Even children who have been in Sunday School their whole lives need a concentrated time to pull together everything they have been taught. As a result, many children today do not have even a basic foundation of knowledge and cannot build their faith as they grow older. There is also no concentrated study for those coming into the church who did not grow up in church. The result is that few adult church members today have even a basic understanding of the faith. I have developed a basic catechism course of study for new members for that purpose (Understanding the Path We Walk-see “books” on website and Basic Christian Beliefs on Udemy-URL- https://www.udemy.com/course/basic-christian-beliefs/?referralCode=45EA0BA6DAD6F47E7541)

 Time of growing deeper-Kingdomtide is a time when the church should be active in helping its members in growing deeper and building spiritual depth. Large numbers of people were suddenly brought into the church following Pentecost. They had not sat under the teaching of Jesus and they had to be taught how to live like Christians. Too many members today are not trained in Christian living and easily fall back into living like the world. The church needs to concentrate on building relationships through younger members learn from older members. They learn how to minister to those needs as they watch more mature Christians ministering to those in need. As they learn to identify needs and how to minister to those in need in the small groups, they begin to see the needs of those outside the church and can begin to minister to them also, demonstrating the love of Christ to unbelievers. As unbelievers see the love of Christ, they begin to desire that love and are attracted to the small group. It should also concentrate on helping members understand the basics of living in community. Where Advent concentrates on building individual faith, Kingdomtide concentrates on building community.

– While those who see marriage from their own perspective, see it only as a source of immediate pleasure and convenience, those who walk with God are able to see beyond that to the long-term benefits to them and to society. Those who see it only from their own perspective are often ready to abandon it if they see no immediate benefit, while those who see the long-term benefits are willing to endure a few problems to gain them. Many of the social problems we face today are directly related to a loss of fellowship with God and the resulting loss of respect for marriage. The church can do a great deal to strengthen the marriages in its church families, but many churches today are failing because they do not support the families in the church.  The subject is too broad to cover here but I have written a series on God’s design for His people including “God Made Them Male & Female” (about differences between them), “In Defense of Marriage” (about benefits of marriage), and “What is Normal” (Problems we have today due to the breakdown of marriage) which are available electronically upon request at no charge.

 Growing in faith by watching Kingdomtide is a time when the church should be active in helping new converts grow deeper.  While few new converts are coming into the church this is vitally important today when so few churches teach members how to live a life pleasing to Christ. Many members who transfer in from other churches where they were members for many years come with very little spiritual depth. As a result, I was asked to develop the lecture series  “In The World But Not of It” (published by Outskirts Press). Surrendering to Christ does not automatically bestow maturity in Christ. When we are born again, we are like babies in the faith and must grow to maturity. Children learn by observing adults and copying the way they do things. In the same way, new Christians need to observe more mature Christians in the faith and interacting with them. It is very hard to explain in a sermon or Sunday School class how to love others or to humble ourselves. It must be learned by watching others who are more spiritually mature, and interacting with them, as they live out their faith day by day, however few churches today have the close relationships needed to help new Christians grow in Christ. With very little spiritual training, new Christians have few mature Christians to learn from. There is also no close interaction of members with spiritual leaders to enable them to grow spiritually as they see them in action. There needs to be active mentoring of new members by those who are spiritually mature,  however  many church leaders today are chosen for their financial management skills and popularity rather than their Christian maturity and do not provide good spiritual role models to follow.