100 Days to a Healthier ChurchSample

Day 24

Today’s Big Idea: Avoiding false answers. Now that we’ve identified the soil and considered renewing it, we need to take an important look at misunderstandings that often exist about each soil.

If your church has a Stubbornness problem, many church members might fear that if the church soil becomes soft, it will become compromised. But the solution to Stubbornness isn’t compromise, it’s adaptability. That’s what softness allows for—the ability to receive good seed and adapt to the crop that the seed wants to grow in us. The goal is to transform the soil from hard to healthy. Healthy soil doesn’t make us more susceptible to the thorns of false teaching and bad attitudes. Healthy soil recognizes and rejects thorns as it recognizes and receives good seed.

Likewise, the antidote to Shallowness isn’t more teaching, it’s greater effectiveness. That’s true depth. When a farmer softens the soil, it’s not to go as deep as possible, it’s to make the soil ready to receive the seed and produce a harvest. It’s about being active in the harvest. It’s not depth for the sake of depth, it’s depth for the sake of effectiveness.

Finally, the flipside of Busyness isn’t laziness, it’s simplicity. In fact, Busyness and laziness often go hand-in-hand. One group in the church gets over-busy, so another group sits back and lets them do all the work. Other times laziness leads to a last-minute frantic rush. However it happens, laziness and busyness are not opposites, they’re co-conspirators. The solution is simplicity and efficiency.

Key Verse: Are you so foolish? After beginning by means of the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by means of the flesh? (Galatians 3:3)

Thoughts to Consider: The churches in the region of Galatia started well, then got sidetracked. So the good news is, the problems in your church are nothing new. The early church had them, too. In Galatia, they started with faith but traded for the false solution of works-based religion (what the apostle Paul called “the flesh”).

What parallels to Galatia might exist in your congregation? Have you been trying to solve faith problems with works-based solutions? Is there a better way to approach this than what you’ve been doing? How does your personal attitude need adjustment to a better mode of thinking?