Start where people are

At Freedom, we are very interested in helping people that are far from God to experience life in Christ.  Very interested.  In fact, it is the reason that we do everything we do!  It is not a goal.  It is the goal.

One of the things that is important is that you have to start where people are.  You have to accept them, as is, and allow God to do the work in their lives.  Every church in America would agree with that statement.  However, I wonder if every church takes strides to do so.  To be honest, not much catches me off-guard anymore.  We have people in all phases of the journey.

The truth of the matter is we have no choice.  We can’t make someone be deeper along in the journey than they are.  We can’t force spiritual growth.  Our desire is to help them to move to the immediate next step, not become a small group leader in 10 days.