First Principles

I’ve had an epiphany of sorts over the last couple of weeks.  As with the few other insights I’ve had since moving here, I’m somewhat ashamed that it required a move to the other side of the planet for me to work this out.

When I look at churches around the world, I begin to pick out some commonalities that I think are worth noting.  What follows are some oversimplified generalities based on my own observations.  If you disagree, feel free to share your thoughts with me!

It seems to me that groups that are not growing, or God forbid, actually declining/dividing, often seem to be focusing their teaching/preaching on a few things.  For one, they often focus on ‘trivial’ studies that they would describe as looking at the ‘deeper’ parts of scriptures.  Things like angels, imagery of apocalyptic books, and obscure people in the Old Testament.  Another focus is often placed on our role in spirituality.  We focus on our holiness, our purity, our striving for perfection.  Finally, and often most destructively, these groups often obsess over pet issues.  They often have many classes/sermons on why they are right and how every other group is wrong.  Perhaps one of their leaders has a bee in his bonnet about a particular issue, so they will talk about it at every opportunity.  Every sermon, no matter the topic, eventually turns into a sermon on that issue that he can’t let go of.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m interested in angels, and I need to think about striving to be pure, but if this is where are focus lies, we might have found the reason for our struggles!

The thing I see as a common thread running through every growing vibrant group I’ve ever met with is this; Christ crucified!  You see for years, I’d always thought, ‘well, those groups focus so much on Christ and the first principles, because they have so many new members.’ Man, I even thought that here, as we started growing, and I feel like all my work is done on first principles.

But it has slowly dawned on me that perhaps I’ve got it all backwards. Maybe it’s not that these groups focus on Christ because they are growing and have new babes.  Maybe it’s that they are growing and have new babes, BECAUSE they focus on Christ!

Now you might be thinking, ‘Ed, you are pretty stinkin thick if this just occurred to you!’, and all I can say is that you are probably right.  But, how many of us act like we’re passed having to focus on Christ?  How many of us are stifling the work of the Lord where we live, because we’ve forgotten to focus on Christ; and Him crucified?  It was good enough for Paul and the rapidly growing groups of his day, but we’re more sophisticated than that!

I urge you to get back to the basics!  Put the first things first!  Christianity is so simple, and that is what often trips us up.  Now remember, simple does not equal easy.  It’s a hard road that takes daily commitment and focus.  But it is a hard road based on simple concepts and principles.  To my mind, our attempts to jazz it up and make it more complex only dilute our focus, and confuse those that desire the ‘pure milk of the word’.

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