Tuesdays with Morris

Building any functional, worthwhile relationship takes an effort. Sooner or later, both parties involved have to take some kind of action in order to help nurture and grow. Our relationship with God is not any different.

Learning about the life Jesus calls us to is central to building a relationship with Him. God is actively pursuing us. But, if we truly want to grow and develop our relationship, we have to make an active investment as well.

What are some ways that we can actively pursue a relationship with God?

Last night, in a conversation, I was reminded of how much of our learning is impacted by our environment. We all learn behaviors from those we are surrounded by…Sometimes we aren’t aware of the life patterns that we pick up along the way…But, we are definitely impacted by our environment.

Some of us behave and speak in certain manners because that’s how our parents or close friends behave and speak. Some of us eat certain foods, follow certain diets because these are the foods and diets we followed as we grew up. The list of learned behaviors could go on and on.

So, we pick up all of this “stuff” along the way. We learn without realizing that we are learning.

And, yet, in the church, we tend to reduce learning to certain formats (the sermon, the Bible study, etc). And, we’re often oblivious to the thought that people might be learning along the way…picking up our language, our behavior patterns, our mindset.

We need to think about the impact of learning by simply being around others. The environmental experience can have a tremendous impact on what we learn about living this life.

If we see others living their lives for a reason, we just might learn something about what it truly means to live. However, if we simply see people spewing quotes without any action, we will also learn something about what it means to live. Which message do we want people to pick up from our lives?

This has been an abnormal week. Becky Clements, the wife of my senior pastor, passed away after a long battle with cancer. She died last Thursday. So, when we gathered for worship on Sunday, the funeral had not taken place. That made for an awkward worship experience. We knew that we needed to try and keep things as normal as possible. But, in the light of all that had happened, “normal” was difficult. Imagine attempting to preach a sermon called “Giving Life” in the midst of a death that impacted our church so deeply.

This week we are focusing on learning life. This is all about growing in the “grace and knowledge of our Lord & Savior.” In the church, we tend to focus our discipleship (learning to live like Jesus) efforts on Bible study, Sunday school attendance, and listening to sermons.

However, this is a fairly limited view of learning. While studying and hearing the “word” does help one learn, it is not the only way to learn. Too often, the church overlooks experience as a learning tool. That’s why so many of our worship gatherings are non-paticipatory. Experiential learning is going to be essential if the church is going to provide meaningful learning opportunities.

What are some ways that you have learned about and grown in your relationship with Christ (assuming you have one)?

In preparing a sermon that I may or may not preach this Sunday, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about what it means to give. We give in various ways…our time, our gifts and talents, our resources, our suggestions. The list of what we can and do give could fill up numerous pages of a book. The more and more I think about giving, the more I am convinced that giving is more about the heart and attitude than the actual act of giving. When we give, it should be motivated by love. We should be able to generously give out of joy and cheer. But, too often, we give grudgingly or out of a sense of duty or routine.

So, my question today is, what are some practical ways that we can generously give to the world around us?