I Just Keep Turning Numbers
A couple weeks back we celebrated Elijah’s Fourth Birthday. It was an EPIC week. The closest thing to Mardi Gras a Four Year Old will ever know. In between Family Dinner, A Rockin’ Birthday Bash, and a weekend viewing of Star Wars Episodes IV-VI, Elijah had this profound pearl to offer us- “Well guys, I guess I’m just gonna keep turning numbers.”
He’s right. As much as it breaks our hearts, our little guy is gonna keep turning numbers…and there’s nothing we can do to stop that…believe us, we’ve tried.
All of us Keep Turning Numbers every year, every day, since the day you were born. But here’s the crazy thing – just because you’re turning numbers does not mean that you are GROWING. Everyone Turns Numbers, But Not Everyone Grows. In other words – Just because you’re Older, that doesn’t mean that you’re getting any Better.
This lies in great tension with not only what Jesus Promised (Life to the Fullest) but with what Jesus Expects (Grow and Bear Fruit). How is it that we can go year after year and still be as selfish / as angry / as bitter / as addicted / as insecure as we were the year(s) before? Especially for those who know and follow Jesus? Does it seem like something might be off?
What if we worked as hard for our GROWTH as we do to our attempts to stay young? What would it look like to ask God to give you Growth Goals for your life this Year? This Month? What if Growth is what WE actually lovingly held each other to each year? What if our questions were no longer If We Grew, but rather How We Grew. Imagine what you’d have to actually celebrate at your Birthday? Imagine how you might approach this next year.
Imagine your life Growing, as opposed to just turning numbers.
The Value of Transformation
(part of a series of posts about the Values of Soul City Church)
At Soul City church everyone is accepted, but everyone is expected. In other words, you are accepted right where you are at, but you are expected not to stay there. We believe that God created everyone of us to transform – TO BECOME EXACTLY WHO GOD CREATED US TO BE.
It is God’s desire and by God’s power that He changes every element of our lives from the inside out. We believe that as we are transformed into our true identity we experience freedom that liberates us to love our community in a way that promotes peace and health that can bring transformation to our neighborhoods, city, and the world.
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We want to make that incredibly Spiritual process as practical (helpful) and normal (expected) as possible.
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“You must display a new nature because you are a new person, created in God’s likeness-righteous, holy and true.”
Ephesians 4:24
Discussion :: How does a church take something as avoided and yet as critical as Growth and make practical as possible? Who is doing this well?
