For some time
I have been a deliberate student of maturity. I have had the privilege of offering
friendship to adults traveling through unhealed childhood traumas, and offering
care to children who are receiving the benefits of lessons learned from their
olders.[1]
I have
received particular benefit from considering what people need in the infant and
child levels of development. This is partly because my work as daycare
assistant means I spend a lot of time with infants and children. At the same
time, my work as a pastor means that I spend a lot of time with olders who are
in the infant and child levels of maturity.
A while back,
I learned the principle that people must stay together in negative emotions in
order to grow up. When people distance themselves from each other during times
that emotions become too challenging, both sides tend to stop growing up. On
the other hand, when people stay together during bouts of negative, scary,
painful, angry emotions, participants not only learn good lessons about
communication, but everybody moves forward in their maturity.
I have also
learned that we grow up best in multigenerational churches. The more that all
generations of a church family spend time working through life’s adventures
together, the more help everyone gets to mature. At different times, our home
churches have experienced the ideal mix of four generations sharing in the many
facets of church life. As long as people stayed together no matter what
happened, everyone grew up. Whenever people didn’t like what they were learning
about themselves (usually indicated by finding fault with others),
relationships drifted apart, and people stopped maturing.
The consistent
thing I have had to face as a pastor is how to offer people hope when maturing
in Christ gets into the messy stage. This is the part of the journey where
people tend to become too scared to press on. Often they do not realize that
our heavenly Father is doing his work of teaching us to do things we do not
know how to do.
It is kind of
like Jesus telling the disciples to feed the multitudes when they had no clue
that such a thing could be done, let alone that they could do it. When Jesus had
finished feeding thousands of people with a little boy’s lunch, the basket full
of leftovers all twelve of them carried away gave them the personal experience
of joining God in the work he was doing.[2]
While they all got to know something about Jesus they had never known before,
we can also say that they had grown up a bit more from where they had started
that day.
The hope that
is ours when we are in a multigenerational church age-wise, but in an early-stages-of-development
church maturity-wise, is that we have a Father who set out before time began to
make us like his Son.[3] We
have hope because the work God determined to do, and the work he has begun
doing, he “will bring it to completion at
the day of Jesus Christ.”[4] At
the present time, God is working towards our Christlikeness by transforming us
into the image of his Son, “from one
degree of glory to another,”[5]until
that day “when he appears we shall be
like him, because we shall see him as he is.”[6]
The point is
that, our hope for growing up to maturity rests in God our Father, and he is
more devoted to his plan of action than we can imagine. We just have to show
up, stay put, quit squirming, and put our listening ears on. He will lead us in
the fulfillment of his plans.
A favorite
Scripture that relates to the growth of maturity in difficult circumstances is
this: “Let those of us who are mature
think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also
to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained.”[7]
It is a simple
fact that the church needs “those of us
who are mature” to lead the way in thinking rightly about Scripture,
doctrine, and relationships. These people can then lead the church to, “hold true to what we have attained,”
including the levels of relationship and maturity the church family has
experienced. When we are willing to “hold
true” to relationships, doctrines, love, humility, faith, and whatever
other qualities and characteristics mark the work of the Spirit in our lives, we
discover that the things we thought “otherwise”
about, that God really does “reveal that
also” to us. The result is greater maturity, not greater mess.
On the other
hand, when people separate because of disagreements, usually really about
negative emotions they don’t know how to handle together, they typically
fortify themselves in their “position”, which really means they dig their heels
into their childish level of immaturity. With arms folded in defiance, nobody
grows up.
With the
options of maturity and immaturity staring us in the face, what do we do when
church life gets messy? Hold true to what you have already attained in the
fellowship and growth of the family of God, and let everyone know that you are
not leaving, because you want to grow up and be like Jesus. Sometimes, just
telling people that we’re not leaving, is the most healing, comforting,
hope-building thing they could hear.[8]
© 2014 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517,
Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8 ~ in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted,
Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English
Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good
News Publishers.)
[1]
I prefer “olders” to “elders” in order to differentiate between those who are
well along in years (olders), and those who are well along in maturity
(elders).
[2]
Matthew 14:13-21
[3]
Genesis 1:26-27; Ephesians 1:3-9
[4]
Philippians 1:6
[5]
II Corinthians 3:18
[6]
I John 3:2
[7]
Philippians 3:15-16
[8]
I’m not speaking here about the need to leave churches because they are turning
away from the truth. I am only addressing the issue of people breaking up
relationships just because they don’t know how to handle the negative emotions
that have come to the surface.
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