Potty Training

Tony Morgan took a session at Church Solutions Conference yesterday and his long time friend Tim Stevens’s blogged about the session. You can read his thoughts here. (Don't you just love the Internet - you can get the inside track on a conference that happened half way round the world sipping a coffee in Starbucks)

One quote Tim mentioned was "Are you going to focus on changing nappies or potty training".
This really hit home with me. As a church we are going through a Spiritual Life Survey organised by Willow Creek. Many churches around the world are now involved in the survey. I am looking forward to seeing the results for MKCC. (If you attend MKCC click here to complete the survey, you will need 30min or so)

What many churches have found is that instead of developing strong, co-dependent, mature Christians who take responsibility for their personal spiritual life they have helped to produce Christians who don't know how to invest in their own spiritual growth and have become disillusioned and dependent.

I think Tony’s quote gets to the heart of the matter. If all you do for a baby as it grows is change its nappy and you never challenge it or help it to poop for its self the future is not bright. Sure it is easier in the short term to just stick a nappy on and send the baby to bed. The harder route short term is to work with the toddler through bed-wetting and other accidents. It takes time trouble and patience and very often it’s frustrating but we all know it’s the right thing to do.

Discipleship takes discipline but its worth the effort.