Pastor's Connect Blog
Pastor’s Connect Blog
“I Will”
“I Will Not Be a Church Dropout” (chapter 7)
August 5, 2018
This post is meant to help direct your Connect study … These are some of the pastor’s thoughts and insights … ask the Holy Spirit to reveal truth, speak to you and through you ….
GET STARTED: Rainer begins chapter seven taking about a “who’s who” in his life. Name someone who was a positive influence in your Christian life.
Chapter seven discusses the reasons why some people become church dropouts…
Name some reasons why you think people drop out of church (one of the reason offered by Rainer is burnout).
Rainer (p. 84) “Burnout can occur when a church member is (1) doing too much. Or (2) too little. Or it can take place when a church member (3) is doing things for which he or she has no passion.”
Discuss Ephesians 2:8-10 … You do not do works in order to be saved, but once you are saved you are to do good works … but not just any good works … those directed by God for you.
What does it mean “by grace through faith?”
What can you do to merit salvation?
Verse 10 teaches us that beyond our salvation is our service.
As church members we need to answer the question of why? What motivates us to do what we do? Is it to please people, or to please God? Also what happens when you are serving out of legalism, not love?
Rainer says that “which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them,” indicates that it is not just any works we do, but those God has planned for us.
When we do more than God has called us to do, or when we do something that God has not equipped us to do, we run the risk of burnout and become candidates for church dropout.
Sometimes we drop out due to spiritual atrophy; a lack of service. Feeling unwanted or unused can lead to leaving the church.
What do you think about the statement (p. 87) “if you are not serving in your church, you are not a legitimate church member?”
Discuss 1 Corinthians 12:27 (we are members of one body; eye, ear, mouth, etc).
Illustration … In a football game there are a relatively small number of participants being watched by a much larger crowd. This is so much like church life… a few doing most of the work while the others watch; sometimes they applaud, sometimes they complain.
Discuss (p. 91) “An inactive church member is an oxymoron. A church dropout is a disobedient Christian.”