Article #2: Kingdom Living in the Church

In John 14:12 Jesus said, "…anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing.  He will do even greater things than these..."   

· Is this what our lives and the lives of those in the church, in general, look like?

· Are we having a greater impact on the world or is the world having a greater impact on us? 

· Are our lives characterized by peace, love, joy, faith, and hope?  Or are our lives characterized by worry, anxiousness, stress and the tyranny of the urgent? 

Our churches are feverishly working to provide programs that meet needs.  Elders, leaders and volunteers are working to exhaustion to serve their community.  Churches are bursting with needs; leaders are actively seeking and implementing programs to keep up with those needs.  Yet, the needs and problems are not being solved.  Why?  Jesus is offering us the abundant life, but it is not being experienced.  What is missing?  Do we hunger for the abundant life?  Secular family problems are the same as family problems in the church.  Are the ways most church members live their lives statistically different from those in the world?  George Barna states that for the amount of time, funds and effort being expended, the church is experiencing low impact. 

· Are leaders experiencing the abundant life of God's power flowing through them?

· Are we really growing deeper and looking more like Jesus?

· Do church members’ lives in Christ look essentially the same from year to year?

 Barna also states that there is a tendency to measure our churches by the number of people in the pews, the number of people active in our programs, perhaps the number of people saved, the income produced, or the size of our campus and buildings. 

• What should be the measure of our church success?
• Is not one of the key principles the making of disciples and teaching them to observe all that Christ commanded?
• What is a disciple?  How do you know if you truly are one?
• How is a disciple developed?
• Is not the disciple the highest standard or value of spiritual health?
• Is there an intentional journey that one can enter?  Is it developing right spiritual behaviors or is "loving the Lord with all your heart" a true measure?

Loving the Lord with all our heart and our neighbor as ourselves really is the key measure for the church and the individual's spiritual life.  According to Barna's statistics, a disconnect exists between Jesus' description of a disciple and what we see as reality in the lives of most Christians.  We each need a radical change of heart and mind that will impact our churches and our world.  We need a turning to God like this age has never experienced.  We need to learn to live in Him, breathe Him in and be consumed about Him.  We need a process to introduce this into people's lives (and the church) that is cyclical, never stopping, so that this wholehearted living for the Lord can have a true identity within the church.  If we can foster revival within the hearts of individuals, we can then have community revival, as the Lord allows.

Let us propose the Heart Transformation for Kingdom Living process!  This process will provide a framework for ongoing disciple-making in the church.  This process will reinforce daily living for the Kingdom of God.  The Kingdom living truths need to be powerfully taught, within a condensed period of time, to a group of hungry followers that want the abundant life.