A Lost Art: Creating Passionate Christians

stay-passionate.jpgDo you know many passionate Christians? I'm not talking about the Christians who are obsessed Christian stuff. I'm talking about those who are obsessed with the mission of the church and helping others. Personally, I can't say I know nearly enough. But, this isn't the worst part. Do you know many churches or church leaders who are building passionate Christians? I don't. Before you want to baste me and cook me over an open flame let me try to explain.

Passion Is Shared

According to research by George Barna and others "most 'church growth' is simply the recycling of church-goers from one congregation to another." This means that we aren't creating very many new Christians.

Passionate people share their passion. When the video game World of Warcraft hit the streets people who were passionate about it spread the word. They were excited and simply by their excitement others wanted to check it out. Do you see this same kind of trend with Christians?

False Passion

Much of this turnover of Christians from one church to another comes from Christians looking for different styles of worship. When they find a church style they connect with they attend regularly. They might engage in some bible studies and become regular church attenders. This doesn't make someone a passionate Christian.

When you think of someone who is passionate about something what do you picture? I picture someone playing a video game and being surprised when the sun comes up because the lost track of time and forgot to sleep. I picture someone who picked up a book and finished it without stopping. I picture tailgater's out hours before a football game starts in the freezing cold having a great time. Does weekly church attendance sound like someone engrossed in Christianity and the mission of the church?

Not Dead Yet

Despite the lack of passion for Christianity the church (as in all Gods people) isn't dead. There are parts of the world outside of western culture, where I live, that have a lot of passionate Christians. In western culture the potential is still ripe and there are millions and millions of Christians who are on the verge of being passionate. All hope is not lost.

Explore The Problem And Find A Solution

This topic is going to join the mix of other topics I blog about here. It's important and part of the future of the church. My approach is going to be fairly straight forward and reflect my engineering background. We need to first understand what's going on; then, based on what we find we either alter the current system to work better or scrap it and start from scratch.

Thoughts? Reactions? Ideas?