Get It Yourself!

The statement "I need deeper teaching!" and its kissing cousin "I am not greeting fed at church" strike fear and worry in the hearts of most Pastors.

When we hear these kinds of statements pastors feel inadequate and begin to doubt their calling and abilities (OK, so maybe its just me).  We rack our brains trying to think of how we have failed the communities that have entrusted us to speak to them on God's behalf.  We examine our study methods to see if we have grown lazy, our theology to see if we have grown soft and our purpose to see if gone off track.  We do all the work thinking, "OK, how can I step it up, so people get what they need?"

These are good thoughts, however, I think possibility misdirected.  If your 2 month or year baby indicated he was hunger you would feed him, right? If your toddler wanted a snack, you would give her one, right? What if your 20 something son asked you to get him a drink or lunch?  What would your reaction be? Mine would be, "get it yourself."  Whats the difference?  At 2 we don't have any expectation little ones are going to be able to take care of themselves. Although at 22, we have to trust he is perfectly capable of HELPING HIMSELF TO WHAT HE NEEDS!  As a parent, my job is not to baby my kids there entire lives. Doing everything for then will only stunt their growth and arrest their development.

Why don't we set the same kind of expectation for people in the church?

If people need the meat of the word, if they desire deeper more substantial teaching, if they are worried they might be scripturally malnourished, if they think are ready for more mature and sound teaching, yet they are waiting and dependent on the Pastor to spoon feed it to them, they are not as mature as they think.

In most societies a major sign of maturity and independence is self sufficiency.  When you can take care of yourself, provide for your own needs and solve your own problems, you are an adult and mature.

Questions about depth and needs for more "meat" should not scare pastors. It should be encouragement to  them as a sign of growth in people.  The need for growth is good. The desire is more is healthy.  However, Pastor should not always seek to solve the issue by looking inward, but by challenging people to grow up and feed themselves.  Because at some point, if we don't do this we will only create a community of spiritual infants who cannot help themselves.

Hebrews 5:11-14  By this time you ought to be teachers yourselves, yet here I find you need someone to sit down with you and go over the basics on God again, starting from square one—baby’s milk, when you should have been on solid food long ago! Milk is for beginners, inexperienced in God’s ways; solid food is for the mature, who have some practice in telling right from wrong.