Avoid Stagnation

Yesterday I wrote about avoiding frustration, and today, along the same lines I want to talk about stagnation. Frustration is detrimental to any church, but stagnation is just as dangerous (and possibly even more sad). You see, information without motivation leads to stagnation. We've all known those people, they are just like a stagnant pond, water is always coming in, but nothing is going out, and eventually...it stinks.

Stagnant people are no different. You see, if you are sitting in church week in and week out, soaking up the Word of God, but never allowing the Word to pass through you to someone else with the positive purpose of seeing the gospel change lives, you begin to stink too. Attitudes sour, and evangelsim dies. Church leaders must be careful that in teaching and preaching you do not neglect to motivate your people to put the Word of God to action in their lives and in the world. God's Word is living and active, and this should be most true in the way that it works in and through his people. Don't stink it up...but the truth to work. James simply says, "But, be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves." James 1:22