This can kill spiritual growth in a church …

A fellow pastor shared with me his puzzlement at the lack of spiritual maturity in his congregation.

Like most churches, the members of his faith community had a variety of opportunities to study scripture together, yet there seemed to be little result from the teaching being offered through the church. So the pastor asked me to take a look at what was going on within the church and offer any feedback that might help the leadership team improve the spiritual development within the church.

I had the chance to sit in on small group gatherings, Sunday school classes, men’s group sessions, ministry team meetings, several sermons, and other opportunities where teaching was a focal point or part of the reason for the gathering. After sitting in on all these events, I reported my observations to my pastor friend.

What I discovered happening in this church is something that happens in many churches. I explained to the pastor that while I observed a good deal of solid teaching of biblical information, there was a consistent lack of teaching application to scripture in nearly all the settings I observed. The members of this church were receiving a lot of information from the Bible and building up Bible knowledge, but were receiving very little guidance about how to apply what they were studying to their own lives.

One of the biggest mistakes Bible teachers can make is to assume their “students” know what the application of their lesson is. Too many teachers simply teach content and leave the application to the students. However, many (if not most) of the students are taking in the information but may not even be looking for application.

The problem with that fact is even the Bible is completely useless to us without applying its teachings to our lives. The Word of God transforms lives, but only when it is applied to the life! Thus, teachers need to make sure application of scripture is a central part of their teaching, not simply a sentence or two in their conclusions.

Jesus never taught for theory. He always taught for application. It was His intention that the lives of His listeners would be changed not simply by the hearing of His teaching, but by the doing of it.

If you want to see the members of your faith community grow in spiritual maturity, make sure every teaching opportunity (in any setting) has an adequate focus on helping people understand what the application is for the biblical teaching being offered.

Scotty