For North Avenue Alliance Church the 40 Days of Purpose has undoubtedly been a significant experience. We have seen numerous people take steps into deeper commitment through membership, baptism and service. For a church our size the numbers were significant but more significant were the stories behind the numbers. I have had the opportunity to talk with people and to read some moving testimonies about how God worked during this period. I am humbled to see that God worked in many people’s lives beyond anything that can be explained by the quality of a book or program. In life one critical question that we need to ask following all of our significant experiences is, “So what have we learned?” I have been thinking a lot about this from the beginning of the planning stage of this campaign until now, a month after completion. Obviously we learned (or reaffirmed the knowledge), through the content of the campaign, that God has five purposes for us, Worship, Fellowship, Discipleship, Service, and Evangelism. We also learned what each of these really means in our lives. But I believe we learned 5 things through the experience of the forty days as well.
Lesson 1: We learn through sustained focus
We live in a quick channel changing, sound bite society. It is said that our attention span is shrinking. Many people going into this campaign thought that to spend 40 days on anything would be beating it to death, especially using the same content for ALL of our programs. In all fairness, some people still felt that way after the campaign. But the reality is that it works. For us to really own a truth and be changed by it we need to live with it for a while and focus on it. Sustained focus is like driving a screw into wood with seven turns. That screw will not be easily pulled out with your bare hands. When we “channel hop” through the truth of scripture it tends to be more like hitting seven nails once each with a hammer. It is fairly easy to pull out all seven nails bare handed. I would propose that as a church and as individuals we consider how often we employ sustained focus in our learning as opposed to covering a lot of ground superficially and randomly.
Lesson 2: We learn through humility
As we went into the Forty Days I encountered all kinds of responses, from exited anticipation to ambivalence to dread. Since finishing the Forty Days I have heard various responses as well. Some lives have been revolutionized, some challenged, but some simply endured the campaign. I have observed a correlation in all of this. It has nothing to do with the lack of, or, vastness of ones previous Bible knowledge. It has to do with humility. For the most part those I observed who received an awful lot from the Forty Days of Purpose were those who were anxious to receive from God and willing to receive it through a particular vessel at a particular time. This was easier for some than others. Those who did not receive much were those who rejected the vessel. The reasons for this rejection are many. In the Bible, some looked down on early church leader Timothy because he was too young, others rejected Paul’s message because they disagreed with him on certain points or preferred the teaching style of Apollos. We may not like the teaching style of Rick Warren, Mike Hengle or Tom Friedrichs. We may not like the writing style of a particular book. Or we may reject it because it’s popular (obviously anything that is popular is shallow…right?). Too young, too old, too loud, to slow, too much “fluff”, too academic, too much, too little, on and on it goes. Paul in Romans 14:4 says, “Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To his own master he stands of falls. And he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand.” I’m not saying we should not be discerning or that we should believe everything that is said or written. I am saying that in humility we should assume that the God who could teach Balaam through his Donkey (see Numbers 22) can surely teach us something through a book, teacher, program, or strategy which we aren’t personally fond of. In the end what we learn from God has more to do with OUR teachability than with our teacher’s ability. Our teachability begins with humility.
Lesson 3: We grow through submissive obedience.
Many who grew during the Forty Days didn’t say they grew because they obtained a lot of new information. In fact many said they really didn’t hear of read anything they hadn’t already heard. But what did happen is that they were challenged to take a step of obedience in one or more areas. That is growth. Growth is becoming more Christ like by submitting our will to that of the Father and acting in obedience with what we have learned. We can learn the truth but unless we apply it, and live it out, we remain in neutral spiritually. I pray that each individual will continue to prayerfully pursue God’s next step for them and move forward obediently. I also pray that we as a church will continue to challenge each member in practical ways.
Lesson 4: We grow together
Many people participated in groups during the Forty Days. Some participated in a group for the first time. Granted that six weeks is not enough time to even scratch the surface of what we learned about fellowship during the campaign, yet for many it was an extremely meaningful experience. To quote one person, “people learned that groups aren’t that bad.” Being a part of God’s family requires knowing and being known. This is a scary proposition for many and yet over the Forty Days many experienced this for the first time (or the first time in a long while) and realized that the risk is worth the return. It has been exciting to see us becoming more people focused and less event focused. More of us are sticking around longer after service and opening up to one another on deeper lev els. More people are sharing their difficulties and deep hurts. More people are attempting to connect relationally. I think many have gotten a taste of real fellowship and are hungry for more.
Lesson 5: We grow FOR a purpose and ON purpose.
Many more people are actively seeking places to serve and grow. We are learning that in order to serve we need to continue maturing in our faith, and to mature in our faith we need to serve. I see many more of us intentionally and purposefully pursuing both of these interrelated aspects of our relationship with God. North Avenue Alliance’s people are starting to get out of the bleachers and take some initiative to get in the game. This is very exciting (unless you are the devil in which case this fact strikes terror in your heart). I pray that each of us would continue to “work out OUR (emphasis mine) salvation”.
So how do we apply what we have learned? The church leadership and staff will be spending sometime prayerfully trying to answer that question over the next weeks and months. I challenge you to spend some time with God yourself seeking his answer for you personally as well.
Pastor Hengle’s Highlights
It has now been several weeks since our 40 Days of Purpose. I trust that the commitments made during that time are now becoming habits. So many wonderful things happened. Peoples lives were changed dramatically for the Lord. However, with all these great things happening, many are hurting in our church. We have those experiencing pain and weakness due to cancer, those that are going through some very difficult emotional times, some that the future is unknown to them because of a job situation and finally those who are grieving. We as a family need to help all these with our prayers, support and encouragement . May all of us be
more aware of those around us and when the Lord opens a door for us to help, may we walk through. It may be a hug, a card, a phone call or some act of kindness. We are a family and I pray that we will hold each other up during this time.
Patty and I especially have been very
encouraged by your cards and help during this time in our lives. You are our family and we want you to know that we love you and trust that our best days are ahead of us. Let us have a great summer, but also worship the Lord together whenever possible.
God Bless,
Pastor Hengle
Sue’s Views 40 Days of Purpose
I was really excited about the 40 Days of Purpose program that our church started a little while ago. It meant to me that everyone would be reading, studying and talking about the same thing and that thing would be God’s Word. We have a Senior Adult Ministry (SAM) that usually meets once a month, but for this program we met once a week to fulfill the requirements that a small group would have to meet every week to talk about the last chapter that we had read. This was a joy to attend because it was here that we were encouraged and we could be an encouragement to each other. I also attended one of the Sunday School classes which enabled the lesson to imprint itself on my soul. Our SAM group had a lunch prior to the study and different members took turns in facilitating the study. I missed the last Sunday because of other commitments but I was able to attend the extra meeting that our SAM group held where we all talked about what we had learned in the 40 days. I learned or maybe relearned about the vast love that God has for us. I say relearned, because I’m sure I knew of it already, but it was stated so clearly when we were learning about “worship”. On the last day of celebration many of us confessed our fear and trepidation about starting the study, thinking what can I learn through this? But we know God’s work is powerful and we were willing to let God work through us to ad to the study. Little did we know what God had in store for us, even while we were all relearning basic lessons of our Christian faith. One of these lessons was how our attitude towards problems can help you in the midst of them. What the natural world would say was a “problem” that caused discouragement, could now be looked at with eyes that would ask, “How is God going to use this for His glory? For instance, my husband’s van wheel fell off. This caused a delay in his activities, but during this time he was able to witness to an elderly lady and have the privilege of leading her to a saving knowledge of Jesus. Another man’s wife was seriously ill, unable to do the mundane things that needed to be done. He was able to take joy in doing those mundane tasks and decide how he was going to use Rick Warrens’ book as a witnessing tool for his neighbor. Many of us were blessed by Rick’s book and one lady said how it showed her she didn’t have to do great things to be great, but that just by doing the best she could in what she was given to do was all that god was asking her to do. Many of us were blessed by Rick’s book and one lady said how it showed her she didn’t have to do great things to be great, but that just by doing the best she could in what she was given to do was all that God was asking her to do. Others found that growing as a family meant that we could enjoy the time together and not feel “guilty” that we were not doing other things. One man said how this SAM group was filling a need for fellowship which he hadn’t known he needed. All of us know we have grown in many different areas in our spiritual lives and we have decided to go through the book together a second time as a group at a slower pace. We are looking forward to what the Lord wants to teach us.
Susan Carlsen