Should We Feed Ourselves?

"I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready." 1 Corinthians 3:2

I was in church yesterday and where a guest speaker touched on a pretty controversial(to me) topic that caused my wife and I to sort of bristle at her commentary on it. Now her entire sermon was actually on point, but this particular point, which was really a rabbit trail, off-shoot had me sort of conflicted, so i decided to write about it.

The minister began to tell a story of how a member in her church came to her, and asked for prayer because she(the member) didn't feel she was being fed at said church(the ministers). At this point in the story, the minister went on sort of mini-rant that although she had some great points, sort of came off like she took personally what the member said. Basically, and I paraphrase, the conclusion that she came to was, if you are not growing at the church you are in, it is your own fault. The analogy she used to back this, was when you are a child, your parents make sure to feed you all the time, but when you become an adult, it is your responsibility to feed yourself. Now to be fair, she went on to expound that it is implausible to expect true spiritual growth if you are only coming to church on sundays, not participating in any of the extra activities or services, not staying connected through discipleship or other avenues, and not engaging in a consistent prayer and study life. Basically, if your are only feeding, once a week, how do you expect to grow to full health? She went on to declare that your pastor is NOT responsible for your spiritual growth. At this point, of course, people stood and clapped and cheered, but I wondered how many people actually agreed?

Now, let me just say. I agree wholeheartedly that the main responisbility for spiritual growth lies with the person who is looking to do the growing. Without a full dedication to the lifestyle, you cannot expect true growth. HOWEVER, I also believe that the church, and therefor the pastor has a responsibilty to make sure that there is an environment that helps perpetuate that growth. I think too many times church leadersabscond from the responsibilty of growing their flock by saying, "well, its up to you." But i can attest to being apart of ministries where I had to fend for myself in the growth area and it was not pretty. I often felt frustrated with the lack of quality biblical teaching, or the antiquated church traditions, and soon that led me to begin to resent those ministries altogether. Do I believe that it was my responsibility to pray during those times, and read my word? Yes. But without the proper guidance and training, I was also led astray and actually considered defecting to Islam, because I was sick of the lack of depth and consistency that I was experiencing with Christ's Church.

My question then would be, if the spiritual growth of a member of the flock is NOT the pastor's responsibility. Then what is? I ask this question without sarcasm or disrespect, however, I think that if expectations are set and mutually agreed on in a clergy/parishioner relationship, then when certain things transpire, there is a precedent to measure against. Am I misinterpreting the parables of Luke 15? If I am I will gladly change my views, but it just seems that making such a blanket statement, really leaves out a multitude of factors. Now granted I don't want to take what was said out of context, so I do believe that we should take full advantage of programs, and discipleship groups that a church has to offer. Also I believe that a daily prayer and study life is completely necessary to live this lifestyle. However it seeems that if a member goes to their pastor and expresses, respectfully, a lack of growth, then those things should be discussed as to whether not that person's feelings are valid, and how to get that person back on course. Ridiculing them or their maturity in the faith I think is the wrong option. It made me wonder how many times a person has gone to their pastor to express a feeling of non-growth and was either rebuked, or ignored until that person left to fend for themselves. I know that she didn't mean that a pastor doesn't care about the sheep or anything like that, but shouldn't a concern for the sheep's growth be primary? And if said sheep is also concerned with a lack of growth, that to me seems like grounds to evaluate the root issues. Still, as I said before, the responsibilty cannot ultimately be placed on the pastor, but even a child who can feed itself will not always eat the right foods. It is up to the pastor to make sure the flock is being properly fled, and perhaps to evaluate how effectively they are doing that. Right?

Peace.