Growth: You Need Support

When I first became the adult Sunday School teacher at my church, I wanted to name my class, The Supporting Ligaments, based on this scripture:

From Him the whole body, fitted and knit together by every supporting ligament, promotes the growth of the body for building up itself in love by the proper working of each individual part. Ephesians 4:16 HCSB

The body can only grow if each part does its individual work. We need each other. 

One part can't do it all.

One part shouldn't do it all.

If you think about it, when one comes across a tightly-knit group of caring individuals who are excited about the cause of Christ and are busily engaged in giving it their all, it's very attractive. It draws you in, so to speak. You just naturally want to be a part of what's going on.

I speak from experience. When I first started working as a ministry assistant at my first church, I didn't actually attend that church, I was a member at my home church. 

There is something to be said for church support staff to not work at their own church. You can actually worship without everyone interrupting you wanting to know answers to questions. People don't stop you in the hallway to ask you to put something in the bulletin. If there is not enough Sunday School literature, teachers don't immediately eye you as if to say, "Are you not doing your job and ordering on time?"

On the other hand, you work all week planning and praying for events and services culminating on the big day, Sunday, but you're not there to see how it all went down. You have to wait until Monday - or later in the week - to hear all the news. 

Maybe I was just nosy, but I couldn't stand not being there. My heart was knit together with the church family and I couldn't stay away.

I think Paul was led by the Holy Spirit when he used the analogy of a human body to explain to the Ephesians how a church body should function. Jesus is the head of the church body, but the rest of us all have a part to play. We can't all be the hand or the foot or we'd be a freak. Some of us will have visible functions and some of us have to be the invisible supporting ligaments holding everything together.

Love has to be woven in and around and through each body part; and when it is, people can't help but want to join in.

I also want to point out just as a human body has growth spurts and dormant periods, so does the church. Sometimes it will seem like a child stays the same size forever and then seemingly overnight, he's outgrown all his clothes and shoes. We will shake our head as we head to the clothing store saying, "My kid has had a growth spurt. He's got nothing that fits anymore."

Sometimes the church might look the same on the outside, but inside, spiritually, God is strengthening each part for growth. It might be a slow and steady growth; or it might be growth by leaps and bounds.

Our job is to keep loving and supporting one another and trusting God for growth and seeking the kingdom and His righteousness.  His job is to add such as should be saved.

Oh, by the way, the class didn't want to change their name to The Supporting Ligaments. They wanted to remain The Joy Class. 

I'm fine with that.

This is post #23 of my "Walk the Walk Christian Living Series," written from the perspective of a recovering perfectionist. You can go here to see the links of each post as they go live. 

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I'm linking this post to the community at Recharge Wednesday.