Just do it!

Training is tough.

In today's modern world of 24-hour digital connectedness, where everyone has a personal computer in their pocket, you can receive a wide variety of training in a wide variety of ways. Or so it seems.

You can screen out best practices from a blog. You can purchase online education for almost any undertaking. Youtube has videos demonstrating everything from playing the guitar to repairing a carburetor, and google has pointers for every pursuit from breastfeeding your baby to house-training your pets. You can find twenty solutions to any problem, as long as you can articulate it and google it. Information is everywhere, and it can be in your hands at the speed of light.

But information is not the same as training. 

Despite the nearly omniscient nature of the internet, I think something often gets lost in translation. There's every sort of learning available on the web, but I think real training in most areas still requires three components that the internet struggles to provide: experience, accountability, and oversight.

In most cases, these components require real people in real relationships. In most cases, you can learn ABOUT a skill by watching others do it, but, in order to LEARN a skill, you have to actually PRACTICE it. Maybe hundreds of times. Maybe thousands.

It's no different walking the Way of Jesus. In order to learn and grow, you have to do. And everybody and their brother has an idea of what that should look like. Everybody has a plan or a program. But talk is cheap. And time is short. And there's just no substitute for doing.

Like the great angst-ridden, teen-aged philosopher, Holden Caulfield, I'm not a big fan of "phonies." But, sometimes ya' gotta fake it 'til ya' make it. Sometimes, you just have to figure out what needs done, and go do it.

Fortunately, the way this whole Jesus thing is set up is that you don't have to do it alone. You should always have experience, accountability, and oversight on the Way of Jesus, because they’re built right into the system. It's called the church. And if we’re doing it right, church should be the perfect example of training done right. But you can’t do it by watching, and you can't do it yourself. You can’t do it in a book or a pew or a laptop. That's not the way it works. You have to do. You have to try. You have to go. Together.

Just do it!

Pastor Ed

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Series Title: 7 THINGS

Message Title: God isn't gullible

Date: 5/8/16

Main Passages: Romans 12:1

Some questions for reflection or group study (or please comment on them, below):

• What is most unnerving about the fact that you can't fool God?
• What makes you most nervous about following Jesus?
• In what area do you feel least qualified in following? Love? Grow? Go?
• What's the main thing that's keeping you from truly following?