As part of our vision team planning at Friendswood United Methodist Church, we settled on one of our values we covet being “Spirit Led Transformation”  Here’s our exact wording:

Spirit Led Transformation - The Holy Spirit transforms us as we connect with God through prayer and worship.

This has me thinking lately – what does it mean for the Holy Spirit to transform us?  Certainly it doesn’t absolve us from any actions.  We can’t expect to be changed by God if we are unwilling to work at it.  Transformation isn’t some magical act that God works in us completely in spite of our actions.  There is no Holy Spirit ‘pixie dust’ that God sprinkles on our hearts that makes us completely new.  On the other side of the equation, there isn’t some set of exercises that guarantee a new soul.  We can’t expect that life will change for us if we are only willing to read a certain amount of scripture every day and pray.  These may be a means of God transforming us, but the transformation isn’t guaranteed by our actions.

What it comes down to, I think, is that tiny little word – ‘led”.  You see, the Holy Spirit is there to lead us into transformation.  It is the urging of the spirit that guides us into experiences and practices that shape us into the image of Christ.  It is our willingness to submit to God that makes what we do matter.  We can read and pray all we want, but unless we are willing to submit to God and let the Spirit lead us, we will never be transformed.

Our lives will only be changed to the degree that we are willing to let God lead us.  Self-directed spirituality will only produce self fulfilled fruits.  Submitting ourselves to Christ frees us to be led to the transformed life God envisions for us.

In your life, are you being led by the Spirit into transformation?  If your time with God has grown stale and your spiritual life stagnant, take a look again at who is leading you.  God is willing to shape us if we are willing to submit to Him.

Chris Hodges, the pastor of Church of the Highlands in Birmingham, Alabama, had some wonderfully challenging things to say to the Large Church Initiative conference I attended last week.  He related all of ministry to the 4 cups of the passover – the cup of sanctification, the cup of deliverance, the cup of redemption, and the cup of praise.  It was a good outline for ministry and really highlighted for me one of the struggles many churches have – we are missing a step in discipleship!

Typically, here is what happens in a church.  Someone comes to understand Jesus as their Savior and Lord and comes into a relationship with Him.  We call this ‘being saved’.  We then immediately try to get them caught up on discipleship, which means teaching them to read the scripture, take part in worship, be a part of a group, etc.  And then we also encourage them to take an active part in ministry, serving God either in or outside of the church.  A basic, simple plan that often works to reshape lives.  But it does so without a deliberate focus on one step – being delivered from sin.

What I mean is this, we jump right from being saved to being discipled without taking the time to deliberately deal with the sin that we are being saved from!  We accept forgiveness and move on without taking a decided look at the sin that we still cart around.  Being saved doesn’t mean that we immediately are cleansed from the mess that surrounds our lives.  Usually we just limp along, hoping that we will figure it out ourselves.  We don’t ackowledge that we still have struggles and, as a church, we do little to help people overcome sin.  We have lots of classes on how to study the bible but few about how to heal broken marriages, overcome addiction, get our finances in order, or be a parent that builds children of faith.  We skip our problems and try to get past them somehow so we can become disciples.

I wonder what the church would look like if we took the time and effort to really look at how we overcome sin?  What would it be like if we were willing to acknowledge that we are still dirty with sin even after we are saved and that we need help getting our life in order?  Maybe it’s time for us to look at discipleship in a new way – not just about learning and active ministry but also about restoring ourselves to the people God created us to be.