Transcript:

Hello, this is Pastor Don of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective.

Historically, the Christian church has been very serious about the issue of teaching and training. To be a Christian is not something to be dabbled in but is more akin to being on a sports team, even a Division I college team, requiring significant amounts of conditioning, training, and team practice. If we want to live as Christians, then we must subject ourselves to Jesus’s conditioning program—that’s the function of the church. If you want to be formed as a Christian, this is going to require a process. This process is what is known as “catechesis”, from the Greek word for teaching/instruction.

Sadly, such a process of training has all but disappeared from the church. This does not mean that we are not being formed; it just means that we are not being formed in the gospel. 

So, what are we being formed in? Well, we become formed by whatever we give our lives to, particularly to whatever we give our “free time”.

For example, studies suggest that the average American spends well over 6 hours a day on the television or internet. This is not unimportant to our spiritual formation. Who we become is a function of our habits. We make our habits, and then our habits make us.

As it stands, the average American is being formed by the entertainment industry and big tech companies. Imagine, though, if you spent 6 hours a day reading the Bible and praying. How would your life be different? Imagine if you spent 6 hours a day serving and seeking to encourage your fellow Christians? How would the church be different?

Something to think about from The Kingdom Perspective.

“Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.”

~Romans 6:12-19 (ESV)

Further Resources:

Digital Liturgies: Rediscovering Christian Wisdom in an Online Age by Samuel James