I am amazed at how our best church families have no clue as to how to have conversations at home about spiritual subjects. Churches are so busy getting people involved at church that they've neglected this fundamental agenda of spiritual formation. The typical church family leaves spiritual stuff to what happens at church, thereby delegating spiritual formation to institution. And institution encourages it!

What if youth ministers spent as much time with parents as they did with their children? This would be a shift for most church expectations of staff. We typically hire children's and youth ministers to run programs for children and young people. In fact, this approach by church may do more to decimate home as a spiritual center than anything coming into home on television or Internet.

As a youth, I grew up in surfing culture. As a surfer, I never planned a single wave, but I did prepare to ride waves when they came. God is making waves all around North American church. Some churches are going to get to ride them. These are churches that are prepared to get in on what God is up to."

Typical approaches to future involve prediction and planning. The better and biblical approach to future involves prayer and preparation. The Apostles sitting in Temple on day of Pentecost were not engaged in a strategic planning retreat to plan birth of church and early stages of Christian movement. Not in their wildest dreams would they have scripted three thousand converts on Day One nor would they have predicted leap of Spirit to Samaritans or to Gentiles? Apparently not, based on their responses to both developments. Would they have recruited rising star of Judaism to become ultimate leader of movement? Hardly. God does planning; we do preparing. He does not say, “I am waiting for you to develop plans I can bless."

Spiritual preparation has goal of getting God's people in partnership with him in his redemptive mission in world. The five elements of a spiritually prepared architecture are vision, values, results, strengths, and learning. The question we need to begin asking is, how do we cultivate vision? Vision is discovered, not invented. Jesus Christ said, ”I will build my Church”. He is one with vision for our lives and church. It is our job to discover what he has in mind, not to invent something he can get excited about.

I learned following lesson early in life and it has eased my heart tremendously. God is always at work in every situation before I show up. As reality of this fact sunk in, I realized that my job was not to analyze situation really well and then to figure out a way to make something happen but rather to see what God is already doing and ask if I had a part to play.

We need to listen to people in our church, we need to look at our town or neighborhood and we need to talk with our leaders. But as we do that we must be focused on question: What is God already doing here? Jesus models this kind of approach in John 5:19 when He says, "I do nothing on my own initiative. I only do what I see Father doing. Further, role of a leader is to help his people ask question: What do we see God doing here? This is starting point for visioning process.

Maurice Goulet is Author of Lord Of Darkness ~ Lord Of Light. (Unfolding The Signs Of The Times And The Hope Of A New World) Now available Online at www.CDBN.com.

We need to go where people are already hanging out and be prepared to have conversations with them about great love of our lives. This will require our shifting our efforts from growing churches into transforming communities. They're not coming to us. We've got to go to them.

The first Reformation was about freeing church. The new Reformation is about freeing God's people from church (the institution). The original Reformation decentralized church. The new Reformation decentralizes ministry.

The historic Reformation distinguished Christians one from other. The current Reformation distinguishes followers of Jesus Christ from religious people. In India and other places these people are called "Great Commission Christians" to distinguish them from mere pew sitters.

Today, ministry is being defined largely in church terms and lay people often being viewed as functionary resources to get church work done. The collapse of church culture and emergence of kingdom growth as a paradigm for renewal spell end of an era of church members playing support roles. Many clergy just don't get this. They view recruitment difficulties they are experiencing as a motivational issue rather than understanding significant shift in how people are making decisions about how they will spend their lives.

I propose that we begin studying culture of people we are ministering to. North American culture is increasingly postmodern. The church in North America is thoroughly modern (i.e., out of touch with its surrounding culture). The result of modern church's form of spirituality is a North American church that is largely on a head-trip. This is at heart of why lifestyles and values of people in church mirror so closely lifestyles and values of people in larger culture. We have a rational faith. The test for orthodoxy typically focuses on doctrinal stances, not character and spiritual connectedness to Christ and others.

In keeping with modernism, Christians in North America practice their faith in a segmented approach, separated from other parts of life (business, family, and so forth). This is why we go to “church” to do our spiritual activity. This is why we don't do spiritual formation at home. That's what church is for. After all, spiritual “education” should be left to professionals who have training and credentials for it.

The end result is parents unable to talk to their kids about God, church members who take their teenagers to church (believing that this activity inoculates them against influence of a pagan culture) but don't talk about life implications of faith, couples who are embarrassed to pray together - list goes on and on. True Christianity starts in home and is built upon following three truths. First, God is no respecter of persons. Everyone in church is an integral part of Body and is no more or less important then any other. Second, every Christian home can become a center for fellowship. Neighborhood fellowships build strong communities and become centers of outreach for those who are seeking Spiritual nourishment, but do not have a church of their own to attend. Third, every Church building with a local pastor should be a training center to support home fellowships. This approach will give local pastor time to work with those who have ability to minister to small groups and at same time build unity within church.

Maurice Goulet is Author of Lord Of Darkness ~ Lord Of Light.(Unfolding The Signs Of The Times And The Hope Of A New World) Now available Online at www.CDBN.com.