FLEX your faith is a fun play on words that reminds us that we need to continue to workout our faith as we grow in Christ. Each letter of the word FLEX reminds us of a different aspect of the discipleship and evangelism process.
Now first of all we have to clear the air about something - evangelism as I refer to it is probably not what you've experienced or thought in the past. We'll get to the what it's nots in a later post. The purpose of this post is to simply explain what FLEX is and to extend an invitation to journey with me as I share my heart about faith development and discipleship.
First off, we look at the letter F and we are reminded of filling up. The first part of sharing your faith is being full of a faith to share. Faith isn't something that's just a natural brain dump that God infuses into us, rather it's worked and exercised over time as we gather for worship. So the first part of our discipleship challenge is to regularly fill-up in worship rest at least one hour a week.
Next we come to the letter L. Here we are reminded that we are called to live alongside people everyday! The great commission does a wonderful job teaching this as it says, "While you are going make disciples..." Jesus reminded his disciples that there was life to live after he left. We too need to hear that same charge. We must remember that no matter where we go we are to be living alongside people that God puts in our midst. This means that part of the discipleship and evangelism process is being with people and learning their likes/dislikes. It also means that we're supposed to build relationships with people for the sake of the relationship - NOT for the sake of the church. Simple live with people where you live, work, and play.
Our next stop on this journey is the letter E and it reminds us that we can only give so much before we need to engage in the things of God again. Our challenge here is to find at least 15 minutes everyday that we can devote to testing, deepening, and strengthening our faith. We can do this in a host of ways - something we'll get to in a later post as well - but some quick ideas are devotions (individual, family, small group), bible study, prayer, journaling and the list goes on.
Finally we can't just stop after we fill-up, live out and engage in the things of God - we have to multiply that as we share it with other people. The letter X is the symbol for multiplication so that's why we use it here. There's an old adage that reads Catch a man a fish and feed him for a day, but teach a man to fish and feed him for a lifetime. The same is true with our faith. We can say we believe in Jesus and even come to church but that only is part of the equation. If we really want to have a lasting impact on the Kingdom of God we have to invite people to embark on this journey with us.
So here's your invitation - Join me here each week as we take small steps to better understanding the faith that we share and determine some safe and non-threatening ways that we can share that faith with people where we live, work, and play. Feel free to add your comments and thoughts as well. Talk to you again next week as we start with some faith sharing DON'TS!
