August 7, 2012

John 3:3   Jesus replied, "Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again."

Blackaby writes about how this "saving relationship with Christ is a life-changing experience".  "When you become a Christian, Christ's presence will affect every part of you."  He goes on to describe how attitudes, priorities and emotions will all be changed and "God gives us a new heart so that everything becomes new!"  While I agree with Blackaby that God can and does transform Christians, I do not agree with his sense of immediacy in regards to these changes.

It would interesting to see what sort of new Christian counseling most converts receive from places of Christian worship.  I wonder how many new converts become quickly discouraged because they discover that on Monday morning they still have the same tendency to fly off the handle at a coworker, repeat that piece of destructive gossip or have that midafternoon shot of Wild Turkey in the men's room stall.

In the New Testament, Christ's apostles appear to have immediately dropped everything and followed Him.  After three days of blindness, Saul (Paul) became the super apostle.  Save for the rare entry, there is little in the New Testament that gives new believers the idea that, while a saving relationship with Christ does "make all things new", this transformation for most of us takes weeks, months even years.  I wonder how many Sunday morning converts become Monday morning skeptics because pastors, deacons and other church staff are not willing to honestly discuss the conversion experience with the aisle-walker on Sunday evening and establish a mentoring relationship with that baby Christian?

At least three times as a principal in Springfield, I have been asked to mentor a new principal.  This includes a schedule of weekly contacts, monthly face-to-face meetings and two extended meetings at preset times during the school year.  It is a required program for all new principals in the district.  The program is structured, consistent and has goals and success criteria attached.  If a school system can put such a program in place for administrators, why not a similar system for new Christians?  It could not be mandated, but at least offered.  There needs to be program to help ease the transition from the Sunday morning high to the Monday morning reality that faces new Christians.