The third level of spiritual commitment is what Charlie simply calls “Committed.” For most of us these are people we want a lot of in our churches. These are the ones who have bought into the vision of what we are doing – they live out our values. They love, they give, they sacrifice even, in order to allow the life of Jesus to go forward.

When it comes to lower levels of commitment below this, we are dealing with people who are in fact in need of practical change in life. They are in need or therapy or minimally in need of adjustments in their concept of what Jesus defines as the normal Christian life. Unfortunately, many take their cues as to what is normal not from scripture but from observing other church people – a very poor source of direction.

The name of the game when it comes to guiding our way forward out of “unstuckness” is the path of raising the committed to the highly committed. (NOTE TO SELF – someone call Merriam Webster – we have a new word – loaded with several meanings, heavily tilted toward a theological experience that has the appearance of one thing but lacks any substance whatsoever…)

Then raise the “Kind of Committed” up to the “Committed” level.

Okay, Mr. Greenjeans, so how is that done?

A. Model the way. As I regularly write here, your people will only do what they see you do. There is 0% anointing upon what you live out with all your heart. There is a deficit anointing upon what you attempt to say that has no horsepower behind it because you are the worst kind of hypocrite – the kind that is faking it – as if all is well when indeed you are living a lie while speaking a truth. In doing that you are modeling the way of the Pharisees. Sorry to upset you, but that’s the truth, bra.

B. Speak frequently of your personal challenges that come your way as a person and a leadership couple regarding the use of limited resources … yet at the same time, the continual invitation of Jesus to step out into the fray to move forward. It is always – for all of us – a classic battle with the “come close – stay away” as is so incredibly common in life.

C. Drop the CPC charade that is now universally present in the Western Church – “Church Politically Correct.” The notion of “This is the way it is supposed to be.” Each day I thank Jesus that I was not raised in the Church culture. I realize there are some things I missed out on that some reading this caught that I’m sure were wonderful things, but I have to tell you, there is a lot of nonsense I have zero value for as a result of my background (shall we say ‘lack of background’).

… I am not seeing an increasingly common occurrence of people like me who have purposely caught the CPC virus just to be able to mix it up with what they see as a high value – to fit in with the Church background crowd. Why would leaders “convert” to this culture? In short, it’s all about money folks. Beneath that, it’s all about fear – the fear that without making some enormous compromises God will not be able to provide for “cause” / “Vision” he originally called us to walk out.

Anyway you spell it, that is just plain sad.