How can we build up the church, the Body of Christ?  That is somewhat  like asking, “How do we, as individuals, grow in Christ?” If you read an old enough book, you’ll hear about “using the means of grace,” about reading the Bible, praying and going to church.

I believe that’s still at the heart of a believer’s growth, but it does require a biblical church with elders that know where the people are and know how to reach out to them and guide them along the way. It also needs a preacher who knows his people and how to preach in a way that applies the text to them. He can model the Christian life before them as he tells them about his own struggles, and how Bible teaching is helping.

A believer’s own personal prayer life and Bible study are important too. There may not be that much overlap between public and private devotion. But for a while the Scottish church had it figured out in its “prophesyings.” At the end of his sermon the preacher would suggest areas of life where his message could be helpful, especially as certain issues came up.  Then at the mid-week small group meetings, led by elders, the people would build on that sermon and say how they themselves were working with it. Later the leaders would get together with the pastor and would discuss how well the people had understood the Word as preached and whether it would be well to follow up with a supplemental sermon. All that put together a great “information loop.”  (In my academic world, whenever too many people answered an exam question wrong, especially when they answered it wrong the same way, then I knew I had to teach that better next time). But I know that in Scotland there was always alarm that prophesyings were declining.

Today the language has changed to feature “spiritual disciplines,” close to means of grace, but tends to use Latin words and medieval precedents. As a church historian I believe that the medieval church was going in the right direction up to maybe fifty years before the Reformation, so that’s not a problem. But those disciplines are detailed and there are so many of them, that I wonder if they really worked well only for the specialists in spirituality, the monks and nuns in the monasteries? For a modern update I find Don Whitney’s Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life to be the most helpful.

At least to some extent, the disciplines are promoted by para-church organizations, outside the church itself, even including “Evangelicals and Catholics Todether.” Is there a common theological base underneath? How much does the Christian life relate to the way we understand the Bible? Does disobedience to Christ blur our hearts to the truth? Does obedience help us better understand? These are all questions for which I continue to seek answers, but am sure the search is well worthwhile.

There is so much help there for us, but can we do more? I have been concerned with the lack of application in many sermons that I hear, but just complaining doesn’t help. What if we prayerfully asked the Lord to show us personally how what we just heard would help in this hard situation we’re in—and then just pass on the answer to the preacher? If enough of us did that, I think it would impact the preaching. Who cares if that goes in a non-traditional direction, after all we’re committed to the priesthood of all believers.

Building on that, what if your church’s website had a place for emailed sermon responses? As that catches on, wouldn’t it be an updated prophesying? If some of us were on the same Bible reading program, we could pass on highlights to each other the same way. (Right now I like starting the year reading two chapters a day from each of Genesis, Job and Matthew. That should cover the whole Bible in a year, and some parts of the Bible are harder to read than others). Why wouldn’t a similar Bible verse memorization program online also work? (I still prefer the Navigators picks).

Maybe that would be enough. But you never know, when we get used to talking to each other online, maybe we could do it again in person too? However that could work, the flow back to the preachers is bound to help. We need more than information; we need to know how to recast our lives to fit God’s Word to us.