The Information to Transformation Shift

I really enjoy consuming information. Missy is always asking me how I know about all kinds of random things. Usually I don’t know how or why I know about it, I just do. On the flip side I have a hard remembering conversations. Missy will ask me what someone said about something. She wants to hear what they said. She wants to know how a conversation went and what happened. All I remember was if they agreed, if they were happy about it or upset about it. I just remember the gist of it. She wants to experience the conversation. That is something I need to work on.

One thing I have learned in my hunger for information is that gathering up and remembering information for the sake of storing it all up in my brain is pretty useless. It is only worthwhile if it leads to transformation. You have probably heard this point dozens of times in the last few years because this point is a cultural reaction to the modern mindset (which I grew up with). People want change. People want experience. People don’t want information for information’s sake because people have finally learned that having all the right information and all the right views doesn’t always make someone a better person, a better Christian or automatically draw someone closer to God. There are plenty of no good people who know their Bible backwards and forwards…it never made the journey from the head to their heart.

It is a challenge to learn what someone with a different worldview values. A large number of ministers and elders are from the modern perspective. It is important our “modern” elders and ministers understand that people want information to take us somewhere and if we don’t assist them in that in our preaching and teaching they won’t be interested. But if we learn to assist people in taking information (scripture) and making application that leads to transformation people will be hungry for it. The good news is that is what God has wanted us to do all along!

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