A faith that heals and doesn't enable?
From going through the process of adopting a older child, one of the most powerful things our family has learned is the idea of 'being an enabler'. We learned (sometimes the hard way) that some behaviors we thought were cute or loving were actually sometimes cute and loving, but sometimes they were actually good old fashioned manipulation used to avoid an uncomfortable situation that really needed to be dealt with. To enable someone means you make it possible for them to be able to do a certain behavior or to think a certain way. Through how you interact with them, what you say, what you encourage or discourage in them, etc, you make it possible for them to grow in a good and healthy direction. The opposite is also true in that you can can also encourage them to move along a path that is unhealthy or even bad or sinful through what you say, do, accept, etc.
When you think about ideas and beliefs that you see among us as believers, are there some things that we sometimes believe about God or being a 'church goer' that enables us to live in unhealthy and possibly sinful ways? What are some ideas about faith that we teach (possibly inadvertantly?) that enable us to pursue 'socially acceptable' sins? What are some beliefs or ideas about God that we need to reexamine how we teach (through class, sermons, groups, etc) so that we can become more like Jesus and less like Pharisees?
posted by Wade Poe at 6:12 PM
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