The 30 Day Church Challenge is designed to help you and the church reach our
God-given potential. The dictionary defines a challenge as, “a call to take part in a contest or competition.”
For the next thirty days, you and I are entering a contest designed to deepen
our relationship with God and each other, and discover what the church was
really meant to be. We are going to do what the church once did, in Acts
chapter 2, to become the church God wants us to be and to experience spiritual
life at a deeper level.
1. The Power of a Challenge
In 1930, a Scotsman named Kurt Hahn invented a
wilderness learning experience that he called, Outward Bound. Have you heard of
it? Think backpacking, white-water rafting, dog sledding, rock-climbing … Hahn believed that character development is as
important as academic achievement, and he found that when people were put in
challenging, adventurous situations, they gained confidence, redefined their
perceptions of their personal capabilities, demonstrated compassion for others,
and developed a spirit of camaraderie with their peers. In his leadership of
Outward Bound, what Hahn discovered was that …
A. Personal growth accelerates
in challenging situations.
His wilderness challenges were so effective that
over the past eighty years thousands of people have given up weeks of their
lives and paid significant amounts of money to climb mountains, hike
challenging trails, canoe down river rapids and rappel off wicked cliffs.
Today, Outward Bound sponsors wilderness adventures in more than thirty
countries, helping people grow in character through the power of a challenge that
stretches them in ways they wouldn’t normally stretch themselves.
Outward Bound and similar experiences has taught
us a second thing about accelerated growth. And that is that …
B. People grow better when we do it together.
Put a single guy out in the wilderness, and he’s probably going to flounder and die. But put a
group of people out there, and the power of community bonds them together and
enables them to do things they would never have attempted on their own. By our very nature, we grow better when we decide
to tackle challenges together.
If you haven't committed to God's challenge to grow I encourage you to do so right now. It is a simple prayer but can change your life. Ready? "God help me to grow - I am willing. I pray this in Jesus' Name, Amen!"
