13 Characteristics of a Growing Church: Excitement!

What does your calendar look like right now? What are you looking forward to doing? Maybe you have a special vacation planned or a friend who you are going to go see. Right now I am looking at my calendar and I see one BIG thing...Mission Trip! There is a whole 8 days blocked off for our mission trip to Kansas City, Missouri (and that doesn't even count prep time!). If you are interested in some more of the specifics about our trip, feel free to read Busy Week (written by my wife) which talks more about our trip. Anyway... I am excited about mission trip! If you can't tell, today we are talking about EXCITEMENT!

So here's a quick recap of the Characteristics of a Growing Church:
1st Love Genuinely
2nd Hate What is Evil
3rd Cling to What is Good
4th Devoted to One Another
5th Humility

The 6th characteristic of a growing Church is Excitement.
"Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord." Romans 12:11 NIV

OK, I have said over and over that we are going to be talking about excitement but the verse above says "never be lacking in zeal" so I think that we should pause just a moment to talk about what zeal means.

According to Dictionary.com, Zeal is "fervor for a person, cause, or object; eager desire or endeavor; enthusiastic diligence; ardor." So some of these words are starting to sound familiar...enthusiastic...you know enthusiasm, but really who uses words like ardor? So the next best place we can check out is the thesaurus. I know, it's almost like school. However, these can be really great tools. Now we are really finding some words I think that we can all relate to: passion, fire, instensity, drive, and enthusiasm.

What makes you excited about church? About Christ? Whatever you can find to be passionate about in regards to church is where you should try to get involved. Are you excited about the little snot nosed preschoolers? Volunteer to help in the nursery! Maybe you love nothing better than a good, hard math problem...you should check out the budget and finance committees.

Don't let your excitement go to waste. Use it! If you don't then you will be like all the other dead beat Christians who are warming a pew and wasting their God given talents, abilities, and excitement! God gave you the talents and excitement you have for a reason. You just have to learn how to use them.

More Resources:

• Find out your spiritual gifts by taking a Spiritual Gifts Test
• Where should you serve? Find out by taking The Giftedness and Passion Assessment