Passion – a strong liking or desire for or devotion to some activity, object, or concept.
What are you passionate about? Write down five things you have a passion for (you’re on a computer, so you’ve got Notepad or Wordpad), in order of most passionate to least passionate. Be honest with yourself; no one’s going to see this but you. Once you’ve got your list, locate which item is most related to your worship or desire for God. If it’s not number one, there’s a problem. But you’re not alone.
There comes a time when all things must be laid to rest no matter how important or vibrant they once were. Imagine if you saw your neighbors watering their tomato plants in the middle of December with six inches of snow on the ground. What if your crazy neighbor has a taxidermy pet that he still talks to and tries to play fetch with. We laugh at these images; however, often in the church we are not far off from this.
When the church was finally accepting that it was ministering to baby boomers and baby busters, it was already well into dealing with a clearly postmodern generation. And now that decent books about postmodernism in the church are finally being written, and we are finally accepting and getting a handle on it, I can’t help but wonder if once again we have missed the death of one paradigm and birth of another. Are we running in at the last moment with the much-needed transplant just as the patient is coding on the table? Are we watering the tomatoes in December?