“And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual people, but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ. I fed you with milk and not with solid food….” (I Corinthians 3:1-2)

Recently, I said to a group of men and women in a civic club meeting, “Do you recall when you were about 10 years old? If you walked into a room like this and looked around, you would have thought we were all adults. At that time, it seemed to you that adults were a separate species of humans. But now….”

“Now that you are grown, you know something that would have surprised you no end when you were a child: There are no grownups. We’re all kids.”

We have all had the experience of looking in the mirror and being shocked to discover an adult looking back at us. We think to yourself, “I don’t feel like I’m that old. I still feel the same as when I was a child.”

You, too? We all have.

Only, we’re at different levels of maturity. None of us–okay, we’ll reluctantly grant a few exceptions here and there–has attained anything like full adulthood.

That’s one reason we stand in awe when we come into contact with a genuine, bonafide adult.  Someone who has grown up mentally and socially, who has his impulses under control, who thinks deeply and speaks carefully and wisely, and is the very definition of integrity and responsibility.

They are rare, to be sure.

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“When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child.” (I Corinthians 13:11)

Yesterday, filling the pulpit for a pastorless church near my home, I told the congregation, “The best thing that can happen to your new pastor is to discover that the leadership of his new church is made up of mature and godly adults in the faith. He’s going to get some good work done here.”

“And the worst thing that can happen to him–something that will frighten him as badly as anything imaginable–is to learn that the leadership of the church is immature. Getting anything done is going to be slow and difficult and at great risk.”

A friend was telling me about her parents. “I had the misfortune,” she said teasingly, “of being raised by two adults.” That is, as opposed to immature parents who were still working out issues of their own identity and life-purpose. Such a child is blessed indeed.

Every church needs a healthy portion of immature members. After all, new believers start out as spiritual babies with a world of learning and growing ahead. No one is born fully grown.

What your church should never do, however–what no church should do–is to place spiritual babies in positions of leadership. Do that, and the news is all bad. The pastor will grow old before his time, the congregation will be in a constant turmoil from the bickering of these refugees from the church nursery, and the church’s outreach ministries will grind to a halt.

Never elect a spiritual baby to anything. If you must give him or her an assignment, see that they are surrounded by a team of godly and mature members who will keep the ship on course.

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“Like newborn babes, long for the pure milk of the word, that by it you may grow in respect to salvation….” (I Peter 2:2).

The bane of the church today is immaturity.

A Sunday School class is asked to relocate so a growing class can have a larger room and it sets off a firestorm of belly-aching.

A longtime church leader does not get the recognition he feels is his entitlement and his family threatens to leave the church.

The pastor teaches a rich lesson from Romans or Hebrews and the congregation isn’t capable of understanding it. The sermons they prefer include “four reasons to be saved today” and “the sin which God hates above all others.”

The preacher brings a message on the tithe and church members criticize him for emphasizing money. At the monthly business meeting, they gripe because the church’s income is lagging.

The church hears a missionary’s report on a great harvest of souls in Singapore and balks at being asked to receive an offering on its behalf.

The pastor is asked by an influential group in the church to invite a flashy, carnal evangelist whose message is God-wants-you-to-prosper. When he hesitates, they grow critical and threaten to have him fired.

When the city leaders enact a policy that upsets the church, the congregation’s main response is to write hostile letters and stage a protest. Prayer and acts of love never enter their mind.

When the church does something of a truly generous nature, the congregation insists they they must get recognition for their largesse.  When they see that other churches have done less than they did, they become inflated with pride.

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