Are you satisfied with the level of spiritual maturity in your congregation? Before you answer, consider how the behavior of Christians are similar to those on non-Christians. This is a summary from the book, UnChristian:

Key Findings:

• Moral Similarity: The study reveals that Christians and non-Christians exhibit similar behaviors in areas like divorce rates, substance use, and ethical decisions. This challenges the idea that Christians live noticeably "set apart" lives.
• Hypocrisy Perception: Non-Christians frequently view Christians as hypocritical because their actions don’t align with their professed beliefs, especially in areas like love, forgiveness, and integrity.
• Lack of Distinctiveness: Many young people outside the church see little evidence that faith makes a practical difference in how Christians live, leading to skepticism about Christianity’s transformative power.
• Cultural Assimilation: Christians are often seen as blending into broader cultural norms rather than challenging them, particularly in areas like materialism, judgmental attitudes, and lack of compassion.

What to do?

One thought is to consider how you yourself became a disciple. For me, it was, in part, through reading some great books. Books like…

• Knowing God, J.I. Packer
• The Holiness of God, R.C. Sproul
• The Pursuit of Holiness, Jerry Bridges

The road to maturity led through the reading of great books like these. I plan to lead my people to read through these books and study them during our regular Bible Study hour on Sunday morning. You might consider whether or not you think that studying these great books in your Sunday morning Bible Study how would lead to deeper discipleship