Mark Galli has made an interesting post relating to the research described in the book which I reviewed yesterday. The research found that many people who were at an advanced level of spiritual maturity were dissatisfied with their church, largely because they feel that they are not “being fed” by their church; that is, the church is not helping them to continue in their spiritual growth.
Willow Creek proposed to address this problem by coaching people to become self-feeders, taking more responsibility for their own spiritual growth. But Galli asks a pertinent question: Should we be encouraging this apparent spiritual narcissism by helping people become “self-feeders”? The implication seems to be that “my faith” is about “my feeding and spiritual growth”, rather than being about worshipping God and serving others.
In Luke 17 (verse 5), the disciples ask Jesus to increase their faith (a sort of “feed me” request). Jesus replies that the tiniest amount of faith is enough to do great things. He then says that servants shouldn’t expect to be fed at the end of a hard day in the field. Instead, the servants should serve supper, and then say, “We are unworthy servants. We have done our duty.” Maybe people who are at an advanced level of spiritual maturity need to concentrate on serving others and not feeding themselves.