ER is not what a pirate says...

As the sun rose December 2nd I officially have had about 2 hours of sleep. My main man Smiley (AKA Gabrian 3.5 Months) and I spent some time together in the local emergency room. This is currently the state of medicine for foster children. If you have a foster child that comes down with something, the flu, fever,or the croup it could take you days to get your child into see their PCP. (When your medicine is free you don't have certain luxuries. Hint Hint.) By that time who knows how bad his or her condition could get so the only option is to endure the ER. Of course you are not considered life threatening so you are going to be there quite a while. Don't get me wrong the nursing staff and doctors were wonderful. It is just that a 3 month old with a croupy cough is way down the line when considered against a cardiac patient. We did finally make it home safe and sound.
Through this whole ordeal it reminded me how much these little ones depend on us. We are their lifelines, food, shelter, clothing, medicine, and love. They depend on us to raise them and teach them the things that they need to be successful in life. We would never abandon our new born babies and let them fend for themselves. We like to hold onto them as long as we can. So the question that I asked myself last night was this: Do we as the Church, as followers of Christ abandon those who are babes in Christ and let them fend for themselves? Do we disciple the way the early church discipled? Have we as the modern church allowed ourselves to fill our churches with spiritual children instead of spiritually mature adults? What would be the average spiritual age of the adults in our churches today? What about the men? Is there any need for meat? 1 Cor. 3:2 The Apostle Paul Wrote the church at Corinth I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able. (emphasis mine)
Speaking from my own experience, when I accepted Christ in the sixth grade, my discipleship consisted of an award Bible with my name in it. That was my discipleship at home and my discipleship as a part of a church body. Does the church have a whole generation whose discipleship training consisted of much of the same? I know that I struggled as a youth minister trying to find the right 12 week program to disciple those new to Christ in our group. Not one program or booklet ever really worked. I believe that we must as a church take these babes in Christ and disciple the way Jesus did. Every invitation that Christ gave to the Disciples had to do with them following Him. Jesus told them to physically get up and come with me and I will give you a twelve week booklet that you can study. No. He told them to physically get up and come with me and I will show you what following me is all about. For three years Jesus worked and taught publicly and privately with these men. He lived discipleship. We must do the same. We need men and women in the church today who are willing to say come with me and I will show you and teach you. We need to get new believers out telling others about their encounter with the Savior. Not two years after they have been saved but two hours, two days. once again here we are again at John 4. What if the women at the well had waited for two months or two years before she told someone about her meeting with the Creator of the universe. In two days she had told the whole town. In John 9, Jesus uses some mud to heal a blind man and almost immediately this man is standing before the Pharisees. This man testified saying, All I know is I once was blind and now I see and Jesus is the one that healed me. He did not wait till it was easy or comfortable. He did not wait until the hype had died down. He stood in front of powerful people and began to teach them about the Savior. We must stop telling new Christians that all they need to do is to read God's Word and start showing them God's Word in the flesh as well. We need to stop commenting on the importance of the Great Commission and get them in the streets fufilling the Great Commission. They will understand because they were just there. Jesus said, "Come and follow me and I will MAKE you fishers of men!!!!!"