A journey is always an exciting time.  It is something we look forward to with great anticipation.  We plan for this journey, we make all the arrangements, and we even take our video camera so we can remember all the great faces, sounds, and places.  It is a time when we are intentional and deliberate in every aspect of the trip, leaving little chance.  Knowing this to be so, why do we leave our spiritual life and development to chance?  After all, it is a journey as well and one of much greater importance.  Yet we rarely think intentionally about this journey, and we spend little time investing in it.  Somehow we believe it will just happen.  “If I hang out at the church and around church people, surely I will grow and develop as a believer.”  However, if we examine the current state of the church, we see the error of this thought.  Believers are less spiritually developed in our day, and as a result are poorly equipped to deal with life.  We see the pain of this reality around us every day, as the lives of believers look more like those of the world.  Something is not working!

 I believe one of the greatest challenges for ministry staffs around our nation is to address and even change this reality.  We need to bring the concept of growing and maturing believers back to the forefront of the church.  We must become intentional from the preaching and teaching to the design and planning of the church.  We must communicate the expectation of the church, and there must be a seamless movement of people through this process of maturation. 

So here is the important question: how does this process work, and what does it look like at Arlington Baptist Church?  In the following pages we are going to reveal how this happens in this fellowship.  We invite you to see what this journey looks like, and to join us as we live it out and take hold of everything God desires for us.

God Bless,

Pastor Joe Newton