Grow Your Faith
Rancho Vista Church is committed to “knowing” God, “growing” in God, and “serving” God. We want all people to know how much God loves them. We want a growing faith for all of us, which leads us to serving in such a way where we become the hands and feet of Jesus on Earth. So when we use the word “grow” we are not only talking about reading the Bible and going to worship, we also are inviting you to a faith that grows in the day-to-day chaos of our lives.
When things are going well, it doesn’t require a lot of faith to trust God. But when life turns messy, is your faith leading you to depend on God, or do you put your trust in something else? God uses all the things in our lives to grow us and we want to invite you to consider growing your faith by using:
Practical Teaching
When our acts of faith intersect with God's faithfulness, our faith grows. From Jesus' parable of the wise and foolish builders, we find that hearing and learning are not enough. The value is in the application, because in the end it's obedience that makes all the difference.
““Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.””
Important Relationships
If you are like most people, you can't tell your life story without referencing people who played significant roles along the way. The same is true of your faith story. So we invite you to get involved in a Life Group and begin placing people who are “growing” in faith around you.
Walk with the wise and become wise, for a companion of fools suffers harm. Proverbs 13:20
Regular Spiritual Disciplines
Since strong human relationships are held together through discipline and self-control, we should not be too surprised to discover that our relationship with God requires the element of discipline as well.
The notion of discipline being essential to an authentic, heart-felt relationship may seem strange. After all, discipline is about routine, while a relationship is fluid. But if you think about it, every healthy relationship is held together partly by disciplined actions and routines. Perhaps the easiest way to understand the importance of discipline in a relationship is to consider a relationship without boundaries. All self-imposed boundaries are a form of discipline. Imagine a marriage in which neither partner practices self-control. The marriage would eventually deteriorate. Our relationship with God shares a similar dynamic. Abandoning these practices leaves God at the periphery of our lives. Regularly practicing these disciplines, however, draws us into a closer, more intimate, more dependent relationship with our heavenly Father. We invite you to a life of generosity and systematic prayer to grow your faith.
“So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”
“Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed. ”
Personal Ministry
If you have ever volunteered to do something for which you felt totally unqualified, then you already know what such an experience can do for your faith. One of the primary ways God grows our faith is through personal ministry. Personal ministry enables us to experience God’s power in our weakness. We may feel ill-equipped and unprepared, but these opportunities are incredibly rich experiences through which God grows our faith. At first, you may perform an act of personal ministry or service in order to benefit someone else. In hindsight, though, most people feel like they are the ones that have benefited the most. We invite you to get involved by serving.
Pivotal Times
Life is full of surprises – some good, some not so good. But each unexpected event that comes our way is actually a divine opportunity to grow. We want to encourage you and come alongside you and lead you to a full understanding of how loved and valuable you are. C.S. Lewis writes, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.
““Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.¨”