From Passive to Participation

Most of the people who will be reading these words will know that A Legacy of Faith is a cooperative effort. It is the brainchild of our son, Adam , but he would be the first to tell anybody that it is not a “one man show.”

While he does most of the work, he has asked other members of our family to contribute to it from time to time. His wife, Leah, contributes blog posts; as do his sister Amber Tatum and her husband, Jeremiah Tatum. Mom and Dad even “get into the act” every so often. My wife, Donna, and I submit materials for the blog.

What some may not know is that A Legacy of Faith is a “multi-media” endeavor. One example of that is Adam and Leah produce a podcast every two weeks. [Editor’s note: Starting last week, we started experimenting with a weekly podcast on Thursdays.] In their words, the podcast is “…designed to help your family survive the day, plan for tomorrow, and always keep an eye on eternity.”

The purpose of this article is to comment on a phrase I heard during one of the podcasts. Adam and Leah were talking about some ideas for helping young children understand the importance of, and prepare for, worship. In a phrase that Adam said just kind of came to him as he was talking, he said the purpose was to move the children “from passive to participation.”

It has been weeks since I first heard that podcast and that phrase, but I keep thinking about it. It seems to me that this should be a worthy goal for any parent, elder, preacher, Bible class teacher — anybody. Should it not be at least a part of our purpose to guide people to a place where their worship, indeed their entire relationship with God, moves from passivity to participation?

It occurs to me, though, that, before I can help others do that, I need to look into the mirror. It would seem to me that it would be very difficult to encourage, exhort, or to use any other means to move people to participation if, in my own life, they see nothing but a person who is passive. 

Is it not true that James was trying to encourage people to move from passive to participation when he wrote the following?

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.  For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror.  For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like.  But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets, but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing (James 1:22-25, ESV, emphasis added)

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