“Your Christian development can be divided into two main areas of concentration:
Learning to follow Christ and learning to make Christ known.
Following Jesus involves repentance, baptism, reading and studying God’s Word, obedience and surrender (AKA – just do what He says already!), and accountability. Growth in Christ is impossible without those basics, but your personal growth alone is not the objective of Christianity.
As much as God loves you, He’s really not content with just having you or doing things for you, so it’s imperative you grow up so you can effectively make Christ known to others. Our God wants the rest of humanity, too, and He wants to use your converted and sanctified life to reach them! Making Christ known starts with a willingness to identify yourself with Jesus. That involves becoming an active part of a church body, serving others, discovering and using your spiritual gifts, knowing and sharing the gospel message and your testimony as often as you have opportunity, and inviting people to be a part of what has made a difference in your own life.
These are the parts and pieces that make for an active and effective Christian life vs. a fairly passive and useless religious life spent attending church, listening to sermons, singing songs and waiting to be asked to do something. I pray you’re one of the Christ-followers that brings glory to His name and Kingdom because, quite frankly, we’ve got to shrink the ranks of the Christian onlookers and temporary volunteers.”
– guest blog by Susie Walther, The Well Bible Study Ministry (Tampa, FL)
Mindy Clemons 
wow how right on is that!! talk about getting us out of our complacency box and bringin’ it!! i am experiencing how amazing it is to share about going to bible study with the ladies here and seeing God work in their lives just by me being obedient to God’s prompting to say something to them!! May we all be like Samuel and say, “Yes Lord, I hear you, I am your servant!”