iRisk: Stepping Out of My Comfort Zone

A pastor friend of mine often speaks of the life-cycle of a healthy person/church. Here is how it goes: Healthy things grow, growing things change, change requires risk, risk takes faith and faith makes things healthy.

This makes a lot of sense to me and I can easily jump on board, I mean I want to be healthy and growth is good, I understand that everything must change eventually, I also get faith, but one thing is pretty scary – it’s that risk thing. I mean risk is pretty scary, it’s …RISKY!

Really the truth is that most people would rather opt for the easy and comfortable life rather than the risky life. Risk is not natural for most of us, yet risk is the key to health. In fact, I believe that our ability to risk in our spiritual lives will be the difference-maker as we seek to have Jesus make an impact in and through our lives.

So this is risk – stepping out of our comfort zone and into God’s great adventure for us.

Building on the call of Jesus found in Matthew 22:37-39

And he said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. ³⁸ This is the great and first commandment. ³⁹ And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

we will discover how we can step out of our comfort zone and into authentic, loving relationships with God and those around us. This theme serves as a challenge for us as individuals and as a church family as we embark on our mission to become Real People, growing in Real Faith, impacting Real Life through God’s Grace.

During the year ahead, this blog will take a look at this challenge to risk. Over the next few weeks we will look at what makes risking possible as well as three key areas of risk for our lives. After that we will look at personal stories of risk as we step out of our comfort zone this year.

I hope you are challenged and encouraged by our adventure this year. Hang on; this is going to be a wild ride!