I’ve been very blessed by our church’s approach to wedding theology and daily living. Every two weeks, our “care group”, made up of a diverse group of about 10, meets for about 3 hours on Sunday. We spend a large portion of the time discussing the sermon we all heard earlier that day, focusing on personal application to what’s going on in our lives. In this way, our conversation centers on the Word and we can challenge and encourage one another with the good theology given to us by our faithful pastor. I’ve seen many times how this structure keeps me from treating sermons simply as intellectual material and demands that I examine my life by the preached Word. I’d strongly recommend this practice either as a formal structure in other churches or informally if this is not possible.

This is very important. When I was in seminary, I became really worn out talking about theology. Everything was a debate. God was not glorified, in my opinion. Theology was separated from life and biblical community and it was just a bunch of ideas. This is an excellent way to connect our view of God with our behavior.