If you are a parent, you will know how thrilling and tiring having a newborn is. From the first moment you lay eyes on them, you are in awe of this new life. You do all you can to make sure the baby is safe and comfortable.

The thought of leaving a newborn baby to fend for herself, expecting her to feed and clean herself, is absurd. Parents who neglect their child are charged for child abuse and we understand why. It is every parent’s responsibility to take care of the child they have brough into this world.

The same goes for our spiritual babies.

Child neglect in our physical world is cruel and unthinkable. Yet, we do it time and again to our spiritual babies.

Are We Neglecting Our Spiritual Newborns?

As a church, we do a good job of getting the spiritual baby born again. But how many of us have a plan for nurturing the spiritual newborn till they are mature?

Without a plan to nurture our spiritual newborns, we are guilty of neglect. As a spiritual parent, it is our responsibility to provide spiritual feeding and guidance to their spiritual lives.

Newborns cannot remain newborns forever. They will have to grow up and help shoulder responsibility and give back to the family. It is the same way in our spiritual lives.

We cannot leave spiritual growth to happen by chance. If the world knows how to put us in schools and formal education, we need to do that with our spiritual young too.

Where do we start?

This is why creating a discipleship track for your local church is so important. A discipleship track helps you to identify key characteristics of growth at every stage of the believer’s spiritual walk.

At Tabernacle of Joy, we identified 4 stages of growth for every believer – Learn to Trust, Discover to Honor, Serve and Mature and Impact by Investing. Curricula is tailor made to meet the needs of every growth stage. We also identify the fruit and expression of maturity at each stage so growth is measurable. See here an article about Developing a Discipleship Track.

Does your church have a discipleship track? What does it look like? Can you identify spiritual growth and maturity in your members? How would you do that? Share your comments below as we learn together.

Pastor Timothy Lee, Lead Pastor of Tabernacle of Joy holds webinars on How to Develop a Discipleship Track for Your Local Church. Look out for upcoming classes here or simply sign-up for a private session with your own local church leaders.