Butterfly Environment

 Not far from Terri and I, here in South Florida, we have several “Butterfly Gardens.” They are well managed, mini-parks designed specifically to create an environment where butterflies can grow and reproduce. While they are pleasant places to stroll for humans they are designed with the butterfly in mind.

The butterfly habitat needs to be relatively sunny and out of the wind. A successful butterfly habitat will contain the plants favored by both caterpillars and butterflies. One often needs a variety of plants like Queen Anne’s Lace, violets, marigolds, and maybe even milkweed for the caterpillars to eat, since they are able to chew their food. In particular, monarch caterpillars eat milkweed because it makes them an unpleasant-tasting meal to predators. For the butterflies, which are able to suck and are unable to chew, you need nectar plants with different colors of flowers, such as zinnias, lilacs, and the butterfly bush.

As a Church we might be tempted to think we can merely provide some biblical content and maybe some “how-to” tips and people should grow spiritually as a result.  But, more goes into helping to create an environment of growth for disciples than providing knowledge.

Spiritual growth of believers should be the goal of any church. We are to reach unbelievers and introduce them to Christ, but the end goal according to the command of Jesus is making disciples. It would even make sense then, that as much as we count the offering or attendance on Sundays, if we want to know we are being successful as a church, we have to somehow “count” our success at making disciples. Yet spiritual growth is a difficult subject and can be hard to measure because different diciples, like butterflies, have different needs.

Right now there are people in my church at 3 stages of spiritual growth:

·         Those that need to mature and are not maturing.

·         Those that need to mature and have stalled.

·         Those that need to mature and are maturing.

To be cont…