Dare to Grow

When Vanderbilt beat Alabama in football a few weeks ago, several of our friends texted us, wanting to know if our son Noah, who is a junior at Vandy, was there. “Please tell me Noah is there,” they texted us during the game. “Please tell me he’s on the field,” they texted us after the game. “Please tell me he’s in the goal post parade,” they texted us even later. Yep. He was there for all of that. It’s a night no doubt he’ll not soon forget.

I know there are some Bama fans in the congregation, so I know I need to tread lightly here. I had to chuckle when one of them took the long perspective and said, “well, it only happens every forty years or so.”

A few weeks before that big game, Tracy and I went over to Nashville for parents’ weekend. While we were waiting for one of the sessions to begin, my eyes fell on a seal with the university’s Latin motto: Crescere aude. As I’ve mentioned here before, it’s been a while since my high school Latin class, so I had to Google it. It means “dare to grow.”

Crescere – as in crescendo, to grow louder, larger. Aude – as in audacious, bold, daring.

Dare to grow.

As I continued to contemplate it, it seems like an excellent motto, not only for a university, but also for a Christian, a disciple of Christ, and for a congregation of which one is a part. Dare – be so bold and audacious – as to grow in your discipleship, in your spiritual growth, in your Christian maturity.

In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul issues a call for us to “dare to grow” toward “maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ. We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming. But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ…” (Ephesians 4:13-15).

The call of Christian discipleship is a call to dare to grow in our faith. So how dare you? How are you daring to grow in your own spiritual life, in your walk with Jesus? And how might we, as a congregation, dare to grow in our ministry in his name, our maturity in his love?