How do I Recognize Affiliating Faith?

Affiliation. You have affiliation with those you associate with frequently. When we first start to formulate our faith, those we are closely connected to have a major impact on the things we believe.

In chapter three we looked at a biblical example of Affiliating Faith from John 4. It was the town's people, whom the Samaritan woman led to Jesus through their relationship with her. In this chapter we will go into more detail about how to identify this level of faith in yourself and in others.

Determining Affiliating Faith within yourself should be easy enough to do. If you believe what you believe because others believe it, you have Affiliating Faith. All it takes is some honesty with yourself. That's the hard part. Admitting your faith is based on what has been passed down to you by your peers. But if you can tell yourself the truth you can know whether you are an Affiliate believer or not. Have you truly searched out for yourself the beliefs you currently hold, or do you believe what you do because of what others have told you? That is the acid test.

It is rather easy to tell if you have Affiliating Faith. But seeing Affiliating Faith in other believers is more arduous because we have to rely on external indicators. Jesus could see into people's hearts and know what degree of faith each had. You and I do not know what is in people's hearts. We have to rely on the peripheral signs to determine where another disciple is in their walk with God. For that reason, we need to learn the external indicators of Affiliating Faith.

A word of caution before we learn these indicators. There is a potential danger with learning this terminology and relating it to members of your congregation, that your motive could be wrong. What are you going to do with the skill I am about to teach you? Please do not use these skills to "pigeon-hole" church members. Do not take the levels of faith you are learning and use them to categorize people by over-simplifying their walk with God.

There are two problems with doing that. First, faith is not that simple and second, people do not like being labeled. The purpose of this material is to enable church leaders (in particular) to know where the members, over whom they have influence, stand regarding their faith. Please use this for good and not for harm. Learn to recognize Affiliating believers so that you can give them some encouragement and guide them to search out their faith.

There are three basic external signs that help us to recognize Affiliating Faith in one of Jesus' followers.

SIGN #1
Monotonous prayer

The way a person prays and the things he or she prays for says a lot about their faith. Affiliate believers lack freshness and spontaneity in their conversation with the Creator. Their prayers are repetitious to the point you could probably mouth what they are going to say next right along with them.

You can tell by listening to them pray that their walk with God lacks depth and intimacy. Jesus told us,

“And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words.

- Matthew 6:7

The Greek word for "repetition" means babbling, to utter empty words, vain repetitions, to repeat the same thing over and over. Jesus warned us not to do this and yet some denominations today encourage repetitious prayer to the detriment of their members. They teach rote sayings to be mindlessly uttered during a worship service or in individual prayer. Doing so hinders the worshipper from having a more personal relationship with the Father. God doesn't want to hear the same thing a hundred times with no thought behind what is being said.

In this same passage some have taken the example prayer that Jesus gave to us, known as the Lord's Prayer, and used it for what Jesus just warned against. Jesus said in Matthew 6:9, "This, then, is HOW you should pray," [emphasis mine], not, "This, then, is WHAT you should pray." Memorizing Jesus' prayer is fine but repeating it over and over to God does not make any sense. God doesn't need to hear it over and over. He wants to hear our personal, sincere thoughts. Prayer is just talking to God.

Since Affiliative believers are not searching out a deeper relationship with the Father, they prefer memorized prayers and you can tell as you listen that they are relying on what is commonly prayed by those around them. Affiliating believers are also not likely to pray about things that are beyond the realm of human possibility. Their faith is often too shallow to ask God to do something that is supernatural. They pray for things that, given time, are likely to happen naturally.

Now, here is where the warning about pigeon-holing someone comes in. If you hear a brother leading a prayer during worship and you notice he has a tendency to say the same things each time, it does not automatically mean he has Affiliating Faith. It is not as easy as it looks to get up and lead prayer in front of the whole congregation, and if the one doing the praying is nervous, it is natural to fall back on what is familiar. Cut him a little slack.

It is good to encourage prayer leaders not to be vainly repetitious when praying in front of the congregation. Unfortunately, when recruiting those who serve during worship, most congregations are just glad there is someone willing to serve in each capacity. Ideally, prayer leaders should have spiritual maturity and should lead a heart-felt prayer, but that doesn't always happen. As a general rule, the way an individual talks to God can tell you quite a bit about that person's relationship with Him.

SIGN #2
Resistance to change

That means change of any kind. Any mature Christian will resist changes that are unscriptural, but Christians whose faith is based on affiliation are caught in a trap of familiarity. Even scripturally sound change appears as a threat and the Affiliating Faith members will be opposed to change even if it is for the good of the congregation. They cannot differentiate between righteous change and unrighteous.

But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.

- Hebrews 5:14

Jesus told the Pharisees that you cannot pour new wine into old wineskins, Mark 2:22. When Jesus started changing the way things were done in Israel, the Pharisees were the primary force that tried to stop Him. Guess what kind of faith the Pharisees had. The system by which the Pharisees received their training fits the description of Affiliating Faith.

Every Pharisee went through rigorous training under a faculty of Jewish scholars known as the Tannaim. Rabbinical oral traditions had been passed down and recorded in scrolls known as the Mishnah. The Pharisees were taught from the Mishnah rather than directly from God's Word. They didn't search the scriptures for themselves. If the Pharisees had searched the scriptures, they would have recognized Jesus as the coming Messiah and welcomed His changes. Some, like Nicodemus, actually did search and discover the false doctrines ascribed to the Messiah. Most of them did not. They stayed at Affiliating Faith. They saw Jesus' teaching as a contradiction to their long-held traditions and opposed His changes.

In the same way, Affiliate believers in our day oppose change of any kind. Why? Because they have not studied through what they believe thoroughly enough to be comfortable with any variance from the norm. If you want to find out who has Affiliating Faith in your congregation, just change the order of the worship service. Have four prayers instead of three. Have the Lord's Supper after the sermon instead of before or vice versa. Announce that next Sunday the congregation is meeting at 3:00 in the afternoon instead of 11:00 in the morning.

None of these are unscriptural changes, but those with Affiliating Faith are less likely to believe that. The Christians who have searched out their faith will acknowledge that the change is biblical and may oppose it for some other reason. The Affiliate Christian will not be able to give a scriptural objection to the change but will oppose it anyway. You will soon find out who knows why they believe the things they believe.

SIGN #3
Canned comments

Here are some examples of canned comments to common church questions.

• "What is a parable?" "An earthly story with a heavenly meaning."
• "What is faith?" "The evidence of things hoped for; the assurance of things not seen."
• "What is the gospel?" "The death, burial and resurrection."
• "What is hope?" "Desire plus expectation."

Affiliate believers rely on regurgitated answers to typical Bible questions because for them, no searching is taking place outside of the church assemblies. Bible learning in church assemblies (class and worship) is where their affiliative foundation lies.

Those with Affiliating Faith will frequently say things like, "People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care." "We speak where the Bible speaks and we are silent where the Bible is silent." "Lord willing and the Creek don't rise." "Separate and apart from the Lord's Supper."

These canned sayings are correct. There is nothing unscriptural about any of these, but they can be mindlessly repeated without any real learning taking place. It is like a student in school who memorizes the answers just long enough to write them on a test and then forgets about it. No learning is taking place.

Those with more mature faith are able to come up with freshly insightful comments in the class setting. If you want to find out who has Affiliating Faith just listen. By listening to the comments that are made in Bible classes and group Bible studies you can tell who is spending time in God's Word strengthening their relationship with the Creator, and who is merely repeating what they hear others saying.

These three indicators are nothing more than indicators. They indicate who MIGHT have Affiliating Faith, but they can be helpful in identifying which church members need encouragement to search out their faith. This skill can be productive but, it can also be detrimental if you use it the wrong way. Let me warn you one more time. Whatever you do, do not exploit this information by branding or pigeon-holing people.

This instruction is not designed to give you labels to use to faction the church. I am teaching you this terminology so that you will be equipped to enhance your own spirituality. Work on your own faith first. Make sure the log is out of your own eye. Then you can assist others in growing their faith. Working with others on spiritual growth requires a constant evaluation of our own motives. Use this knowledge to do good and not harm.