Spiritual Bulimia

I recently read an article in which an economist stated that he only finishes about 1 out of ten books he starts. Finally I felt justified for all the books I haven't finished.
The fact is, I just seem to lose interest once I get the "gist" of a book, or I never get interested at all. But if a book hits me, i can read and re-read it over the course of weeks. This one thing I know about myself- if an idea or thought or story captures me, it really has me. If not- forget about it. Move on.
I seem to take longer processing information, but afterwards, it often has a larger effect on me.

So many folks in the North American church today suffer from a "spiritual bulimia"- they take in so many Christian songs, Christian books, sermons, seminars and spiritual disciplines, but they they never really take the time to process, to digest. They bounce around from idea to idea, truth to truth, and never really let is soak in, saturate, and effect who they really are. They just throw it up to make room for another book.
It's always made me a little sad to see folks robbing themselves of deeper transformation.
All this to say that I recently attended what's called "The Leadership Summit" with our entire Advisory team (minus one). We heard a variety of great and challenging speakers from the church, business, education, politics, media and the public sectors. Names like Jimmy Carter, Collin Powell and Billy Hybels. It was an awesome shared experience- far too much to go into detail now. And, more importantly, far too much to process even during the summit. It was like taking a drink of water from a fire hydrant.
What is so great is that it was a shared experience, and thus something we can return to. So instead of simply stuffing ourselves with all these great speakers, we are taking the time to digest. Taking time to return to the sessions and the points raised.
I've found that the prolonged practice of spiritual bulimia leads to frustration, anxiety, and over time, profound spiritual anemia.
But taking the time to truly process, absorb, revisit and apply leads to great joy and transformation. So for the next several months we'll be taking apart and applying the truths we gleaned from the Summit to apply to the life of our new church.

And if you want, you can read about the Summit here.