If you haven’t heard Christ’s living words burning in your heart, it’s easy to follow the herd. Are you being herded?

When God blazes a new trail in your heart, it often creates a mismatch with religious tradition. Jesus’ way or the religious way? When the ways part as they sometimes do, which will you follow?

Christianity began as a movement of fiery trailblazers. It was never meant to be a calculated method of smoke and mirrors. Be a trailblazer. Follow Jesus (the new and living Way) beyond programs and traditions into direct interaction with Him. (Jesus is the GPS — the On-The-Go Driving Directions App.) A church that has trouble welcoming trailblazers easily gets stuck in form and tradition.

Christianity is about following Christ out of the wilderness of sin and experiencing a new, holy lifestyle from within. Unfortunately, church is often hostile to spiritual pioneers and inner engineers who seek to follow the risen Jesus beyond religious tradition. But how can the God of surprises fit into a church that allows no surprises?

When church lumps troublemakers and trailblazers into one group, it has lost its way. Those who sit as passive spectators on God’s highway easily become roadkill. Those who follow Jesus out of the ruts become strong.

Christians claim to see the light. Those who see the light ought to be bold spiritual trailblazers not passive church spectators. Christians are called to fight with the Light, not to light up the fright.

Since Christ healed the breach between people and God, His followers should be the most creative people on earth, not the most boring. If church is in decline in the Western world, perhaps it is time to pioneer a fresh way of Christian gathering.

Somehow church became a prisoner of tradition instead of a pioneer of transformation. Life is always changing and growing. Anything that doesn’t change is dead.

To grow, people need to try things out. When church offers the opportunity to experiment with its teachings, it will become exciting. Their experiments will then verify the teachings and make them even more real to people.