Spiritual State VS Expression

One of the issues I have been wrestling with regards whether the new emphases we see pop up from time to time are really a new understanding of faith and community or just another expression of faith and community. We have heard about healthy church, emergent church, missional church, and on and on. But my question is whether these are more about expressions of faith rather than a true change in spiritual state.

In the diagram below I have tried to map my thinking. In the Spiritual State column I have tried to demonstrate that everyone who calls themselves a Christian has a spiritual state that falls on the continuum between nominal and completely in love with Jesus. In my diagram I have rather optimistically drawn an arrow showing a move to in love with Jesus. The second column represents expressions of faith. You could fill in your own here and the list would actually be much more than three.

I am trying to make several points here. First it is possible for people in any spiritual state to give an outward expression of faith that may look the same as any other person on the spiritual state continuum. Just getting people to express their faith in a certain way does not really mean you have changed their spiritual state. However, I would agree with several authors who believe that such expression can lead to spiritual growth. Even someone high on the spiritual state will probably find nourishment in their faith expression.

A second thought is that someone who is in love with Jesus is probably more likely to express their faith than a nominal Christian. I've met people who I found out later had a significant other in their lives. But it took awhile. I have met others whose behavior made it quite obvious they had a significant other in their lives right from the beginning. Obviously personality comes into play but people who are head-over-heels in love express it.

So what do we make of all these trends like the missional church? Is being missional just an expression of someone who is in love with Jesus? If someone is in love with Jesus are they going to be missional? Are these trends simply pointing out blind spots? Like a husband who loves his wife but doesn't realize he is hurting her in some way until a friend points it out? Are some expressions of faith more likely to help our spiritual state than others?