Commitment involves change, growth, fervour, enthusiasm. 'Enthusiasm' comes from two Greek words - en (in) theos (God), so the word literally means 'one possessed by God (or the gods)'. Enthusiasm literally means being full of God. Christian enthusiasts are concerned above everything else with what God wants (Matthew 6:33). Being a Christian is the most exciting thing in all the world!

Charles Schwab, the American industrialist who rose from poverty to put the US Steel Corporation together said 'You can succeed at almost anything for which you have unlimited enthusiasm.' Emerson said, 'Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.' And here's another quote from my desk calendar: 'Years wrinkle the skin, but lack of enthusiasm wrinkles the soul.' Which reminds me of Thoreau's 'None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.'

Most people get enthusiastic about something, as you will discover at a football match, or in a disco, or at a political convention. However, as Billy Graham once said, 'It is very strange that the world accepts enthusiasm in every realm but the spiritual.' Those who have achieved great things for God have been people of infectious zeal and unquenchable enthusiasm. John the Baptist was one of these. Jesus said he was a bright and shining light, a light that blazed and shone. But John the Baptist had earlier said that Christ would baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire. How do we get on fire for God? There's an apocryphal saying of Jesus: 'The one who is near me is near the fire'. That is the answer.

The early Christians were people on fire for God. 'We can't help speaking,' they said, of the things we have seen and heard.' Jeremiah was like that. He could not keep God's message to himself. It was like a fire burning deep within him. He'd tried to hold it back but couldn't (Jeremiah 20:9).

In growing churches - everywhere - the commitment- expectations are higher than in declining churches. The second-largest Pentecostal congregation in Australia expects twenty (yes, 20) hours of ministry each week from each member. And that church is booming!

Generally speaking, leaders get the level of commitment they expect. Quintilian laid it down as a first principle of rhetoric that the orator who wishes to set the people on fire must himself be burning. Because church-people are in a sense a pastor's employers, there's a temptation for the pastor to soften the prophetic side of ministry, opting to pitch the commitment-level within the 'comfort zone' of the people. Where ecclesiastical wineskins are bereft of new wine, the church becomes stale, lifeless. There may be order, but as British Anglican David Watson used to say often, it's the orderliness of the cemetery. The oyster may be there, but the pearl has gone.

Now there's another side to all this. 'Dead churches are afraid of enthusiasm': that's true, but enthusiasm has a history that justifies this fear to some extent. 'Enthus- iasts' were sometimes people who had plenty of heat but not too much light. They got all excited about minor things. Fanatics are enthusiastic, but such enthusiasm can sometimes lead to stupidity or even violence. Paul said before he was a Christian he was zealous: but his zeal was misdirected; he persecuted the church.

W B Yeats in his poem 'The Second Coming' says 'the best lack all conviction' while 'the worst are full of passionate intensity.' We must search for the dividing line between enthusiasm and fanaticism - being inspired by God or the devil. A person without judgment is like a car without brakes; but a person without enthusiasm is like a car without a motor.

The great Presbyterian James Stewart said: 'The supreme need of the church is the same in the twentieth century as in the first: it is people on fire for Christ.'

O Thou who camest from above The pure celestial fire to impart, Kindle a flame of sacred love, On the mean altar of my heart!

A cold church is like cold butter: it doesn't spread very easily.

Discuss: 'Enthusiasm is more caught than taught.' How true is this?