Challenges

Historian Arnold Toynbee, in his A Study of History, saw the growth and decline of civilizations as depending on how they responded to the challenges that were theirs.  He wrote that history is an succession of: challenge → response → new challenge arising from that response → response to the new challenge, etc.  A successful response leads to growth and to a new challenge, whereas an unsuccessful one brings the society around to a repeat of the previous challenge, and to decline if there are repeated failures to respond creatively.  

This sounds to me like a useful model for the growth and decline of churches and individuals. 

Toynbee lists five kinds of challenges for a people.  Referring to "the virtues of adversity," he treats each challenge as a stimulus to the growth of a people if they respond creatively to it:

1.  The stimulus of a difficult terrain to work in.

2.  The stimulus of new ground to explore, occupy and develop.

3.  The stimulus of a blow or setback that is inflicted.

4.  The stimulus of some kind of constant pressure.

5.  The stimulus of one's own handicaps and weaknesses.