3 Steps To A Spectacular Kid’s Ministry Group That Matters

3 Steps To A Spectacular Kid’s Ministry Group That Matters

  

Reading Time: 3 min 3 sec

 

I dropped my head in my hands and sighed. A sense of dissatisfaction eked into my soul. I must be missing something. Why is it that every Monday starts with such a promise? I have these great intentions of working ahead, dreaming, evaluating, or even time spent recruiting.

Instead, my week seems to fly by in an endless cycle of crisis management. I feel like I am constantly behind as I run to fill volunteer slots, send out newsletters, attend staff meetings, and prep for upcoming events. 

I want to build a Kids ministry that is more than checking a box. I want to create a ministry where kids’ lives are transformed. If only I could stop the relentless clock of Sunday morning long enough to figure out how to get there. This isn’t what I signed up for…

Today, we will talk about three steps to building a spectacular ministry group that actually matters.

Point #1- Pro-Active Vs. Reactive   

Point #2- Wonder

Point #3- Seek Wisdom 

mom life

1. Point #1-Pro-Active vs. Reactive  

 

A quick stop at your local bookstore will overwhelm you with the endless variety of leadership styles available. We could easily dive down the leadership rabbit hole, never to return.  We want to focus on briefly addressing a reactive and proactive style of ministry.

A reactive leader spends their days running around putting out fires. They are great at problem-solving. And though they passionately care about their ministry, they can live in the moment and never take the time for big-picture planning. This leadership style, left unchecked, can be stressful, and exhausting, and can quickly lead to burnout.

A proactive leader on the other hand can see the big picture. They are gifted at making sure they meet their long-term goals. They can get so caught up in planning for the future that they can struggle to address daily issues promptly.

I am here to advocate that as leaders, we need to develop both our proactive and reactive skill sets. Have you ever heard the phrase, “What gets talked about gets done?” My variation on that is, “What gets scheduled gets done.” We need to block out and protect time in our weekly schedules to focus on our long-term goals, otherwise daily tasks will dictate our ministries.

At the same time, we need to develop healthy flexibility, understanding that the needs of our pastoral role do not always match a pre-planned schedule. A healthy ministry can’t run on autopilot. Like anything else, it needs regular evaluation and maintenance.

Next Steps- Are you a reactive or proactive leader? If you have not already, block out time on your schedule to focus on evaluation and long-term planning. Set up safeguards to protect that time on your schedule (i.e. set a reminder on your phone, turn your phone to silent, and treat it as a standing meeting on your schedule).  Check out Trello. It is a free, visual time management software that has been very helpful in my own ministry setting.

 

2. Point #2- Wonder

 

You have blocked out your schedule…now what? These last two steps are not in any sequential order. I would encourage you to write down your vision or goal for your kid’s ministry. Start with this exercise if you are struggling to articulate a vision for your ministry.

What are the characteristics of a child that has just graduated from your ministry? What do you want them to have experienced, learned, and developed while in your kid’s ministry group? What tools do you want them equipped with?

Imagine one of your families has just graduated their last child from kid’s ministry. What would you have wanted them to have experienced, learned, and developed as a family in your church? Duplicate this process with your volunteer team as well.

Don’t rush through this process. Give yourself time to research, to learn how kids connect best with Jesus. Don’t forget to incorporate your church’s vision and purpose in your overall plan for kid’s ministry. You want to confirm that your vision for the kid’s ministry is in step with the overall vision of the church. The last thing you want to do is to create a silo ministry that is not working in tandem with the rest of the church. The vision for your ministry is the foundation upon which everything else is built. This can sound overwhelming, but as the saying goes, “Rome was not built in a day.”

Next Steps: Check out organizations like the Children’s Spirituality Summit for the latest research on the Christian spiritual development of kids. They offer a conference every year where pastors and educators encourage, brainstorm, and learn together. They also publish all of the keynote topics from the conference in a book which you can find on Amazon.  I buy it every year it’s that helpful.

 

3.Point #3-Seek Wisdom

Even the best vision cannot happen in isolation. We need to take the time to hear from God. It can be challenging to hear from him on a deadline. I would encourage you to utilize several days of your blocked-out time to create space to be with Jesus. Take a prayer retreat or a walk to a park.

If you don’t do this regularly, here are some helpful tips to get you started.

Silence your cell phone (or leave it at home). Go for a walk, sit at a park, or in a quiet place. Nature is one of the primary ways where people meet with God. 

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Spend a period in silence, practicing listening for his voice. Present your heart to God. Sit with him and ask him for his timing, direction, and wisdom. Take your time, and don’t rush this experience.

Talk with your uplink or boss and express your vision for ministry. Ask for their input and wisdom. What do they see that you don’t see?  Spend time in prayer, asking God for his wisdom and grace. Discuss the best time and way to implement the new vision. People have a hard time overall with change. So give yourself and others grace as you move slowly, faithfully implementing God’s vision for your kid’s ministry.

Putting in the work by scheduling time, envisioning a better ministry and seeking out wisdom takes effort but it will provide a framework for a transformational ministry. My prayer for you is that your children’s ministry will thrive and you will witness your kids connecting with Jesus in powerful ways each week.

 

If you want to know how to get started in transforming your Kid’s Ministry: grab our 8 Primary Ways Kid’s Meet With Jesus Guide (below). And join the MIW Community of children’s pastors who are hungry to lead a transformative Children’s Ministry. 

What about you? What is your #1 issue when it comes to developing your Kid’s Ministry?   Leave a comment, and don’t forget to follow Most Important Work on Pinterest!   

 

How to Make God A Priority Now

How to Make God A Priority Now

  

Reading Time: 5 min 8 sec

Do you ever wonder how to make God a priority? Do you ever feel like your relationship with God takes permanent residence on the back burner of your life? 

 

The early seasons of The Office, a sitcom based on typical office dynamics, are a great picture of what life feels like before encountering a deep relationship with Jesus; everything looks drab, lifeless, and boring. You watch the employees express their feelings of discontent, and see the hopelessness on their faces as they move about their everyday tasks just waiting for the clock to hit 5pm.  They desire more to life (even a different office) but they don’t how to get there.

 

Do you ever feel stuck when it comes to your relationship with God?  You want to want more of Jesus but life just seems to be getting in the way?

 

Your time with him can consist of scattered prayers, hit or miss devotions, or primarily when you make it to a Sunday morning service.  You might hear an uplifting sermon, or the worship really seems to resonate, and your heart is stirred with a desire for more.  However, the wet blanket reality of Monday morning falls and all thoughts of the divine fly out the window. A deep life with God can feel like a dream, but not a pressing priority when you have kids to feed, dirty jerseys to wash, and projects at work hanging over your head. 

 

When you finally grab a moment for yourself, the last thing you want to do is crack open your current devotional because it can feel like more work.

 

You feel guilty, discontented, and stuck.  So how do you live a vibrant, exciting, life with God?  

  1. How to Increase Your Desire For God

2. How to Create Elbow Room

3. How to Live Life In Community 

 

 

1. How to Increase Your Desire For God 

 

Seriously, the Holy Spirit is your best friend when it comes to making God a priority in your life (actually, everything laughing)  making God a priority in your life. As we journey down the road towards deeper intimacy with the Father, we have no clue what we truly need. NONE. ZIP. NADDA. We might think we do but we really don’t.

 

You see the beautiful thing about a relationship with the Holy Spirit is that he has our best interests at heart. He knows our innermost selves, the part that we don’t even fully understand, and if we work with him, he will so graciously lead us by the hand into deeper intimacy with the God.

 

The fact is we can’t self-help our way into a deeper relationship with God. Inner transformation is 100% the Holy Spirit’s job (trust me, we don’t want it).  

What we are responsible for is actively participating in what the Holy Spirit is already doing in our lives.  

 

So how do we make God a priority in our life?  First, by asking the Holy Spirit for an increased desire for God.  

 

Every morning, start the day with this simple prayer, “Father, increase my hunger for you today. Let me desire you above all things.”

 

Seriously, it all begins with prayer. Prayer is an active participation in what the Holy Spirit is doing in your life. When we ask, he is faithful to answer.

 

2.  Create Elbow Room 

 

 If we want to experience freedom, peace, and the lavish, unconditional love of God, we need to create some elbow room for the Holy Spirit to work. If we look at our lives, there is so much noise, it’s no wonder we feel like we can’t hear God’s voice, we barely can hear our own.  

 

I love how Dallas Willard put it, when he said, “You Must consider why you have no time to spend with the Father.”

 

This is not meant to be a shame-based question but a time of exploration.  What things fill up your days?

 

Choosing to make that intentional decision every day to take ten to twenty minutes and spend it with God is where a deeper intimacy with him develops. You get a taste for the over the top love and acceptance of the Father and instead of trying to remember to spend time with God, you want to include him in every facet of your day.

 

 This quote from C.S. Lewis really encapsulates this idea, “It’s funny how day by day nothing changes but when you look back everything is different.”

 

A life-changing, deep relationship with God all starts with a simple choice every day. To say yes to spending time with God, even when it feels like nothing is happening or it’s a waste of time.

 

It’s amazing that when you ask the Holy Spirit for a deeper desire for more of God, it actually happens.  And it gets easier to make space each day to spend time with God.   

 

3. Live Life Together In Community

Life with God is designed to happen not in isolation, but in community with others. I cannot stress this enough, you need to have authentic relationships with other Christians who are going for it in their relationships with Jesus.  

 

Ruth Haley Barton talks about the power of life in community this way, “The purpose of journeying together in spiritual friendship and spiritual community (whether there are just two of you or whether you are in a small group) is to listen to one another’s desire for God, to nurture that desire in each other and to support one another in seeking a way of life that is consistent with that desire.”

You need the support structure of a Christian community. You need Spiritual Friendships based on trust where you can be real.   

There is a well-known story (with multiple variations), about a Sunday School, where the teacher asked the children this question, “What is brown, furry, has a big tail, and collects nuts for winter?” One boy piped up and said, “Well, it sounds like a squirrel, but I am going to go ahead and say, Jesus.”

We need a Spiritual Community where we feel safe to say the real thing, not the “right thing”.   We can find this by regularly participating in a church community through services, small groups, serving others, and close spiritual friendships.

 

This foundation is not optional but CRITICAL to your overall growth and maturity as a Christian.

 

We need others to come alongside us and affirm what God is doing in our lives. When we develop relationships of trust and vulnerability it allows others to speak Gods truth into our lives. Spiritual Friendships encourage us to press on in pursuit of a love relationship with Jesus. 

 

So how do you make God a priority in your life?  Start off by daily asking for a deeper desire for him, create elbow room for the Holy Spirit to work, and live life together in community with others.

 

Wondering where to go from here?  Here are some of my favorite resources to get started:

If you want to know how to get started in living a deep life with God; grab our Deeper Life Beginners Guide (below). And join our community of moms who are hungry for more Jesus in their lives and in the lives of their families. 

 

 

What about you? What is your #1 issue when it comes to creating elbow room for God in your life?   Leave a comment, and don’t forget to follow Most Important Work on Pinterest!   

What Happened When I Got Sick and Tired of Superficial Faith

What Happened When I Got Sick and Tired of Superficial Faith

  

Reading Time: 5 min 38 sec

Do you as you get done with the endless rounds of church services, volunteering shifts, small groups, and food pantry donations, ever stop short and ask yourself, “Is this all there is?”.   

 

Seriously, do you ever feel like a poser always projecting this vibrant relationship with God when frankly you are not even sure you could tell the difference between his voice and the pizza you had for dinner last night?

 

Do you ever feel like all your running around for God leaves you feeling even emptier inside?  Your devotions and all your knowledge of God feel pointless because it never seems to transfer into real life?

 

You feel discouraged, unmotivated, and maybe even a little guilty. This is not what you imagined a living breathing, relationship with God would look like.

 

I was there. I had reached the end of what I could work up for God. My endless doing for God felt exhausting, overwhelming and never enough.   My relationship felt stagnant like someone had pressed pause, and no conference on the earth was going to change that outcome.  

 

I grew more desperate as the dissatisfaction continued to grow. There had to be more to a relationship with God than my current experience of him.

 

So, what do you do when you reach a wall in your relationship with God that you can’t scale, you can bury under, and you can’t knock down?

 

  1. The Desperation

2. The Invitation

3. The Transformed Life

 

 

1. The Desperation

 

I grew up in the church. I was there every time the doors were open. I was involved in various ministries, attended all the classes, and pursued learning as much as I could about God and how to be a good Christian.

 

I went on staff at a local church and served as part of their elementary team and later as their youth pastor. I created and led events that were designed to help students and their families grow deeper in their faith.  I was all about producing more, accomplishing more, and working more all in an effort to prove my worth not only to others but to God.  

 

I would run from conference to event to workshop hunting for an encounter with God all the while burying this deep sense of dissatisfaction and exhaustion. I believed the lie that “good Christians” (especially in ministry) don’t give up, they stick with it. I found myself running from one thing to the next trying to serve my way into encountering God’s love and approval.

 

If you would have asked me I would have told you that without a doubt God’s love for me was not conditional on my performance. And that there was nothing I could do to make God love me any more or any less than he did right now. I  thought I believed it, but I obviously hadn’t experienced God’s transforming love. 

 

Can I tell you that it is exhausting to try and outperform God? Okay, that might be a little over dramatic (:) but it felt like the harder I “ministered for Jesus” the more dissatisfied I became.  My quiet times felt stale and lifeless and I couldn’t figure out where to go from here.

 

2. The Invitation

 

I had grown up hearing stories of men and women of faith. Who not only exemplified the fruits of the spirit (the holy grail of the Christian life) but who even more surprisingly had actual deep relationships with Jesus.

They had actual conversations with God which were captivating because if I were honest, my conversations with Jesus were more me talking and him listening.  They completely surrendered their lives to God, it wasn’t always pretty, and yet shockingly they were at peace.  That’s it, I thought, I want what they have. Little did I know that an invitation was about to be presented to me.

 

I was sitting in a staff meeting when I first heard about several people I respect journeying through a book (Journey with Jesus) that was based on the spiritual exercises of St. Ignatian. I wasn’t familiar with St. Ignatius at the time, and a coming from a conservative evangelical background I was leery of anything with a saint in front of it. 🙂 

 

However, I remember sitting there and hearing the stories of these leaders whose lives, ministries, and intimacy with Jesus were transformed. I knew this was something I had to check out.  

One of the things that I learned about St. Ignatius is that he was a man who strongly desired to help others encounter a deep experience of Jesus. The key for me was the word Experience. I did not need more head knowledge about God, I wanted a relationship with him.  

 

 The process was a little daunting, you commit to nine months of not only meeting with God for an hour a day but also meeting regularly with a Spiritual Friend. After time spent in prayer I felt like this was God’s bold invitation to me.   

 

I am not going to lie. This experience cost me something. I had to rearrange my life so I could participate in this journey. 

 

As a mom, who at the time had several kids under the age five (and a brand-new puppy), finding an hour to meet with God each day was not easy by any stretch of the imagination. I had to be creative when it came to carving out time with Jesus. But it was so necessary for my soul.

 

3. The Surrendered Life

Those nine months (that actually stretched into a year and a half) changed my life. Through daily scripture reading, prayer, silence, and hands-on activities, I encountered the lavish never-ending love of the Father.

 

I discovered that as I experienced God’s love by indentity started to undergo a transformation. God used this tool (for that is all that it is) in my life to allow me to experience the height and depth and breadth of his lavish love.  It was like a breath of fresh air. Finally, I could cease striving to try to prove my worth and rest in my identity as one chosen, adopted and unconditionally loved by my Father in heaven.

 

I learned that the basis of my relationship with God is learning how to be rooted and grounded in love. It is out of my great love relationship with him that I can, in turn, share his love with others.   

 

My whole paradigm shifted, my identity, security, and outlook on life changed drastically. I don’t have to jump from conference to conference trying to figure out the missing key to a deep relationship with God.  My relationship with God has grown significantly. I get to step off the treadmill of performance and  actively participate with the Holy Spirit in my life.

 

 I am, like all of us, on a journey. Every day, I discover something new, and it feels like I am just scratching the surface of a relationship with Jesus.  Life is still challenging but you get to rest in the peace that you are unconditionally loved by God. This changes EVERYTHING!

 

You get to embrace of life of freedom instead of constantly worrying about how you measure up.  You get to live everyday in anticipation for you know there is SO MUCH MORE to a relationship with Jesus.

 

So, my friends, are ready to experience God on a deeper level? Here are some ways that you can get started in actually EXPERIENCING the love of the Father.

 

Everyone’s journey to a deeper life with God is different. If you feel drawn to the Ignatian Exercises you can check out this book Journey with Jesus by Larry Warner. I love it because it is written in a very accessible and experiential way. You actually get to participate in activities that help create space for the Holy Spirit to speak to you. Did I make it clear that I LOVE  it? 🙂

 

If that seems like a bit much, to take on right now, I would suggest reading Surrender to Love by David Benner. It is a short but powerful book (its worth it even if you hate reading) that has played a huge part in my walk with Jesus.  

 

I pray that you will experience the height, depth, and breadth of God’s lavish love for you.

You will never be the same. 

                            

 

If you want to know how to get started in living a deep life with God; grab our Deeper Life Beginners Guide(below). And join our community of moms who are hungry for more Jesus in their lives and in the lives of their families. 

What about you? What is God’s invitation to you?   Leave a comment, and don’t forget to follow Most Important Work on Pinterest!   

 

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How to Spend Time With Jesus When It’s Hard

How to Spend Time With Jesus When It’s Hard

  

Reading Time: 5 min 41 sec

Do you ever feel like a failure when it comes to your relationship with God? Your pastor, your friends, and your soul all tell you that daily time is crucial for your faith, but you just can’t seem to meet consistently with him. 

 

You occasionally hear about the lives of great men of faith and something in you stirs, you long for deep intimacy with the Father, but that longing never seems to translate into real life.  You plan to wake up early and spend time with God, and then you oversleep your alarm. You know waking up early will never happen so you plan on meeting with God after dinner, and then your spouse wants to take you out on a date.

 

Every day it seems like your grand intentions of spending time with Jesus are forced aside due to something. Your kid wakes up with a nightmare, your boss e-mails you with a question, your spouse is watching tv and you want to hang out, the mountains of laundry that need to be folded, and frankly, you are tired and you don’t want to do something you “should” do.

 

Good things are truly the enemy of great things.  There will always be a thousand reasons, excuses, emergencies, and opportunities for you not to spend time with Jesus.

 

But what could your life look like if you spent time with Jesus every day? How would your heart transform? Your attitudes and your interactions with others?

C.S. Lewis, Billy Graham, Mother Theresa, Corrie Ten Boom, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer all started their walks with God where you are right now! It’s not too late to experience a deeper life with God.

  1. The Foundation

2. Reordering Your Life Around Jesus

3. Tools for the Changing Seasons

 

 

1. The Foundation 

 

Your father in heaven lavishly loves you regardless of whether or not you have gone three days without spending time with him. He is not a punitive God, ready to heap fire and brimstones on your head. His over the top love for you is not based on your performance. There is nothing you can do to make God love you any more or any less than he does right now. 

 

Ephesians 3:17-19 says, “And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you’ll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God.”

 

This love that is overflowing with grace is the foundation for your entire relationship with God.  How can we go beyond a surface relationship with God? How can we experience a deeper life with God?   

 

First, by taking some time to ask ourselves, why do you want to experience a deeper life with God? Do you feel resistance to having devotions? List those reasons (ex. It seems like a waste of time, nothing ever happens, there is so much to do, I mess up so much that God doesn’t want to spend time with me etc.)  Really examine your heart and be real.  Is it because you feel like you should spend time with Jesus because that’s what good Christians do? Or because you know it will be good for you? What is your reason?

 

There is no right answer. Your father in heaven has been pursuing you since the moment of your existence. Regardless of where you are talk to God about your resistance, your thoughts, and feelings, and ask for a deeper desire for him.

 

Do you know that every time you show up and are present that you bring joy to God?  Every time you make the small choice to say yes to spending time with Jesus and no to something else (even good things) you fill his heart with joy.

 

 

2. Reordering Your Life Around Jesus 

 

A couple of years ago I trained for a half marathon. When I decided to race, I knew it was going to take more than a goal and fancy running plan. I woke up every morning at 5am.   I ran through blisters and cramps, I ran when it was the last thing I wanted to do, and I kept running when I was tired, hot, and discouraged. I ran for hours.

 

 I reordered my life to accomplish my goal. It took sacrifices. I went to bed earlier, I had to say no to some social activities, and I watched what I ate. I was single-minded in the pursuit of my goal.

 

The key to success was that I didn’t just try and fit my runs around life, I rearranged my life to fit my running schedule.

 

This idea crosses over into our relationship with God. If you have a desire to go deeper in your relationship with God, wishing won’t get you there.  To have an intimate relationship with God, you need to reorder your life around him.  It doesn’t work to make a goal, create a fancy plan, and then try to fit it around your schedule.  Other things will ALWAYS move you away from your goal.

 

It will take sacrifices. You might have to get up earlier, say no to a tv show, or time with your family.  But know that these sacrifices will pay DIVIDENDS in the future. You will be a woman who is operating out of your identity as a beloved child of God and that simple fact will CHANGE everything.  As you go deep in the love of God, that loves flows through you, and overflows on the people around you.  Your simple act of faithfulness will transform your family and your life.

 

Are you reordering your life around Jesus? 

 

3. Tools for the Changing Seasons

Do you feel like your time with God is boring and stale? Do you feel like you are not connecting with God?  Rest assured, you are not defective or a bad Christian. As we transition into different life seasons, the ways we connect with God might need to change in order to fit where we are in that season. Being flexible by not getting locked into certain ways of meeting with God can help you connect with him in different ways and at deeper levels.

For instance, you have entered into a very busy season either with your kids or at work. You are spending a large majority of your day in the car driving. This would be a great opportunity to change it up and start listening to an audio version of the Bible.

 

Or you find yourself slogging through current devotional (which you LOVED two months ago) and not really connecting with anything other than how much it is NO LONGER working.  This would be a great time to either try a different devotional or connect with God using art.  

 

Here are some ideas for how you can figure out what might be a good tool for your current season.

 

  1. Ask God what are you inviting me into?

 

  1. Ask yourself, what am I feeling drawn towards? Is there a devotional that you can’t stop thinking about? Do you get excited about the idea of using art as a way to connect with God?

 

  1. Try out different tools until you find one that seems to be a good fit.

 

 

Don’t feel the need to finish something. If a tool is no longer meeting you where you are at (you are dreading you using it) put it down, it may really fit where you are in a future season.

 

Here are some resources that might be a good fit for your current season.

IF you want to know how to get started in living a deeper life with God; grab our Deeper Life Beginners Guide(below). And join our community of moms who are hungry for more Jesus in their lives and in the lives of their families. 

 

What about you? What is your #1 issue when it comes to living life with God?   Leave a comment, and don’t forget to follow Most Important Work on Pinterest!

 

How to Work with Jesus in the Transforming of Your Soul

How to Work with Jesus in the Transforming of Your Soul

  

Reading Time: 3 min 49 sec

 

Do you ever wonder how you can work with Jesus in the transforming of your soul? Are you hungry and desperate for God? Are you doing the foundational stuff (see this blog post) but just can’t seem to figure out how to go deeper?  Let’s dive into how we can work with God in becoming more like Jesus.

 

“A disciple is a person who has decided that the most important thing in life is to learn how to do what Jesus said to do.”  Dallas Willard

 

Have you ever reacted in such a way, whether it be an argument, an emergency, or after a long day, that made you cringe? Where after seeking forgiveness, (for the thousandth time), you throw up your hands, and wonder how on earth you are ever going to cultivate patience, kindness, service and actually, utilize it in the heat of the moment no less?  How do you develop life as a disciple of Jesus; someone who actually demonstrates in word and action a life lived in surrender to God?

 

Galatians 5:22-23 gives us a vision for what the surrendered life looks like: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”

 

So how do we develop the fruits of the spirit in our own lives?  How do we never give up, care more for others than ourselves, develop humility, patience, honesty, trust, etc.?  How do we intentionally be present with Jesus in our everyday lives?

 

Today, we are going to be answering that question by diving into some practical tools that Christians have been using for centuries. 

 

  1. The Purpose of Spiritual Disciplines

2. What are Spiritual Disciplines?  

3. How do I Apply Disciplines in my life? 

 

 

1. What is the Purpose of Spiritual Disciplines? 

 

The purpose of Spiritual Disciplines is to provide practical tools that allow us to work with God in the transformation of our souls.   The Life with God Bible says it this way, “Spiritual Disciplines involve doing what we can to receive from God the power to do what we cannot. And God graciously used this process to make us the kind of person who automatically will do what needs to be done when it needs to be done.”

 

Bingo!

 

Practicing Spiritual Disciplines are a crucial part of developing a deep and transformed life. The tools in and of themselves are nothing special, they are just that… tools. But they give us a super helpful and practical framework to work with the Holy Spirit.  Spiritual Disciplines allow us, through God’s grace, love, and the power of the Holy Spirit, to take an active role in saying yes to work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

 

 “A farmer is helpless to grow grain; all he can do is provide the right conditions for the growing of grain. He cultivates the ground, he plants the seed, he waters the plants, and then the natural forces of the earth take over and up comes the grain…This is the way it is with the Spiritual Disciplines – they are a way of sowing to the Spirit… By themselves the Spiritual Disciplines can do nothing; they can only get us to the place where something can be done.” -Richard Foster

 

The disciplines are not meant to be a rigid rule of life but as a grace-filled, Holy Spirit initiated practice that grows and changes throughout the season of your life.  

 

 2. What are Spiritual Disciplines? 

 

So, what exactly are spiritual disciplines? Here is a list of inward, outward and corporate disciplines taken from Richard Foster’s book, Celebration of Discipline.   

 

Inward Disciplines:

Prayer–with God not just at God

Fasting

Meditation

Study– Not just for information, but the transformation of your soul

Outward Disciplines:

Simplicity

Solitude

Submission

Service

 

Corporate Disciplines:

Confession

Worship

Guidance

3. How to Apply Spiritual Disciplines in Your Life? 

 

We need to understand that participating in spiritual disciplines is a life long journey. It is not about instant transformation, but about learning to be present every day with God, in the ongoing transformation of our souls.  It is not meant to be one more thing to do, but as a willing response born out of our love relationship with him.  

 

“God has given us the Disciplines of the spiritual life as a means of receiving his grace. The Disciplines allow us to place ourselves before God so that he can transform us.”Richard Foster

 

So how do you actually choose what discipline to practice in your life?

Here are some Suggestions for Getting Started:

  1. Ask yourself, what are you drawn to? What would practicing that discipline look like?
  2. Pray and ask God about what discipline to practice
  3. Start with one discipline at a time
  4. Operate out of grace. God loves you unconditionally and you don’t have to earn his love.
  5. You must be intentional. And it can (and will) be challenging.
  6. You are Not Alone!  The ever-present God is with you.
  7. The practice will look different for everyone.
  8. The disciplines will change as you enter new seasons of life

 

Are you hungry and ready to experience a deeper life with God? Join our community of moms who are hungry for more Jesus in their lives and in the lives of their families.  

Grab your free Deeper Life Beginners Guide (get it below) to help YOU get started on your journey to a thicker life with Jesus today!  

 

What about you? What is your biggest challenge when it comes to practicing spiritual disciplines?  Please feel free to leave me a comment and don’t forget to follow Most Important Work on Pinterest!

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