There are a variety of types of sails on a ship. Some, called mainsails, are essential. Others are added to complement the mainsails like a jib, topsail, spinnaker, etc. Effective sailing requires knowing the difference. Certain spiritual disciplines act as mainsails while others are good complements. Rigging the mainsails is critical to effectively capturing the wind of the Spirit.
The mission statement for the Willow Creek Church in Chicago is to produce fully devoted followers of Christ. A few years ago, they were courageous enough to ask the question: Are we producing what we say we are? They paid an outside consultant a lot of money to design a survey that would answer that question.
The result was a very extensive questionnaire (REVEAL) that assessed where people were along a continuum of closeness to Christ i.e. mature, fully devoted followers of Christ. They were looking for what activities/spiritual disciplines contributed to personal spiritual growth. The church’s assumption and strategy had been to emphasize three major activities (worship, small groups, and serving) as the mainsails on their ship.
“Participation is a big deal. We believe the more people participating in these sets of activities, with higher levels of frequency; it will produce disciples of Christ.” … “I know it might sound crazy but that’s how we do it in churches. We measure levels of participation.” Greg Hawkins, Executive Pastor, Willow Creek 3
What they discovered was shocking. Their survey found that although these disciplines were helpful in general, they did not predict spiritual maturity. In other words, a person could do those things and remain immature in his/her spiritual life. But they also found that there were certain spiritual practices that were consistently related to life transformation and closeness to Christ. Historic Christianity affirms their findings.
“We made a mistake. What we should have done when people crossed the line of faith and became Christians, we should have started telling people and teaching people that they have to take responsibility to become ‘self-feeders.’ We should have gotten people, taught people, how to read their Bible between services, how to do the spiritual practices much more aggressively on their own.” Bill Hybills, Sr. Pastor, Willow Creek 3
The spiritual disciplines that contribute most to personal transformation are not those that require large structures or budgets. They are the classic inner disciplines of the heart, learned and practiced by individual disciples. They are the habits
that permeated the life of Christ and saints down through history.
The Navigators have historically promoted six spiritual disciplines that develop a balanced Christian life. They are illustrated by a wheel with a hub, rim, and four spokes:
- Centered in Christ
- Obedience to Christ
- The Word
- Prayer
- Witnessing
- Fellowship
(see “The Wheel” illustration)
In the REVEAL survey they found one discipline that was critical to all levels of maturity. They called it “reflecting on Scripture”. Distinct from reading or studying the Bible, this discipline reflects the private practice of daily meeting with God in the Scripture. Some have called it a “Quite Time” or a “Devotional Life”, but it is a combination of solitude, silence, meditation, and prayer, enhanced by journaling.
Several years ago I led a team of three mature Navigator staff who had a combined 160 years of disciplemaking experience. Our mission was to design a discipling resource that would be gender specific, user friendly, and reproducible. The result was the development of the discipling series called HighQuest. We concluded that the mainsail discipline we had personally experienced and saw effective over the years, was the daily meeting with God (MWG) or appointment with God (AWG).
The HighQuest series builds the practice of spending 15-20 minutes a day in solitude with Christ, feeding personally on His Word by reading, reflecting and journaling. This is complemented by a weekly time to share lessons learned with a small group of other apprentices who are practicing the same spiritual disciplines.
A common testimony from those who have used the HighQuest series is that the discipline of a daily AWG/MWG began as a duty but with practice became a desire and eventually a delight. This should not be a surprise since it has been the mainsail for power for a long time!
Your words were found and I ate them, And Your words became for me a joy and the delight of my heart (Jeremiah 15:16).
Recommended reading:
- Celebration of Discipline, Richard Foster
- Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life, Donald Whitney
- The Spirit of the Disciplines, Dallas Willard
1 DWillard, The Spirit of the Disciplines, p156
2 DWhitney, Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life, p15
3 Christianity Today, online Oct. 2007
I would like to get one of those books, so which one would you recommend?
If you want more of an explanation of the various disciplines, I would get Whitney’s book.
If you want a deeper understanding of transformation and the role of disciplines, get Willard’s book. Willard doesn’t go into much on the various disciplines but more on the history and meaning of the disciplines.
RB