becoming more me
I think I have rambled on this topic before on my blog but it has been on my mind again so I digress. Last week our staff team met for a day of planning, evaluating and sharing stories. A question that arose in a variety ways was ‘are people growing spiritually?’ and ‘what does it mean to grow?’ This question has plagued me since that discussion. I am also taking a class right now called spiritual growth which only complicates matters.My experience in the past is that most people, me included, usually answer a question about spiritual growth with quantifiable activities like quiet times, amount of prayer, going to church, etc. I am growing if I do more of those things and I am not growing when I forget or lose interest in spending my time that way. Or maybe even more generally I am becoming more like Christ when I do more of the disciplines.
This has often been my practical theology. Not that I actually believe it but I live it out which I think is really more of a reflection of what I believe than any affirmation of some theological fact. Any yet at the same time, and I think this is a Rob Bell influence, I find myself taken with the idea of growth becoming more of who you are.
This is the idea that once you place your faith in Christ you are forgiven and alive when you were once dead. From that point on your reality is that you are perfectly forgiven and holy in God’s eyes. The rest of your time on earth is to become more and more of who you are. I am a saint, now I just need to learn to act like it. That is growth. I like this idea because I think it reflects what I see in scripture and is so freeing. It is no longer about guilt and always coming up short.
So what is growth and how do we foster it? What can we do if anything to help challenge people to move from where they are now at towards something better? Towards Christlikeness? I don’t really know. And as another topic for another day, what is up with the term spiritual growth? Is that a worthwhile term or is it a dangerous compartmentalization of our person? Maybe more on that later.
posted by Jon at
9:59 AM
6 Comments:
Dr. Anderson,
Crazy, but the small group of people that Sarah and I meet with (from our church) were talking about this last night. (Ok, maybe that's NOT a strange coincidence--we ARE a church group.) We were studying what we know of as Galatians chapters 5 and 6. And I was impacted by the way Eugene Peterson tranlated/paraphrased Paul's words in 5:4-5 :
"When you attempt to live by your own religious plans and projects, you are cut off from Christ, you fall out of grace. 5Meanwhile we expectantly wait for a satisfying relationship with the Spirit. 6For in Christ, neither our most conscientious religion nor disregard of religion amounts to anything. What matters is something far more interior: faith expressed in love."
And what this has to do with spiritual growth is that I ALSO often have wondered if spiritual growth wasn't the consistency of spiritual discipline type habits and occurences in my life. But, what seems clear here is that "what matters is something far more interior: faith expressed in love." And Paul goes on in chapter 6 to expound on how we should compare ourselves to ourselves in evaluating God's successful work in us.
I think that the mark of spiritual growth in me is the increase of joy, love, peace (all those "fruits of the spirit") and problems in my life. Yeah, problems, or challenges seem to be a confirmation that I am "growing."
Like, the "new levels, new devils" idea, if I/Christ gets bigger, it seems likely that I'd bump into things I hadn't bumped into before.
I close with the revelation I had when I sought to find the key to getting myself to spend time with God: do something that I can't do without Him. Getting bigger (growing) and doing impossible (by myself) things guarantees me the need to invest in my relationship with Him, which guarantees that He will increase in me (spiritual growth).
Those are my thoughts. Thank you, Jon, for bringing such challenging questions into my brain and heart. I appreciate your thoughts and challenges. Maybe you should be a pastor? ;)
Hey Jon...
Good thoughts for sure. I've been feeling frustrated lately at the emphasis placed on the "magic words" that "save" someone from eternal damnation, at the expense of the actions and attitudes and lifestyles outlined in the Sermon on the Mount that influence our life, NOW, here on earth. What does it matter if someone is growing spiritually if the main goal of churches and Christians is to get people to "say the prayer", and then we can move on to another person who hasn't said the words yet.
What's the focus of what we're doing? Showing people how to secure their eternal destiny, or showing people how to live lives that are meaningful, passionate, and purposeful? Or both?
Reading Dallas Willard's Divine Conspiracy probably has stirred some of these thoughts in my head...just some of the stuff I've been thinking a lot about lately, so it's always interesting how that ties into what you posted on your blog. Or maybe it's just the "Connectedness" flowing out of me...oh well. Thanks for the thoughts.
a couple of years ago, i could have told you what it's like to NOT grow, but now i realize i actually did do a lot of growing in that period. or so i think ...
maybe the biggest thing that's stunted my growth - and i think it's due in large part to my make up - is not being in community. if i'm not constantly digesting, discussing, or debating the things of god, i start to create my own interpretation of god. i think when i lose sight of who god is, i don't know how to be.
and if we're talking about growing into the image of Christ, of living out our sainthood, i think we need to fully keep our eyes on him, and be holy as he's holy.
simple as that.
I can remember when I was practicing the most spiritual disciplines that I probably ever managed in my life. I was surrounded by Christians (in China) actually, and I remember having these thoughts like I was a pretty "successful" Christian. It sounds really bad because of course, those spiritual disciplines should have made me more humble and Christlike, but I can't say that was really the case. I was actually constantly fighting feeling proud of myself for doing so much great evangelism. I had to fight my nature to not have a success/failure attitude towards my ministry. I have no idea what it means to "grow" spiritually, but I don't think it means more disciplines, or more works, as I see it. I think the disciplines should be leading us to become more like Christ, and if we are in his image, that's more like ourselves, but with Christ's attitudes, I guess. But really, I don't know.
chris, forgot to add that your "new levels, new devils" comment has been making me think about that lots. gracias.
wow, juan, this post inspired some serious response...i felt like i wanted to comment on the comments as i kept reading...good good stuff. the r.bell influence is pretty tough to avoid if you listen to or read his stuff. i mean, his message is so powerful, rooted deeply in the word, and countercultural (or even counterchristiancultural, if that was a word) that you can't shake it. it just kind of gets under your skin.
and i don't know who dave is, but i am envious of what he might be headed for if he is reading divine conspiracy. it just shakes all the junk right out of your walk.
love it.
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