41 years experience or 41 one year experiences

“Superficiality is the curse of our age… The desperate need today is not for a greater number of intelligent people, or gifted people, but for deep people.” Richard Foster

That is a pretty profound statement for our world, but specifically for the church. You know we wrestle so much to get our theology just right, or to be able to sing the perfect notes or spin the perfect phrase and wow the crowd. If you know who Nahum was and what the wheel within the wheel means, well then you are award the prize. (The prize of people's, church people's praise.) But what I am finding in myself and in others is the same superficiality that Richard Foster is talking about. I want my heart to grow. I want to my want to's to change. I want to know Christ is a real way.

Here is what is amazing; I have been a follower of Christ basically all my life. You would think that that means I have 41 years experience as a follower of Christ. But the truth just might be that I have 41 one year experiences. Or I have 10 four year experiences. You see I go back and fight the same battles over and over again.

In the book of Hebrews the writer says (5:11-6:1)

11We have much to say about this, but it is hard to explain because you are slow to learn.
12In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God's word all over again. You need milk, not solid food!
13Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness.
14But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.
1Therefore let us leave the elementary teachings about Christ and go on to maturity

The question is how? How do we grow spiritually? How do you make a flower grow? Well you don’t. But you create an environment in which growth is possible, even probable. But the grow is really up to God.

Over the next eight weeks in NewSong I will be talking about some Ancient Ways that believers have observed for centuries to help prepare the soil of the hearts for the growth that God wants to do in them.

We know these practices as spiritual disciplines (there's a fun word!) I would love to hear your thoughts on what spiritual disciples are and what place they have in ours lives today.