How to Generate Spiritual Growth

How can people grow spiritually without knowing God’s Word?

The answer is that they can’t.

While that may seem obvious to any serious Christian, it’s a lesson lost on an increasing number of Christ followers. Perhaps influenced by the quick-fix, gotta-have-it culture around us, we have developed a love for simplistic solutions to the challenge of making fully formed disciples.

Best-selling books and celebrity videos have their value, but no 40-day program is adequate for fulfilling our mission to make lifelong disciples of Jesus Christ, teaching them to obey everything He commanded. To grow spiritually, people need more than occasional Bible bytes; they need a steady diet of God’s Word (see Heb. 5:14).

Here are four ways to help people get involved in studying the Bible.

Create Space

Bible study has been crowded out of church life not by the devil but by the calendar—or are they the same? To add the intentional study of God’s Word to a church’s program will require the sacrifice of some other worthwhile activity.

First, challenge people to create space in their lives to move beyond one-hour-a-week spirituality. Then, challenge yourself to create a place on the church’s busy agenda for the study of Scripture.

Create Groups

People seldom have success studying Scripture alone. They need the fellowship of a group. The more groups you start, the more likely it is that people will join one.

Don’t put all your eggs in one Bible basket. Use a variety of approaches: DVD-based studies require little expertise from the leader, Sunday school offers the consistency of a through-the-Bible approach, men’s or women’s groups feel safer to some while others prefer a home-based small group.

The more Bible study opportunities you offer, the more people will study the Bible.

Create Teachers

People don’t need a Ph.D. in ancient near eastern languages to coordinate a small group Bible study. The only thing required is a willingness to show up with a Bible and ask questions. The Holy Spirit does the actual teaching anyway.

Your job will be to recruit, motivate, and equip those who might be willing to guide others through the Word. Provide a range of teaching materials—everything from Sunday school curriculum to small-group Scripture guides to pray-and-press-play DVD Bible studies. Let people choose the approach that they feel comfortable with.

Create Application

If the Bible never gets past the brain, it might as well stay on the shelf. God doesn’t want people simply to read the Bible; he wants them to do what it says. As the leader, it is your job to focus on application. You can do that by constantly asking, “How will this truth change our lives if we choose do apply it?” We have to do the Word.

Peter states that those who do not add knowledge to their faith will become ineffective and unproductive (2 Pet. 1:5–9), and Amos warns of a “famine” of the Word of the Lord (Amos 8:11).

Don’t let that happen on your watch.

While others are looking for up-to-the-nanosecond techniques for doing church, you can bring back the only thing that has ever been successful in forming disciples—the spiritual discipline of Scripture.

Gadgets don’t work. Gimmicks don’t last. But when the Word of God gets into people, they are changed. Try it and see.