How Do We Create Spiritual Growth?

As part of my job, I try to read articles and blogs by other youth workers and by current ministry publications. Youth Worker Journal often posts questions on their Facebook page asking questions from youth workers about issues they encounter. Today, the question was, "What challenges do you face in terms of spiritual growth?" As I sat there thinking about the question, I began to think about my own spiritual journey and the nature of growth in general.

There are many different kinds of growth-physical, intellectual, and emotional. There's the growth that occurs in a plant as it absorbs nutrients from the soil and converts sunlight into food. And so I asked myself, what is it that causes growth? Well, growth isn't really "caused" by anything...at least not any one factor. Growth occurs when a certain number of factors are all present at the same time and in the proper quantities. For a plant to grow, it needs nutritional soil, water, sunlight, and sometimes fertilizer, all in the proper amounts. For a growing child, a lack of food, water, shelter or clothing, could actually stunt the child's growth because certain basic needs are not being met.

In my own faith journey, the times of greatest spiritual growth came out of external circumstances that put me in a position where I needed him desperately. And out of those circumstances came periods of spiritual growth. So can we create spiritual growth? I think spiritual growth (like most other types of growth) is something that happens when the conditions are right. Just as a plant needs soil, water, and sunlight, so the Christian needs certain things for growth to occur. But we cannot make this growth happen. We need to create an environment for the growth to occur. In I Corinthians 3, the Apostle Paul addresses the issue of spiritual growth and acknowledges again that it is not something that we can create. Only God brings spiritual growth.

So what factors are important for spiritual growth?
1. Prayer
2. Bible Study
3. Involvement in a community of faith
4. Willingness to reach out to God when life gets rough
5. Circumstances that require dependence on God.

What would you add to this list? What things have spurred spiritual growth in your life? What problems inhibit your spiritual growth?

A Different Kind of Maturity

This weekend we did a new activity in our youth program called 30-Hour Famine. This is a program developed by World Vision encouraging students to get sponsored by friends and family to do a 30-hour period of fasting and prayer for world hunger. It's a great opportunity to teach your students about some of the deeper disciplines of the Christian life. World Vision makes it a pretty easy event to pull off because their website is a wellspring of programming ideas.

I went into the Famine weekend with high expectations. Due to some recent graduations, my youth program is pretty thin on senior high leadership. So, my hope was that this weekend would be a time when my students would come out of the shells a bit and actually pray out loud for various causes. We had a prayer vigil service for all the children around the world who were dying of preventable causes and we did a prayer walk through the streets of downtown Palestine. At each of these times, students were given opportunities to pray for different things.

I was very disappointed to finish the weekend feeling like my voice was the only voice that was heard. I was honestly tired of leading prayers and frustrated that my students were still embarassed, unsure, apprehensive, and reluctant to be vocal about their concerns for the world around them. I even began to wonder what they were thinking. Were they even affected by the information we discussed? Seeing the kids cut up and be rowdy at times that should have been reverent, provocative, and even a bit disturbing made my frustration go even further. Honestly, I left the event tired and disappointed with $1 worth of Kroger brand macaroni and cheese in my belly (World Vision feeds people for $1 a day, so we broke our fast with $1 worth of food).

Somewhere that night, though, it hit me. Throughout the whole 24 hour experience, not once did the kids whine about their lack of food. We had juice and things to keep us going. There were also jokes about sneaking a bite here and there. But when it was all said and done, these students who had become tired, irritable, and in many ways very uncomfortable from a lack of food, did not complain about their situation. This morning one of our church members came and told me she had asked one of our 8th grade boys about his fasting experience and she said he talked about it with a lot of maturity and understanding. This truly blessed me!

You see, I had in my mind a particular outcome for my students. I wanted them to show spiritual growth in a particular area. But what had happened was that they grew in another area--an area that is probably more important. So, as I seek ways to get my kids involved in the spiritual acts of leadership in the group, I can do so knowing that they are growing to maturity in Christ in their own ways!