Spiritual Life Survey Update
May 2010
Four Categories of Spiritual Catalysts
1. Spiritual beliefs and attitudes
People just starting on a journey need to gain an understanding of the Christian faith. It is, therefore, important that they understand the key beliefs of the Christian faith. Once they understand these beliefs then they can continue learning and growing. Spiritual beliefs are primarily centered on increasingly entrusting our lives to an ongoing relationship with Christ. There are beliefs and attitudes that must be strongly present for a person’s heart to move from an early inquiry to being a committed follower of Jesus Christ.
2. Organized church activities
The church is the most significant organized influence on spiritual growth. The weekend service is still very important, especially as the primary source for spiritual fuel. But other church activities become increasingly important fueling stations. Serving experiences and adult education classes on spiritual topics are examples of the activities that advance spiritual development to higher levels.
3. Personal spiritual practices
This is a very powerful catalyst for every category of spiritual growth. The survey was able to show the frequency upon which people utilized the spiritual practices and how they became major catalysts for spiritual growth. In addition, the survey found that out of all the spiritual practices, reflection on Scripture is the most influential. In other words, no matter where you are on the spiritual continuum, you can know that Scripture will always be one way that you can grow.
4. Spiritual activities with others
Spiritual activities outside of church are conducive to growth as people activate their faith through a variety of experiences. In this area we look at activities, such as cultivating spiritual friendships and mentors, evangelistic outreach, and serving those in need. Spiritual community moves and shifts as you grow. Relationships might shift from acquaintance, to friendship, to mentoring. There is more accountability and risk in these advanced types of relationships, but taking risk builds faith. These accountability relationships can form out of the small-group experience or by having informal relational networks within the church.
April 2010
The Spiritual Continuum
As we talked about in the last Spiritual Life Survey article, the survey indicated a spiritual continuum that would predict spiritual growth. This was evident by the many questions that were asked about personal practice of prayer, Bible reading, serving, evangelism and especially your beliefs about God. In this article, we will go over the four segments of the continuum, so that you can discover where you are and what will help nurture your faith.
1. Exploring Christianity
The people in this segment are just learning what it means to be a Christian. They are probably taking the first steps in spiritual growth. The survey identified particular levels of agreement with certain statements. People that find themselves in this segment will have significantly lower levels of agreement with belief statements such as “I believe salvation comes only through Jesus Christ.” The people in this segment will have particular attitudes or behaviors that may look something like these:
- They do not involve God in their daily lives.
- They view the Bible as irrelevant.
- The need others to help them interpret spiritual issues.
- They seek God’s guidance only in times of need.
- They do not serve in the church.
Needs in this segment are:
- Seeker services
- Opportunities to connect to others
2. Growing in Christ
People in this segment are growing in their faith through church experiences. These people are starting to incorporate personal spiritual practices into their normal routine outside of the church. This group would agree most with the statement, “I believe in Jesus, and I’m working on what it means to get to know him.” Their attitudes and behaviors may look something like these:
- They are discovering faith.
- They need others to help them interpret spiritual issues.
- They willingly participate in small groups.
- Some of them serve in the church.
- They sometimes read the Bible or Christian books.
Needs in this segment are:
- Small group opportunities
- Basic personal spiritual practices
3. Close to Christ
The people in this segment report much higher levels of personal spiritual practices than the previous groups. Serving emerges as an important expression of their faith. People in this segment may agree with the statement, “I feel really close to Christ and depend on him daily for guidance.” Particular attitudes and behaviors may look like these:
- The Bible provides direction for their lives.
- Prayer is central to their lives.
- They have not surrendered everything to Christ.
- Spiritual friends increase in importance to them.
- They serve regularly.
Needs in this segment are:
- Service opportunities
- Advance personal spiritual practices
4. Christ-Centered
These people would say that they have fully surrendered their whole life to Christ, which could be demonstrated by their dramatically higher levels of spiritual behaviors and attitudes. They feel very strongly that they seek God’s guidance in every area of their lives. They would agree most with the statement, “God is all I need in my life. He is enough. Everything I do is a reflection of Christ.” Particular attitudes and behaviors may look like these:
- They love God more than anything.
- For them, prayer is constant conversation with God.
- They help to mentor others.
- Service to others is a way of life.
Needs in this segment are:
- Mentoring opportunities
- Wide rang of serving opportunities
Steps for evaluating your spiritual life
Identifying where you are, based upon these attitudes and beliefs, can be very helpful as you begin to recognize your own need for growth. The ultimate goal is to figure out and understand how you actually grow to be like Jesus; moving from one segment to the next. A baseline assessment is necessary for figuring out the process of becoming who God has made you to be. That is why it is essential that you are realistic and truthful with yourself about where you are starting from. There are some key questions for you to ask yourself at this point: Where am I now? Where do I want to be? What’s next for me?
Where am I now?
This will be a difficult start. You will need to ask yourself some tough questions. How does God see me right now? What does my spiritual life look like?
Where do I want to be?
For this part you will have to think “big picture” and envision your future faith goals. Where do you believe God wants you to be in your spiritual life? Before setting these goals you need to understand or discover the following: What is the goal of spiritual growth? What does a follower of Jesus look like? How does my spiritual life connect with the rest of my life? What do I want it to look like? Am I willing to learn and grow in my faith life? Do I desire more?
What’s next for me?
Trying to figure out the right goals between lofty and attainable is the key to this step. If you set the goals too low, you probably will not challenge yourself and might believe that the changes aren’t worth the effort. If the goals are too high, it might seem overwhelming and you might give up before you realize growth. Keep in mind that even though we are the ones trying to take steps to grow spiritually, God is the one who accomplishes the changes. Just as Jesus taught us in the Lord’s Prayer, “Thy will be done,” we try and align ourselves with God’s will and purposes and then let the Holy Spirit do the work.
Four Categories of Spiritual Catalysts
A catalyst is simply something that makes change happen. The survey measured over fifty factors to assess spiritual growth. These factors ranged from personal activities, like daily prayer, church activities, weekend worship services, and core beliefs central to the Christian faith. Although there were 50 responses people put for their spiritual growth, the survey revealed the top four. They are: spiritual beliefs and attitudes, organized church activities, personal spiritual practices, and spiritual activities with others. In the following section we will explore these responses for spiritual growth.
1. Spiritual beliefs and attitudes
People just starting on a journey need to gain an understanding of the Christian faith. It is, therefore, important that they understand the key beliefs of the Christian faith. Once they understand these beliefs then they can continue learning and growing. Spiritual beliefs are primarily centered on increasingly entrusting our lives to an ongoing relationship with Christ. There are beliefs and attitudes that must be strongly present for a person’s heart to move from an early inquiry to being a committed follower of Jesus Christ.
2. Organized church activities
The church is the most significant organized influence on spiritual growth. The weekend service is still very important, especially as the primary source for spiritual fuel. But other church activities become increasingly important fueling stations. Serving experiences and adult education classes on spiritual topics are examples of the activities that advance spiritual development to higher levels.
3. Personal spiritual practices
This is a very powerful catalyst for every category of spiritual growth. The survey was able to show the frequency upon which people utilized the spiritual practices and how they became major catalysts for spiritual growth. In addition, the survey found that out of all the spiritual practices, reflection on Scripture is the most influential, no matter what specific continuum. In other words, no matter where you are on the spiritual continuum, you can know that Scripture will always be one way that you can grow.
4. Spiritual activities with others
Spiritual activities outside of church are conducive to growth as people activate their faith through a variety of experiences. In this area we look at activities, such as cultivating spiritual friendships and mentors, evangelistic outreach, and serving those in need. Spiritual community moves and shifts as you grow. Relationships might shift from acquaintance, to friendship, to mentoring. There is more accountability and risk in these advanced types of relationships, but taking risk builds faith. These accountability relationships can form out of the small-group experience or by having informal relational networks within the church.
We should take the time to recognize that this is all a process for us to learn many things. And this process, like our lives, take lots of twists and turns and continues to be readjusted by the current situations that we find ourselves in. These findings are not to be a formula, but rather a flexible starting point that can help encourage and foster growth. After all, the lover of our souls is patiently waiting to show us all good things.
May God bless you on this journey!
The Spiritual Life Ministry Action Team
February 2010
In October 2009, the people of Gloria Dei took the online Spiritual Life Survey with the idea that the results would reveal our current state as well as highlight areas needing growth and improvement. We were pleased to have 382 people take the survey, which is 48% of the average adult weekly attendance. This number was more than sufficient to get a good representative
read of the congregation as a whole. Respectfully submitted, The Spiritual Life Survey MAT
The reason behind the survey: Creating a survey to find out a congregation’s spiritual strengths and needs can be a very daunting task. A quick look at attendance numbers can be misleading and doesn’t reflect spiritual growth of individuals or the congregation as a whole. When it comes to spiritual growth, we wanted to catch a glimpse of people’s attitudes, thoughts and emotions.
The Ministry Action Team: A Ministry Action Team (MAT) was established to pore over the survey information, which was received in December. Since that time, they have been working diligently, together and apart, to decipher the significance behind all the data. The MAT members are: Casey Fluegge, Jim Tysse, Karen Hoff, Michelle Haessler, Scott Snyder and heading up the group is Barb Miles with Pastor Philip Robarge overseeing the MAT activities.
The survey and other churches: We were compared with 428 churches from all geographic regions of the United States. Out of those 428 churches, 28 percent or 120 churches were of the same sample size (500 – 999). The sample size of our weekly attending members is 880. (Please note: this number only includes adults and does not include children and youth attending worship.) Just 4 percent of the 428 were Lutheran churches, 31 percent were non-denominational and 22 percent were Baptist. Other denominations
listed were Methodist, Presbyterian, Association of Vineyard, Assembly of God, Evangelical Free and a category of “others.”
The overall survey method: When looking at our congregation,
we begin with a baseline for spiritual growth. We find it in Matthew 22:37-39 when Jesus said, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’” To put it simply, spiritual growth is occurring when your love for God and other people increases. Simply attending church activities alone will not drive spiritual growth.
The results from the survey will focus on three areas, which are represented in the triangle to the left. When looked at together it gives us what is called the Spiritual Vitality Index. This shows an overall measure of the spiritual well-being of our church and focuses on three major elements:
Personal Spiritual Practices. This area measures the level of engagement with spiritual disciplines, such as reflection on Scripture and prayer, that advance the level of spiritual maturity and intimacy with God (Mark 1:32-38).
Faith in Action. This measures spiritual behaviors that mark a Christ-follower, such as evangelism and serving those in need, as well as attitudes of surrender to Christ (Philippians 2:2-8 and James 2:14-18).
Church’s Role. This measures the effectiveness of the church’s role in helping its congregation grow spiritually (Ephesians 4:12-13).
We realize there could have been dozens of ways to label the information in this continuum, but the Spiritual Life Survey names four segments: Exploring Christ, Growing in Christ, Close to Christ and Christ Centered.
Please note: we believe people can fall into any of these segments at multiple times in their life. It is not a hierarchy or level of being a better Christian; rather it identifies a starting point from which we can provide the necessary tools to nurture spiritual growth. This information helps us to see what will move people from segment to segment, which allows us to make informed decisions about future ministry initiatives.
The goal of this first article is not to go into depth about the thoughts and feelings found in the survey, but to share how the continuum will come into play later. As we explain more about the continuum, it may be helpful for you to figure out where you land on the continuum, so as to figure out the best ways to nurture your own spiritual growth.
Information to follow: In the weeks to come, we will further explain what the data from the survey revealed. Please allow us a few weeks to paint the whole picture. After we have shared the findings, we will present our recommendations based on these findings. We pray and hope that these recommendations will help Gloria Dei grow to new heights, both as individuals and as a congregation. At the end of the series of reports, we will do our best to answer all your questions; however, please feel free to talk to any of the members of the MAT at anytime for further information.
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