How to Address the Spiritual Development of Your Congregation

Your congregation needs to constantly work on building their spiritual health and on supporting one another.

If you walk into church every week and it feels like an apathetic replay of all the weeks before, it is time to get your church actively involved in their spiritual development. While it is possible to encourage spiritual development as a large group, many times it will be easier for your congregation to grow spiritually if you work on creating an effective ministry of smaller groups that cater to the needs of your church. By doing this, you will encourage the congregation to find a group that fits with their place in life.

Instructions

1. Define the starting point for your congregation's spiritual health. While it is impossible to know where the members stand with regard to their spirituality, it is possible to find a baseline by looking at the percentage of your congregation that is currently active and by evaluating the spiritual tone within your church. You can also ask the congregation to complete a survey wherein they rate their own spirituality and their concerns.

2. Set goals for your church's spiritual development. To know if your ideas are working, you will need to decide how you will measure improvement. By adopting the small group format, you'll find it easier to determine the success rate -- even if all you measure is the number of participants who are active at the beginning and the end of the effort, and their feelings at the end of the group study term.

3. Form a steering committee devoted to the development and promotion of small groups to enrich spiritual development. Have this team sit down and brainstorm possible ministries that can be started in your church that would be well received. This is also a good time to look outside of your own church and determine the spiritual needs that are not being met within your community. Sometimes, bringing new members into the church is a good way to encourage the spiritual development of the existing congregation.

4. Ask your congregation for volunteers to coordinate the ministries. While it may be tempting to appoint a large number of coordinators and offer them short-time commitments, you need to ask for a commitment of at least six months to make sure the ministry is successful. Rather than making a blanket request for volunteers, approach the members of your congregation you feel are well suited for this role and personally ask for their help. Many churches report greater recruiting success when they use this approach.

5. Reach out to your congregation and invite them to join a small group. By offering multiple groups, you will open the doors to more members being able to take part. Explain to the congregation that spirituality is not a gift that you are given, it is something you constantly need to work at to improve.

References

• Activate: An Entirely New Approach to Small Groups;Nelson Searcy and Kerrick Thomas;2008
• Holy Ambition; Chip Ingram; 2010