S2E8: Spiritual Practices

Welcome to session number two of the CGN online gathering. I'm so excited that we get to spend some time together looking at, I believe, a great topic, but as we've been looking really as a whole for the fall, really sustaining a healthy rhythm, I believe this is going to dovetail in to our discussion from last month and even connect in where we're going the rest of the semester. So last month we looked at really what does it look like to kind of have that work. life balance. And so if you miss that, make sure you catch that replay. The links and all that were sent out and you'll be able to get those again. But today we're going to be looking at kind of the next thing. And it seems kind of strange to talk about this as pastors, but we're going to be looking at the idea of spiritual practices. What do pri ⁓ pastors do? How do we handle kind of spiritual practices in our life? And so we think about ⁓ you know regular spiritual disciplines. Most of us think about prayer. ⁓ Bible study, worship, all those things. And we're gonna be kind of unpacking those things and really the importance for you and I as pastors and leaders. And so I wanted to kind of kick off and and really kind of look at a few things that I think that the world says. In fact, when the people who are in your congregation, maybe the people that don't even go to your church, but when they think about what do pastors do, here's some things that I think kind of come to the front of their minds. First off, they think that, you know, If you only teach on Sunday, then that means you really only work one day a week, which we all know isn't true. But if you teach Sundays and Wednesdays, then maybe you work two days a week. But that's what people typically think in past pastors do in pastoral ministry. You work one to two days a week. ⁓ they also think that in general, pastors really can't have a lot of friends in the church. You can't, there has to be a separation. You can't be friends with people in your church. And of course, we know that that's not really true. As well. ⁓ they also think that if you're a pastor, that you kind of have the the inside track, kind of a direct line with God, that somehow you, as just a fellow human being, ⁓ maybe you know you've got some special connection with God. And again, this is what people are thinking. They also think that pastors are experts in all areas of life, and again, not all these things are true. But here's the one that kind of jumped out at me as I was looking through like these misconceptions, I believe, that people ⁓ outside of ministry have about pastors. And this is it right here. They believe that pastors are spiritually disciplined and they never have any struggles. And I think that that right there, when we think about that, we know that that's not true. We know that as pastors, we have the same spiritual struggles. We need to engage in the same spiritual disciplines with our walk as we are thinking about how we're growing in the Lord. And so I want to point to a a a research study, and this should be linked in your notes here. ⁓ from 2022 by by Lifeway Research. And the title and and kind of the main focus of their study was The Greatest Needs of Pastors. And so they looked at they they pulled 200 pastors, they got 44 issues that these pastors faced, and then they went and then Surveyed a thousand pastors to kind of determine what were some important things, what were the most prevalent things as it pertained to you know pastors and what they were kind of dealing with. And so kind of the question that they kind of asked, and we're gonna get to some of these answers here, which kind of sets us up for our discussion today, is what spiritual needs do pastors say are important and need personal investment? And again, these are pastors that are reflecting in on their own lives. And so again, these thousand pastors were surveyed, and here they are in order of importance. Very first thing that they said, hey, these are important and I need to personally invest in them. Number one, was consistent personal prayer. Now that seems kind of strange, right? Pastors needing to be consistent in personal prayer, we would just think that pastors just doing this naturally, but we know that that's not the case. Not for all. The second thing they noted was friendship and fellowship with others. That you think about kind of the spiritual landscape that pastors, just like you and I, needed to invest in friendships and fellowship with others. The third thing that was noted in the survey was that ⁓ pastors saying, Hey, these are important for me and my personal investment in myself was consistent Bible reading, not related to message preparation. Now that's a whole nother topic for another day. I know there's There's several sides of this coin. You know, there are those who would say that your message prep is your Bible study. There are those that would say that your message prep is not your Bible study, that you should have something else that you're doing. But the point here is that the research shows and the survey showed that pastors realized they needed to have consistent Bible reading that was not related to message preparation. So that tells us that a lot of them aren't doing that. Another one that was Highlighted here, number four, was just simply trusting God. That as pastors, it's kind of funny this would be on the list, but trusting God seemed to be difficult, and it's something that they needed to work on. Another couple that were in here was a relationship with other pastors, consistency in taking a Sabbath, confession and repenting from personal sin. So all these things show that there are some spiritual practices that maybe pastors. are are realizing in this study. And I think by the time we get done with our study today, we'll even realize perhaps even our own lives, maybe some areas that we need pay some attention to. Scott McConnell had this to say in that survey. He said some church goers may be surprised to find that spiritual disciplines don't always come easily for pastors. Again, your church, the people that the flock that you are leading, those that are around you look at you And I, as pastors and ministry leaders, as if we have it all together, but the statistics show that we don't, because we're we're men just we're we're part of mankind, right? We we have desires that aren't always of the Lord, and we go through the same struggles that everyone else does. And so your churchgoers may be surprised again to find that spiritual disciplines don't always come easily for you. You may not always be the first person up on the missions trip. When it comes comes time to do the Bible study. And this might be surprising. So as we're looking at this and the importance of spiritual practices, the bottom line for where we're going today is you have to be intentional about your personal growth if you want to have longevity in ministry. So if you want to span the length of time in ministry, if you want to do all that God has called you to do and to stay on the runway. As the Lord is leading for the maximum amount of time, then we have to be intentional about our own spiritual growth. And so I'm gonna, we're gonna go through some things, and a lot of these are gonna be really, really basic. But I think as ministry leaders, if if we're honest, there's probably one or two or maybe a couple more that we might personally struggle with or we might have difficulty with in season. And the very first one, when we start thinking about well, how do pastors grow? Well, you know, if you start, if we step back and look at it, what are some things that we can look at that, you know, help pastors grow? Well, number one, I think it's doesn't always just only apply to pastors, it's to anyone. But if we're specifically talking about pastors, we got to remember, number one, that we need to make time to pursue God. We have to make time to pursue God. That if we aren't gonna pursue God, then we're gonna pursue other things. We can pursue, you know, stuff to do at church and events, but we need to pursue God. That needs to be a priority in our lives. And in fact, in 2 Peter chapter 3, some of you know this, and we know kind of the theme of Peter that stay faithful, live righteously. And here in in chapter ⁓ three of 2 Peter verses 17 and 18, I'm gonna read these verses to you. It says, You therefore, beloved, since you know this beforehand, beware lest you also fall from your own steadfastness, being led away with error ⁓ with the error of the wicked. Verse 18, it says, but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. To him be the glory now and forever. Amen. So here, Peter is encouraging us, right? He's encouraging us to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior. Well, why is that? Well, if we go back up to verse 17, it's so that we do not fall away from our own steadfastness. I think sometimes in ministry, if we Combines success and it's left unchecked, we can begin to rely on ourselves. And all of a sudden now we don't need God as much. And of course, you can still love the Lord and still have salvation, right? But still not be walking according to his ways or not be walking as closely as you can and begin to neglect that relationship. And so when you think about, you know, this whole idea that we need to pursue a relationship. With God. I mean, the whole idea is that we need to grow in the grace. We need to be students of the word ourselves. We need to understand our Lord. We need to understand the heart of Jesus. Why? So we don't fall in our own steadfastness. So we don't look at our own ways as unwavering and the way to follow. There's only one way to follow, and that's the way of the Lord, right? The only way we're the only way to grow in grace and knowledge of our Lord is to make time to pursue a relationship with. And so a spiritual practice here, or again, is just spending time with the Lord. That could be spending time in the Word, that could be spending time in prayer, spending time in worship, but spending time understanding, seeking, and knowing God, pursuing that personal relationship. Number two, again, looking at things at how, you know, ways that pastors can grow. Number two, we have to remember that we need to as much as we possibly can be a picture of the destination. Now we're never going to be perfect, we're not perfect, but we can certainly be a picture of what a Christ follower looks like. And we think about your ministry, and some of you have been ministry an incredibly long time. In fact, you may come from a family that's always done ministry, but your greatest ministry moments don't come from the things you say. They come from the things that you do, oftentimes from what people observe. So people are watching you and they're watching me. And as pastors and as leaders, we have this opportunity, not with the things that we say, but with the lives that we live to be a picture of the destination. Now, for this, I want to look at James chapter one, verses 20 through 25. And of course, we know James is all about practical Christian living, right? And many of us is probably taught through that. But I want us to kind of read through this and see how this would apply to our lives. In verse 22, he says, But be doers of the word and not Hearers only, deceiving yourselves. And again, kind of to kick this off, James is calling us to be doers of the word. We need to read the word. We need to let that that kind of sit in. And what would the Holy Spirit have us do with that? How does that apply to our life, to do what God has called us to do? Because the word of God is incredible, right? I know many of us teach this, but the word of God brings us to points of action. In our lives. You know, I was radically changed, like many of you were radically changed. I have a testimony, you have a testimony. You were called to take steps of faith, perhaps, in life. Maybe you were called to plan a church. Maybe you're called to be a missionary. Maybe you're called to revitalize the church. But no doubt the word of God was kind of hopefully the basis for that, the baseline where you and I started getting that download from what God wanted us to do. So we became doers of the word. We were doing what God was telling us to do. And we think about following Jesus, you think about you know Matthew 28, 19, making disciples. Now we are being disciples that following Jesus is a call to action, not a call to comfort. And I think sometimes as lead pastors, we can hit these little levels, if you will, kind of in in the season of church and the season of ministry, where we become comfortable. And we forget that we've been called to action and not comfort. Going on in verses 23 through 25, it says, For if anyone Is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror. For he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. Verse 25, it says, But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not for a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the word, this one will be blessed in what he does. So here again we see we're being encouraged to not be you know, ⁓ forgetful hearers. And I think that's that's important for us, right? ⁓ don't don't forget what what God has told you to do. Don't don't be a forgetful doer of the word and the work. And I don't know about you, but I know like as a pastor, I I like repetition. I think sometimes repetition helps me remember things. Like if there's a certain rhythm, I'm gonna start knowing like, hey, Mondays I do this, Tuesdays I do this. And For me, when you think about getting into the Word of God and building a relationship and continuing to build onto that relationship, that rhythm setting has really served me well, where I will carve out time during the day. Usually for me, it's in the morning. It's usually the time where it's undisturbed for me. I can pick a time in the morning early before anyone else is up, before any any of the notifications start going off. But it's important for me to do this because that's where. I can get into the word. That is where God and I can have this moment. And then I can set my mind on being a doer of the word. And as I come to that daily, and as you come to that daily, we hopefully aren't forgetting that. We're not becoming a forgetful hearer, but we're becoming a doer of the work that God has put in front of us. And then it says in that scripture, this one will be blessed in what he does. So here we see we're going to be blessed. In what we do. The more time we spend in the Word, the more our hearts and minds will align with the Lord's. That's the blessing. It's not that we're going to receive something, it doesn't mean that you're going to receive some sort of tangible gift. The blessing is being in the will of God. Spurgeon says, the word of the Lord is a revealer of secrets. It shows man his life, his thoughts, his heart, his inmost self. So it's important for you and I as pastors. We should spend time in the Word, looking at the Word, seeing how it applies to our life. It's going to reveal these things that are going on and maybe being disgruntled or maybe we're upset about something. Maybe we've got some sort of issue going on, but the word helps us come to a place where we see those things happening. We can begin to understand the inmost self. God begins to show us these things. So again, number three, as we move on here, ⁓ how to grow. You know, when you think about spiritual practices as a pastor, number three, I think it's important is rest in the Lord. And you know, this goes without saying, you know, we have to just trust in God's sovereign plan. We have to trust, even though we can't see a way out of the forest that God, if he's calling us to to be somewhere that's outside the forest, that he's going to get us here in some way. And that's hard, I think, for pastors and leaders to do someone sometime. In fact, we look at Isaiah chapter 40, and when you kind of think about this hope. And encouragement that we find in God here in this block of scripture. I'm gonna read verses thirty and thirty-one to you. It says, Even the youth shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fail or fall. But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint. Now many of us, again, I know we've used this verse hopefully to encourage our own selves and maybe even others. But that same truth applies to us is that from a spiritual perspective, some of you have been going long and hard in ministry for a long time. And sometimes the weight of what you're doing can become and feel sometimes like a burden. And I pray that you will find kind of this reflection in the scripture encouraging. That you and I can rest in the Lord. Because it says those who wait on the Lord shall. renew their strength. And the idea isn't that we're just going to kind of sit down and do nothing, right? I think pastors really can't do that anyway. We're not going to sit down and just do nothing. No, there's the idea is to be actively waiting. That as we're doing something for the Lord and we're we're in his will and we're being obedient and we're seeking him, we can rest and knowing that God is in control, that God is working something out, maybe in your situation right now. Maybe he's been working through something for the past six months with you. But we can trust him because the world says you go until you drop. But the scripture says, rest in the Lord. So wisdom says, why don't we follow what Scripture says for us to do and simply rest in the Lord? So what's preventing you from ⁓ resting in the Lord, perhaps? Maybe you've been dealing with some staffing issues. Maybe you've got like some big financial decisions for the church. Maybe you're trying to figure out and discern if God is calling you to do something else. Again, these are all big questions that I think senior, you know, pastors and leaders and ministry leaders can work through from time to time. But again, the world's going to tell you stay busy and don't think about that. But the scripture's going to tell you rest in the Lord. And so let me ask you, how are you resting? Are you finding time to To rest in the Lord, even though you may not have the answers to the difficult questions that perhaps or situations that you have in front of you now. So I'd encourage you, rest in the Lord. That's where we find our strength as pastors and leader. And then finally, number four, again, if we want to grow as pastors, we need to get our priorities in order. That's right, every one of us has priorities. Every one of us has some sort of priority, some sort of stuff that you're working on. And for this, I'm looking at Colossians chapter three, verse two. And it says, set your mind on the things above, not on the things on the earth. So here, Paul is reminding us that we should live our lives in such a way that our eyes and our hearts and our minds are fixed on heaven. And it doesn't mean that we don't recognize that there's problems going on because the problems come seem to always find us, right? But the problems that we have in light of eternity seem to be pretty minor. But here we're reminded that even when we're going through great difficulty to set our minds on things above. And I would even say, like sometimes those didn't even have to be problems. Certainly by now, you know, probably as we've been watching, you know, this video and engaging in this study together, you probably already had several notifications on your phone. Maybe you've had a couple of emails come in. Maybe someone's trying to get a hold of you. They got a question about A, B, or C or whatever's going on. But here, it's a good reminder that we can just, you know what, I'm going to set my mind on the things above. I'm setting aside time to set my mind on the things above, not on the things of this earth. And so that means we can turn off the tech, we could tune into God, we could turn down the noise of this world and begin to listen to see what God is trying to show us. And I believe, you know, when we work through some of these. You know, practical things here, some of these tangible examples that we find in the scripture, we're gonna see that if we begin to apply them, that hopefully that is gonna build a spiritual practice and maybe help us just shore up what some of our spiritual practices already. But the point is, and and really the question is, is you know, how do we apply this to our life? How do we apply this to our lives and ministry? And even take it a step further and ask, how does this What we study today even point to Jesus. Well, if you look at the life of Jesus, we can see that he went to spend time with the Lord. He went to spend time with his father, right? He he got away. He prayed. And so if Jesus did those things, I mean, how much more should we be prioritizing these things even in our own lives? We can always say, well, you know, I'm just gonna wait for things to slow down. And at some point in time, when it slows down, I'm gonna get things right. Well, and that may work for you, but I'm gonna caution you there. Usually it doesn't work like that. Usually you have some sort of event in your life that causes you and forces you to slow down. And so instead of coming to that point, why don't we step back a step back and begin to ask the question what are some things that I could do right now to help me build some healthier spiritual practices in my life? I want to leave you with an example here. I was part of a coaching network many years ago and I'm a firm believer that if you want to grow, it costs money, right? Like, and so I would go invest and be a part of these coaching networks with other pastors just to learn, learn from their mistakes, learn, you know, from them, from their successes, and just be around people who are a lot further down the road than me. And I was in this coaching network, very well-known pastor. ⁓ and we're in a room with probably 50, 60 ⁓ pastors in there. And I remember having a conversation ⁓ with this this particular pastor who was kind of leading. ⁓ this whole kind of network, this cohort, seemed very disconnected. And and and, you know, when what he shared was was really good. And he painted this picture of walking down the road ⁓ and and really doing ministry and how it kind of forces you down into a place sometimes where you just get into this machine of you just keep churning and churning and churning until some point you just fall flat on your face. And I remember him kind of sharing one of those kind of talks through one of our sessions. Well, it wasn't probably two years later where this pastor had a falling. And it wasn't like some big scandalous thing. But the point is that all the stuff he was saying was good stuff, but he wasn't practicing it. And it was evident in his life. And in fact, it made me think that when we were in that room together with 60 other pastors or so, it made me think that he may have been probably the most loneliest person there. The most isolated person here yet there, yet he was leading all of us. And so as I think about you and your congregation and me and my congregation, let's not do that. Don't be the loneliest leader, disconnected from really the power of God leading a congregation. You can be successful in a lot of things, and you can even fake it and you can make things work in a church. And in nonprofit or even a for-profit organization. But the thing that's gonna sustain you is spiritual practices that put you in the presence of the Father. And so a couple things I would have you consider between now and the next time we meet is I would ask if you if you aren't doing kind of a daily quiet time to maybe incorporate that in. Maybe, maybe some of you need to practice. ⁓ bring in a practice of a spiritual retreat every six months. Maybe you need to start journaling. These are all things we've heard of before. But I would encourage you to do this one thing. I would encourage you between now and the next time we meet for session three to pick half a day. Half a workday. If that's if you want to get technical, just pick four hours if you if that's all you got. But do four hours, whatever day of the week, clear your calendar, get out of the office, take your Bible and take your journal. Turn off your tech and just go somewhere and just be with the Lord. Have a solo retreat. Do that and just see what God does. See what how God begins to move in your life. And so I pray that, you know, as we kind of consider some of these things, that I'm praying that our group discussion, that there's some great conversation that we can talk through. You know, we're gonna talk through some barriers that might exist for some of us and some difficulties. We're gonna maybe talk through some next steps as well for you to kind of take to hopefully shore up some of these spiritual practices in your own life. Cause my heart is that all of you would be doing ministry for as long as possible. We need good pastors. We need Bible preaching, Christ-centered pastors. We need more of them. So we don't want to lose any. So what we've got, we want to invest in. And I hope that you take this time to make an investment in yourself and the others in your small group.