Spiritual Growth Plan: Evaluation and Strategies

Personal and Ministry Spiritual Health at the Start of the Course of Religious Studies and Theology

The importance of personal and ministry spiritual health is rather high because it determines a multitude of aspects of the further spiritual development of an individual and a group. Some of the aspects that depend on spiritual health are one’s integrity, attitude, desire to move forward and grow, desire to help others, inspiration, and motivation.

Assessing my spiritual health at the beginning of the course, I must admit that it was not the best. It began with me noticing that I was not feeling well physically – my level of productivity was lower, I became more difficult to manage the tasks throughout the day; I felt tired in the mornings and completely drained in the evenings. At first, I felt that my issues were just a mild seasonal depression. However, soon I began to notice that they started to impact my inspiration, optimism, and motivation throughout the day. Moreover, patience became hard work, and my close ones started to point out to me that I began to criticize a lot. This was when I realized that my spiritual health needed assessment and healing.

In terms of ministry spiritual health, I started to lack activity, and the levels of motivation started to drop. It became harder to encourage and inspire. My feeling of powerlessness transferred to my ministry and produced a negative effect in the form of the loss of interest, breach of togetherness, and the weakening mutual support.

Reading course literature helped a lot on my way towards the improvement of personal and ministry spiritual health. Discussing the assessment of ministry health and the rates of the love for God, Hawkins and Parkinson presented it as the measurement of the heart where the size of the heart meant the level of the spiritual health of a person.¹ Also, they noticed that the complexity of such concept as ministry spiritual health and its dependency on a variety of factors such as the composition of the group of church attenders and versatile moods and states of mind that can be found in the group.

In other words, a ministry is a complex and multifaceted community with a variety of internal and external impacts and dynamics that determine whether or not the whole group or certain individuals may fall behind in spiritual growth or have poor spiritual health. Hawkins and Parkinson specify that leadership is a crucial factor when it comes to the stimulation of the spiritual growth; namely, a leader may help encourage it when providing reflections on the Scripture, explanations, and guidance that would enable more individuals to read the Bible, comprehend it and effectively apply the valuable knowledge it offers.²

To be honest, with my lack of inspiration and reluctance to take action at times, my ministry started to demonstrate the same behaviors. More precisely, the people there began to seem disinterested in the wisdom of the Scripture, a couple of times I heard complaints that the Bible does not provide the answers people sought, and thus seemed to them as inapplicable to their lives or the modern world in general. These moods were frequent in my ministry. Some of the believers attempted to provide guidance and help to others, but it only caused more friction, divide, and alienation. The people lacked mutual understanding, togetherness, and a sense of community.

The Spiritual Truths Gained from the Course’s Materials

In his book titled “The Spiritually Healthy Church”, Peter Scazerro explores the importance of emotional maturity as a factor enabling spiritual growth and the appropriate development of an individual in terms of faith and spirituality. The author provides a tool helping the reader to assess their level of emotional maturity through completing a smile inventory that establishes whether one is an emotional infant, adolescent, or adult.

The author emphasizes that emotional maturity is critical because it is the key to self-awareness and stands for one’s ability to recognize and acknowledge their own emotions, appropriately express them, and distinguish the emotions of the people around them.³ Scazerro emphasizes the danger that can be represented by a spiritual leader without self-awareness.

The author mentions how frequent and easy this case is because the focus of the spiritual leaders is usually directed “upward and outward” as they put a lot of effort into growing their church, influencing people, and training new leaders.⁴ Besides, another massive barrier on the spiritual leaders’ way towards taking a look inward is the belief that they are already doing it; the author points out that most leaders are blinded by their illusions of being self-aware when in reality they are avoiding the truth that lies much deeper in their hearts than they ever looked.⁵

Being disconnected from one’s emotions or perceiving them as distractions and harmful influences is a sign of emotional immaturity that is likely to drive a believer off of the right spiritual path. Emotions can be powerful and sometimes overwhelming, but they are an essential part of every human being, they are the result of God’s intelligent creation and are there for a reason. In that way, shutting them down, avoiding, ignoring, or denying goes against human nature as intended by God.

Scazerro offers the readers doing an easy exercise that could improve their level of emotional maturity; it is based on the focus on one’s body and its reactions to the outside circumstances and situations.⁶ This approach is easy and comprehensible for the people who find it challenging to acknowledge what they feel. While emotions and feelings can be complex and vague, the physical effects and sensations are much easier to recognize and characterize as pleasant or unpleasant and then attribute to certain external impacts making valuable connections and learning about the true nature of one’s responses and emotional state that is directly connected to their spiritual health and development.

Apart from emotional immaturity, Hawkins and Parkinson name two distinct obstacles to spiritual growth – they occur when the believers are stalled or dissatisfied (sometimes, both obstacles may appear at the same time).⁷ The former issue is in effect when the believers’ spiritual development is almost non-existent; the people are normally dissatisfied with its slow pace and identify it as a problem. The second barrier is present when the individuals are unhappy with the role of the church and the spiritual leaders play in their development as this contribution seems ineffective or insufficient.

Strategies for Personal and Corporate Growth

Stalled and Dissatisfied

The obstacles to the spiritual growth outlined by Hawkins and Parkinson are highly important factors for a leader to address to ensure steady growth of faith and the improvement of spiritual health within the ministry. The individuals with stalled spiritual growth can be found within any ministry. Attempting to handle this issue, it is important to assess the people’s state of mind first and distinguish exactly which of the community members identify as being stalled in their development. Further, the stalled people require an individual approach and assistance.

Practically, they are stalled because they lack guidance and cannot move on with their spiritual path because they either do not see where to move or do not know how to get to the next stage. Very often, this lack of vision and inspiration is caused by the difficulties these people face in their family and professional lives. Scazzero points out that God intended to include multiple challenges in the spheres of work and interpersonal relationships.⁸

That is why one must be prepared for the difficulties and know that they are supposed to be there and that “God can be trusted not to allow you to be tempted beyond what you can bear”.⁹ In other words, one strategy to help the people who are stalled is to reflect on the Scripture and provide them with the tools to understand it and find the keys to their further spiritual growth.

When it comes to the dissatisfaction of the church’s contribution to the people’s spiritual growth, the reflection on Scripture may provide a solution to this issue as well because active Bible reading and explanation is likely to strengthen the spiritual leaders’ involvement in their ministry’s life, ensure vivid communication, and bring a higher level of trust. Via the frequent and active communication, the people will sooner develop a stronger relationship with the leader as a person in whom they could confide.

Self-Awareness through the Physical Sensations

When spiritual health in the ministry is poor, it is likely that many people also experience the physical effects of this phenomenon. As mentioned in the first section of the paper, I first noticed that something was not right when I made the connections between my physical feeling of weakness, low mood, and the lack of spiritual health. The same or some other signs could be found in the church community and used as demonstrations of the most basic ways to start practicing self-awareness for the believers.

Communication is the key to this strategy. Namely, the leader is to rely on their emotional maturity and begin sharing their experiences with the community telling about personal sensations and feelings and making connections to the spiritual aspect of life. For instance, one particular sensation such as being tired in the mornings and drained at the end of the day could be used as an example.

Then, the community could be asked to think of similar experiences of their own, and possibly, name some of them – there could be a lack of appetite, apathy, irritability, distractions, the overall physical feeling of weakness, minor depression, lack of focus and inspiration. Further, the leader could help the community connect their experiences to the spiritual health and see how the body can communicate the restlessness of the heart and soul.

In his book, Kosicki provides several pairs of concepts and sensations that reflect the signs of low spiritual health and the ways of healing; for instance, the author says that fear can be healed by trust in God’s will, shame – via mercy toward self and the others, and the spiritual weakness – via gratitude.¹⁰ These insights could be shared with the ministry to equip the people with the techniques and tools that would help them to heal themselves by strengthening their faith.

Recognition of Emotions

Mental health is a question raised in the Scripture. In particular, Luke’s Gospel explores the subject when telling about the practices of healing people by Jesus who helps many individuals with mental problems. The issues of this kind are presented as possessions by demons that cause the isolation of the affected people, their alienation from society and such consequences as the feeling of loneliness, depression, anxiety, and some other kind of emotional sufferings.¹¹

In this way, the importance of emotions is recognized in the Scripture. Jesus practices mental healing through faith as the source of confidence, calmness, peace, and content. Thus, the meaning of relaxation and calm focus is acknowledged as the key to effective behavior whereas stress, worrying, and panic are connected to ineffectiveness due to frustration. McDaniel refers to the raging emotions and psychological instabilities as the “internal storm” that needs to be calmed and can be calmed effectively with the help of faith.¹²

As a strategy to improve the spiritual health within a community, this wisdom can be applied to the individuals who can admit that there are emotionally disturbed for some reason and the ones who notice the signs of emotional tension reflected in their bodies – headaches, clenched jaw, restless hands, loss of sleep or focus, sweating, heavy breathing, and fast heart rate. To help such individuals find peace and relax, the leader could discuss the reasons that make them worry and then explain how to practice faith in these situations. For example, one could sit down for a quiet prayer (alone or with close people – whatever brings more comfort); another way is to find trust and acceptance of God’s will within oneself and be confident that God’s intention is good.

Diagnosing and Assessing

While scanning one’s own body and listening to the signals it sends is a very simple and comprehensible way to connect the physical experiences with the emotional tension and spiritual wellbeing, there are some more ways of assessing one’s spiritual health. These approaches include the use of inventories and tests designed specifically for this purpose because regardless of its abstract nature, a person’s spiritual health can be measured.¹³

Scazerro’s test for emotional maturity is one of the useful tools that would help the believers find out their level of emotional maturity and the potential ability to analyze their feelings and behaviors in an unbiased and objective manner. Whitney uses a slightly different approach that is more suitable for people with a higher degree of emotional maturity; this approach relies on a sincere and open conversation with self that is conducted through asking questions about faith, behaviors, feelings, habits, and the relationship with God.¹⁴

This set of questions for self-evaluation in terms of spiritual health can be applied as a strategy to guide the community towards a better understanding of where they are on their spiritual paths. The first question refers to what the author calls “thirst for God” – it is recognized as one of the main determiners of the spiritual growth or its absence.¹⁵ The next few questions focus on the relationship with God including sensitivity to God’s presence, governance of God’s word, and love for others.

Further, the focus moves on to the needs of the other people and their recognition by the individual taking the assessment, finally, the inquiry transfers to the issues of forgiveness, shame, and grieving over sin – the behaviors that cause stress and anxiety in the believers’ lives and may discourage them from following the word of God in the future and growing spiritually. The questions help the believers understand which of their actions and behaviors cause distress and mislead people on their way toward the spiritual wellbeing.

Training the Future Leaders

The principles and techniques outlined above can be used not only for self-assessment and the provision of guidance to the community but also as the tools to equip the future spiritual leaders. A spiritual leader is to learn how to evaluate his or her level of spiritual health in order not to let the distress and apathetic moods penetrate the hearts of the people in the ministry.

Being a spiritual leader is a serious pressure that is likely to affect the individuals in charge and cause their discouragement and depression. A leader is always required to have answers and know what to do regardless of the complexity of the situation he or she is facing; a leader is to handle the emotions of others and remain calm and focused. Dealing with the pain of others, watching their sufferings and frustration can serve as a massive stressor that makes the journey of a leader extremely complicated.

That way, while the church attenders require these strategies as assisting tools, the spiritual leaders need to rely on the daily because they are exposed to many more dangerous influences that can affect their spiritual health and development negatively. A spiritual leader is to constantly assess their emotional maturity and spiritual growth and adjust their behavior accordingly. In turn, this ability required a high level of emotional maturity which can only be achieved through an ongoing self-development.

Conclusion

The spiritual leader is in charge of their ministry. It is possible to say, that in some way, the leader is responsible for his or her people’s hearts and health. The internal storm that affects everyone can be handled with the help of faith that is the key to confidence, calmness, and relaxation. The spiritual leader needs to be equipped with the techniques to help the people find their path and continue to grow spiritually.

However, at first, the leader is to assess their spiritual health and wellbeing because it is directly connected to that of the community. These two concepts are deeply interrelated and intertwined and can affect one another. Just like Jesus once said that a doctor should heal himself¹⁶, a minister is to fix their spiritual health before he or she attempts to help the community to handle their problems because an unhealthy atmosphere in the ministry is often caused by a spiritual leader lacking inspiration and confidence.

Bibliography

Hawkins, Greg L. and Cally Parkinson. Move… What a 1000 churches reveal about spiritual growth. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011.

Kosicki, George W. Divine Mercy’s Prescription for Spiritual Health (Huntington: Our Sunday Visitor Publishing, 2002.

McDaniel, Thomas R. Dr. Luke’s Prescriptions for Spiritual Health. Oceanside: Magnus Press, 2000.

Scazerro, Peter. The Emotionally Healthy Church. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2015.

Whitney, Donald. Ten Questions to Diagnose Your Spiritual Health. Cambridge: Tyndale House, 2014.

Footnotes

1. Greg L. Hawkins and Cally Parkinson, Move… What 1000 churches reveal about spiritual growth (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011), 13.
2. Ibid, 19.
3. Peter Scazerro, The Emotionally Healthy Church (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2015), 60.
4. Ibid, 73.
5. Ibid, 74.
6. Ibid, 79.
7. Hawkins and Parkinson, Move… What a 1000 churches reveal about spiritual growth, 170.
8. Scazerro, The Emotionally Healthy Church, 116.
9. 1 Corinthians 10:13 (CJB)
10. George W. Kosicki, Divine Mercy’s Prescription for Spiritual Health (Huntington: Our Sunday Visitor Publishing, 2002), 67.
11. Thomas R. McDaniel, Dr. Luke’s Prescriptions for Spiritual Health (Oceanside: Magnus Press, 2000), 28.
12. Ibid, 30.
13. Scazerro, The Emotionally Healthy Church, 60.
14. Donald Whitney, Ten Questions to Diagnose Your Spiritual Health (Cambridge: Tyndale House, 2014), n.p.
15. Whitney, Ten Questions to Diagnose Your Spiritual Health, n.p.
16. Luke 4:23