Five Questions for Evaluating Spiritual Growth

In his book Nine Marks of a Healthy Church, Mark Dever shares five questions he asks when he visits with members of his church to help evaluate their spiritual growth (p. 212). We discussed these questions during an adult Sunday School class this morning, and it was a fruitful discussion. So I am posting them here as well.

• In what particular way have you grown in your understanding of the Christian life since we last met?
• In what particular way have you grown in your practice of the Christian life since we last met?
• In what particular way do you feel that you need instruction?
• In what particular way are you disappointed in your own pursuit of holiness?
• How specifically can I pray for you?
  

Catching up

We were sitting in a booth at a local diner, drinking coffee and catching up.

"I noticed you haven't posted anything at your blog in a while," he said. "You know, you might find it easier to build your readership if you actually wrote something."

I grimaced. "I know." I stared out the window for a moment and sighed. "The whole idea was to post once or twice a week with my reflections on theology, ministry, really whatever I was spending my time thinking about. But with all that has happened in the last few weeks..." I shrugged. "I haven't really known what to write."

"Why? What's going on?"

"You haven't heard?" His forehead furrowed as he slowly shook his head. "Oh boy." I sighed again. "There's no easy way to say it. I've submitted my resignation at Bethel."

His shoulders slumped. "I knew it wasn't going well. But I had hoped it wouldn't come to this."

"Yeah." The waitress came by and refilled our coffee. I took my time stirring in milk and sweetener. "The church wasn't healthy when I got here. It's very tempting, and it would be very easy, to blame things on everyone else. But the last few weeks have given me a lot of opportunities to do some self-examination, some self-questioning. And I've realized that you can be right, but still be wrong."

"What do you mean? You think it was your fault?"

"Sort of. Not exactly." I leaned forward over my coffee cup. "I have no regrets about the decisions or changes we made. Our values and convictions come right out of Scripture. The congregation is hooked on expository preaching now. We've seen people grow in their faith, and several people have started following Christ in the last couple of years. But I can look back and see relationships I should have handled differently, or people I should have made more of an effort with, or how I could have taken a different tone or attitude. I didn't always help myself."

He looked thoughtful. "It sounds like God has been doing some work on you too." He grinned. "Maybe you could have blogged about that."

"Maybe I still will." I smiled. "But it's not an online diary. I needed some time to think and pray. And really I'm still processing things. Add to it that my family doesn't yet know where we're headed... There's been a lot going on lately. But it was time to go. My wife and I had already decided that. We wanted to take things in one direction, and many in the church wanted to go in another. So this is best."

"You'll keep me posted on what happens next, right?"

"As soon as there's something to tell." We both took a drink of coffee. "Did you fill out your brackets this year?" He laughed, and the conversation turned to other things.