5 Ways to Get People into the Word

April 11, 2013

By Phil Maynard

5 Ways to Get People into the Word
(the most critical element of spiritual growth)

Reflection on scripture is the vanilla ice cream of spiritual growth.  It is the stuff that all the other spiritual growth catalysts are built upon.  Engaging scripture personally and regularly is critical for spiritual growth.

Now this would seem to be a given since, as John Wesley put it, “we are a people of one book”.  But the reality is far from this.

In our survey of congregations using the Real Discipleship Survey, well short of 50% of participants have a regular daily practice of reading scripture and prayer.  The Reveal study confirmed these results noting that as few as 3% and as many as 42% of congregations have established a daily practice of prayer and scripture reflection (source:  Move, Willow Creek Association).

Nothing is more predictive of spiritual growth than the personal discipline of daily reflection on the scriptures.  If congregations did nothing more than teach people how to engage the scriptures and encouraged a daily practice of the discipline of lis