After a spiritual turning point, a person needs to understand both the glory of an event and the dynamics of the ongoing process of spiritual growth.
—Paul Anderson
Postpartum blues hit more than new mothers.
Our congregation’s worship leader and I helped lead music at a praise service for a church convention. Scores of people, some with tears, had come up afterward to tell us how they had appreciated worship. When I returned to my hotel room, I found a note from my colleague, saying, “Praise God. Jesus was glorified this evening. Stand against discouragement—and have a good sleep.”
The next day I asked what he meant. He said, “I often battle discouragement after a spiritual high, and yesterday I was flying.”
This is not only a personal issue; it’s also pastoral. My parishioners enjoy spiritual highs from time to time—at seminars and retreats, in worship, and in dramatic answers to prayer. Those events transform people’s hearts and lives.
Yet coming off the mountain can be painful. Ask Peter, James, and John after they had seen their leader transfigured. Peter felt compelled to stretch the moment into a millennium. Do you blame him? On the mountain the disciples probably felt they could invade hell. In the valley they failed at casting out a demon.
So, when God has moved specially in people’s lives, what’s the pastor’s next move? After people have experienced the power and love of God on Sunday, what do we say about Monday? When friends have life-changing encounters, how can the gains of God’s special activity be preserved?
Put Events in Their Place
The first step is, through preaching and teaching, to put such events in perspective.
Sometimes people need an event to jar them loose from encrusted habits or set them on a new path. A gathering following a service, an altar call, or a fresh commitment at a retreat is such an event. Yet, by their very nature they are uncommon experiences. They are part of the way a gracious God deals with us, but they are exceptional.
People often come to us looking for an event, a quick spiritual high. It may have taken twenty years to develop the anxiety they live with, but they want it gone in an hour. I don’t blame them. I battled acute insecurity in seminary. I lacked the simple confidence to stand in class to speak. I was unsure of my relationships with fellow students. I dearly wished I could have been lifted out of that pit.
As tempting as it may be to seek events, however, I have to remind myself and my people that we cannot depend upon a series of events to bring us into maturity, any more than a baby needs multiple births to learn how to walk. Instead of waiting for the next “Spirit fix,” we need to learn how to put one foot in front of the other. There’s nothing dramatic about walking, but it gets you there, little by little.
We had a high-powered speaker come to our church a few years ago. One advantage of an evangelist is that he can stir up activity that would take the local shepherd months to generate. But the strength is also a liability. He may abort what is not ready for birth. He may force an event when a process is needed. We had some events that night: dynamic speaker, dramatic words, people visibly moved by the power of the Spirit. But I noticed over the next few months that people found no long-term help. They went back to the same old spiritual struggles.
Another time, a young man was battling with fears he could not explain. He came for counseling several times, hoping for deliverance. We believe in deliverance when appropriate, but behind this man’s fear was pride that grew out of a performance-oriented upbringing. The script had been written by Dad, and he was following it closely.
As the counselor listened to and prayed with the young man, he finally suggested to him that his life was like a wagon going west. Freedom was coming for the young man, but it would be a slow and gradual process. That wasn’t exactly what the man wanted to hear, but time validated the word. His was a problem not of the Devil but of the flesh, and one cannot exorcise the flesh, only offer it as a living sacrifice.
In short, people need a proper mindset to understand the difference between a spiritual experience and spiritual growth.
Progress Through Process
Besides putting events in perspective, I also need to remind myself and my people of the biblical dynamics of spiritual growth.
• Truth is always tested. After Jesus was baptized and filled with the Spirit, he was directed by the Spirit into the wilderness. The wilderness in Scripture often represents a place of testing, where God tries us to prove us, and Satan tempts us to defeat us. How we act after heaven opens up (and hell breaks loose) is critical to our spiritual growth.
Jerry called the day after meeting God at a retreat. His prayers that the Holy Spirit would be evident in his life had been answered. But the next day doubts set in; he wondered if the experience was no more than a passing emotional high. When I simply explained that Satan always challenges what God does. Jerry flexed his spiritual muscles and stood his ground.
• Growth is cyclical. Growth in faith is hardly a straight ascending line. Although sometimes it feels like a jagged ascending line—where our growth is interrupted by brief falls—most of the time it’s more like an ascending series of loops. Before we make progress, we often have to go back over old territory. In doing so, it may seem like we’re going backwards when we’re actually going deeper.
For example, Barbara’s mind was nearly gone when she came to us. She was desperate. She said that something had to happen immediately, or she would go crazy. I assured her the Lord could restore her mind but that it might take a while. In fact, it took longer than I expected, but after months of people praying with and caring for her in a small group, she began to smile, laugh, and reason again.
After five months of progress, however, she came into the office, worried. “I’m not getting better,” she said. “My mind is still a mess, I’m still not free, and I am right where I started.” I smiled because the change in her was obvious to all who knew her, and I told her so. Then I went over the diagram above with her, and she walked out with a light step. She just needed to know that God was at work, that she could trust the process, however slow and cyclical.
• Fruit is developed. Spiritual fruit is not given; it is grown. God’s gifts, including the gifts of salvation and the Holy Spirit, can be received in an instant. God’s goal for us, however, is that we conform to the image of his Son and produce the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, and the like. And that takes time.
Recently, through our relationship with Alcoholics Anonymous, drug users and long-time alcoholics have come to our church. Most of them realize it will take time to be fully healed, but others are hoping the pastor will fix them immediately. I tell them, “Stay with us, and let us love you back into health. I can’t tell you how long it will take, but if you stick it out, the Lord can heal you.”
• I have changed; life has not. I remember riding high after going forward at a Billy Graham meeting at the Los Angeles Coliseum. I expected all of life to change after my beautiful experience. I wanted all my relationships suddenly to be improved. I hoped everyone would be nice from then on. When the emotions were rubbed off by reality, however, I was back to the humdrum of life.
I had failed to realize that what had changed was me, not life. I needed the Bible’s wisdom that “if any man is in Christ, he (not everybody else) is a new creation.”
The day after a wonderful retreat often hits us with the dull thud of reality. Instead of having our devotions under a pine tree, we awake to three screaming kids in the next room. We soaked up the love of God for three wonderful days; now we are expected to balance the checkbook, make four difficult phone calls, and service a faulty washing machine.
Teaching people about the process of faith can help them handle with maturity the disparity between mountaintop highs and life in the valley.
Shape the Event Appropriately
How we minister to people during spiritual events can also help the process of spiritual growth. When we recognize that a service or retreat may lead to a mountaintop experience, we can shape it so that it has lasting effects.
In particular, I’ve found Jesus’ parable of the sower (Mt. 13:1-23) a handy guide in such times.
• Aim for the mind also. Ministry that emphasizes emotion at the expense of understanding will merely provide breakfast for Satan—the bird that eats the seed that falls on hard ground in the parable. It is more important to help people understand what is happening than just to create a happening.
If during a powerful event a person says, “I don’t understand,” we should resist saying, “That’s all right; just receive it by faith.” Lasting faith must be built on understanding; it’s not a leap in the dark.
• Shape the event for the long-term. The second group in the parable respond enthusiastically, but they do not last when trouble sets in. The emotion of joy is an appropriate response to the working of the Spirit, but a ministry that makes people feel that they will live happily ever after may be preparing them for heaven but not for earth.
Thus during the event itself, it’s helpful to prepare people for the long road ahead, to remind them of the difference between the mountain and the valley, between triumph and testing, between momentary ecstasy and patient sanctification.
Remembering the long-term also means respecting the history and personality of the church when planning and leading an event. One woman who led a retreat for us came asking questions about our congregation, about our traditions and our expectations. She invited our leaders to participate in her services. During the services she gave me a prominent role of anointing with oil those who requested it.
In contrast with the visiting evangelist I described above, she not only led an exciting spiritual event, her ministry also bore lasting results. For example, one young man who was healed of back problems during her ministry with us gave himself to Christ, and has continued on in strong faith since.
• Remember repentance. The third group in the parable functioned well until the word was choked out by worldly cares. During glorious spiritual events, I must also be willing to remind people of worldly cares that may hinder them when they come off the mountain.
Frankly, I’d rather bask in the wonderful moment. But glory without the Cross isn’t Christ’s way. If I’m interested in sustaining my people’s growth, I must also challenge them at such times.
One Lenten service a woman in the congregation shared a simple insight she received: she sensed the Lord drawing near to us that night. I seldom give altar calls, but after this word, I did so. I wanted people not only to know the joy of Christ’s presence, but also to open themselves to the Lord in new ways, perhaps in ways that would require new humility and trust.
• Let God move as he will. The fourth group in the parable responded to the word and experienced supernatural dividends. Naturally, that is what we want to see happen. But sometimes, in our anxiety for spiritual highs, we try to make them occur prematurely.
To say, for example, “God is moving tonight” or “I feel the Lord in this place” may be accurate, or it may simply express the leader’s desire that God do something.
At one of our services, a visiting evangelist announced how much he felt the Lord was doing in our midst. I had my doubts. In the days before the service, as I entertained and spoke with him, I noticed that he usually talked less about God and more about his ministry. His observation that God was in our midst struck me as anxious hope more than quiet confidence.
It might make the minister look better if everyone agrees that the night was powerful, but such language cannot make it happen.
Jesus’ approach was just the opposite. When moved by a powerful event, he urged people not to speak about it. He didn’t announce the mighty works of God; he simply allowed them to happen through him, when and where God willed.
What to Do Back in the Valley
How can we take people from the event into the process so that we preserve the gains? I’ve found three elements go a long way toward that end.
• Follow up. During one Sunday service, we encouraged people struggling with addictions and unhealthy habits to come forward. Eighteen people responded. So we contacted all eighteen people to see if we could link them with someone who could provide ongoing counsel. They were thankful to know we weren’t operating a “one-night stand” but would stick with them.
Pastors cannot get personally involved in all the follow-up, but they can nurture the kind of spiritual network in a church that makes ongoing follow-up possible. That means building the expectation that ministry belongs to everyone in the congregation, helping people discover their gifts, and giving them confidence and opportunities to use them.
Specifically, we’ve trained ten of our members to be available to pray and counsel with people after services and special events. Such people have given counsel and support to many new Christians and troubled believers who wouldn’t have made it without such help. One divorcée whose spiritual crisis we had followed up said, “I don’t see how I could have made it without the support of people in the congregation.”
• Support support groups. In a crisis, Marsha came for counseling. She had known the Lord for many years, but she still battled with a low self-image. She found it hard to receive love from others, though she was a thoughtful and caring person who encouraged others with kind words and creative notes. She eventually shared her story with me—her abuse as a child and the shame that clouded her life, making her feel like dirt. Her tearful confession was a momentary high, a release from her past.
That might have remained a momentary experience had not a support group for sexually abused women given her courage to move steadily through her pain to healing. In the group she was able to share her background and receive loving support. Two years later she was able to say to the leader, “I don’t need to come anymore. I have received what I need. Thank you.”
• Help people affirm their victories. One good way to cement victories is to make daily confessions of faith. Language has a way of firming up new trust. So, we often give people statements of faith that we encourage them to recite at least once a day, affirmations such as:
“There is therefore now no condemnation. I don’t condemn myself, and I don’t condemn anyone else.”
“I stand fast in the freedom that Christ gave me, and I allow others the same freedom.”
“I am a child loved by God. Therefore, I love myself.”
This is especially helpful at thwarting the natural tendency to live in the nostalgia of yesterday’s blessings. Jesus taught us to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread.” The psalmist wrote that God is “a very present help in trouble” and that “his mercies are new every morning.” We give people affirmations of faith not only to cement past blessings, but also to reveal new ones in the lifelong process of Christian growth.
• Reveal your own struggles. When the scenery shifts after visiting the mountaintop, and people find themselves in the valley, they need to know they are not alone.
I’ve found that the more honest I can be about my struggles, the more free members are in discussing theirs. And that helps them walk patiently until victory comes again.
I find many opportunities to talk like this with people one to one. Recently on vacation, I visited a former member who now is a leader in another church. He asked me to pray with him because his spiritual life seemed unusually dry. When I told him about some of my struggles in the deserts of faith, it was a great encouragement to him.
Caring for the revitalized means helping them understand both the glory of an event and the dynamics of the ongoing process of spiritual growth. Birth is an event, growth a process—spiritually and physically.
“As you have received Christ,” wrote Paul, “so walk in him.” Receiving Christ or a new infusion of the Spirit may help people leap for joy. But ironically, that’s just when we need to teach them how to walk.
Copyright © 1990 by Christianity Today
