Men’s Health magazine recently listed several of the more creative excuses doctors and physical therapists hear when their patients explain why they don’t exercise:
“An earthquake drained my pool.”
“My wife would be angry with me if I lost weight.”
“I can’t because of the volcanic ash.”
And (my favorite), “The TV at the gym is always on something I don’t want to watch.”
Pastors also hear plenty of interesting excuses when it comes to spiritual exercises. Sometimes they utter the excuses themselves. To what extent do church leaders follow spiritual disciplines? Do they practice what they preach?
And what have been some of their spiritual experiences?
To inquire into the spiritual health of its readers, LEADERSHIP randomly selected 749 subscribers (and a statistically significant 58 percent responded) and surveyed what ostensibly seemed to be the unquantifiable: how church leaders practice the presence of God. Here are the results.
The Mystical Presence
Asking someone about their spirituality can be like asking if it’s colder in the city than it is in the summer. Huh? The very question scrambles the brain. And besides, what sort of person is eager to display his or her spirituality?
So we tried to put realistic handles on the topic. We opened this survey by listing eleven ways God might communicate. (See Chart 1.)
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We asked survey respondents to indicate how frequently God had communicated to them in each of these ways. Not surprisingly, the most consistent means, week by week, was through the Bible-88 percent indicated God communicates to them through the Bible at least weekly, and 43 percent indicated God speaks to them through the Bible daily.
For John Piper, pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota, hearing God speak through the Word weekly is hardly enough. It must be several times a day.
“I don’t have a long shelf-life,” Piper told me in a phone conversation. “I almost have to get saved every morning all over again. I need to see God afresh every morning.”
One category in this question-through a mystical, indescribable experience-jumped out at us. After tallying the numbers, we found 51 percent indicated they had experienced a mystical, indescribable experience with God at least once in their lifetime.
Dallas Willard, author of In Search of Guidance (HarperCollins) and professor of philosophy at the University of Southern California, says that Christians today feel much more comfortable with these experiences.
“Even in the ten years since I wrote In Search of Guidance,” he told me, “there is much less resistance to the idea that God might speak to an individual.”
John Piper drew a helpful distinction between sensing God’s presence and having a mystical experience.
“The sense of God’s presence,” he said, “is different from a mystical experience such as a word of prophecy or a dream or a vision.
“All Christians would affirm God wants us to enjoy his presence-in Thy presence is fullness of joy; in Thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore’ (Ps. 16:11, NASB). God’s presence includes a peace and a contentment with what you have that is different than the spectacular experiences many have in mind when they mention dreams and visions and other types of communication.
“Sensing God’s presence is the subjective assurance of God’s love and care, his drawing near, the Spirit’s witness we are the children of God. As we revel in the truth that we belong to the Lord, a joy will sweep over us, that he has our future in his hand. I crave that daily.”
Wayne Jacobsen, pastor of The Savior’s Community in Visalia, California, frequently senses God’s presence.
“I’ve felt the presence of God in a conversation over lunch when somebody said something to me that was exactly what I had read in the Word earlier that morning,” Jacobsen said. “I would describe that as very mystical.”
Our survey attempted to clarify further these moments in God’s presence by listing eleven categories of spiritual experiences. (See Chart 2.) Then we asked, For each item, please indicate when you most recently experienced it.
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Almost the entire group-95 percent-indicated they had received an answered prayer in the last month. Those filling out our survey (80 percent of whom are pastors or on a church staff), it seems, are regularly seeing God at work.
In addition to answered prayer, pastors are seeing God work in other supernatural ways: 35 percent indicated they’d had a dream or vision from God in the last five years; also in the last five years, 11 percent said they’d experienced an angel; and 67 percent indicated they had experienced a healing in the last five years.
The State of the Disciplines
Spiritual experiences are one thing. What feeds those encounters with God is quite another. So we inquired into the normal practices or disciplines of those filling out our survey. The survey listed a number of spiritual disciplines and asked respondents to Check how often you practice these personal (not professional) spiritual disciplines. (See Chart 3.)
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Some 86 percent indicated they prayed daily. And 66 percent read Scripture daily (97 percent at least weekly), while 35 percent indicated they do other devotional reading daily (77 percent at least weekly).
Here are the percentages of those who practice other disciplines at least monthly:
Self-examination and repentance (62)
Solitude and meditation (57)
Scripture memorization (33)
Journaling (32).
And these disciplines are practiced at least a few times a year by a significant percentage:
Self-denial/abstinence (47)
Spiritual retreats (42)
Fasting (31).
These spiritual disciplines, says Dallas Willard, are basic to how many conceive of Christian spirituality.
“Most people automatically assume that spirituality is a certain set of practices,” said Willard. “But that is legalism. Spirituality is a life lived from God. It’s getting beyond the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees and entering into the depths of the heart.”
So an authentic and indeed truly Christian spirituality is a life oriented around the presence of God. “That means we plan our whole lives differently,” said Willard. “God will not normally compete for our attention.” The disciplines, then, are a means to arrest our attention and focus it on God.
Roger Barrier, pastor of Casas Adobes Baptist Church in Tucson, Arizona, says that in addition to the Bible, God communicates to him through what he calls, “Spirit to spirit,” the Holy Spirit to his human spirit. This required his learning a new discipline: corralling his runaway mind.
“Fifteen years ago, I became intrigued with the idea of hearing God speak,” said Barrier. “Shortly after, it dawned on me that as an American I had a difficult time quieting my mind.
“So I began to practice just quieting down my mind to see if I could get it under control, to where I was no longer thinking about today’s lunch or tomorrow’s golf game. At first I could only do this for a few minutes. As I learned to quiet down my mind, I asked God to speak to my deep, innermost spirit.
“At first, listening for God’s voice required a quiet environment with no outside distractions. But over the years, I learned to recognize his prompting, as against my own voice or Satan’s-even in a church business meeting.”
Spiritual Friendships
In addition to the spiritual disciplines, our survey asked about another practice: spiritual accountability. When asked, Have you ever met with someone else specifically to help you grow spiritually? 83 percent said yes.
To whom do they go? More than half indicate a friend or a small group, and 43 percent say “a pastor.” (See Chart 4.)
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Dallas Willard, a former Baptist minister, believes pastors should hook up with other pastors for spiritual help, preferably another pastor outside their denominational circles.
“The important thing about spiritual help of this sort,” said Willard, “is the perspective of another pastor, a person who is accepting and wise and not in your situation. But you do need someone who understands the kinds of things you’re dealing with. Many Christian counselors have never pastored; they really have no sense of what it means or involves. They may be swept away by their technique.”
Charles Mueller, Sr., a Lutheran pastor for nearly forty years, agrees: “My advice is to find the finest older pastor in your area and make him your friend. Ask him questions, and when he tells you do something, do it that way the first time.”
So how effective is meeting with others? Of those who said they’ve met with someone to help them grow spiritually, 97 percent indicated it was “somewhat” or “very effective.” When asked, For your most recent (or only) experience, how many times did you meet with this person? 40 percent indicated more than 20 times.
Willard adds a note of caution about our expectations of spiritual mentors and directors. “They can be helpful, but I think people’s expectations are higher than is warranted,” he said. “I feel much the same way about mentors in business or other professions. Some expect that decision making and gut-grinding change can be replaced with magical words. But spiritual change does not come from information or inspiration.”
To clarify further, the survey asked, Do you currently have a same-sex confidant with whom you can be open about personal struggles? Over two-thirds of those surveyed-70 percent-indicated yes. Of those who do, 60 percent pray at least monthly with this confidant, and 84 percent communicate at least monthly with that person.
The survey also asked, What types of topics do you share with this confidant? Here are the top four: 90 percent indicated ministry hassles; dreams/goals, 81 percent; prayer requests, 72 percent; and relationship with God, 62 percent.
The subject of sexual temptations came in last at 26 percent.
“Sexual temptations are hard fought and hard won,” said one pastor. “To talk about sexual temptations requires a certain depth of intimacy and trust. I don’t think that’s the first thing on someone’s heart to share.”
“Most are pretty selective about what they share with others,” Willard admits. “To be totally transparent before another person is rarely achieved. Still, we should work at it.”
Praying with Your Spouse
The survey explored the sensitive subject of leaders’ spiritual intimacy with their spouse, asking, Other than table grace, how often do you pray with your spouse? Of those who were married, 49 percent indicate they pray at least weekly with their spouse, 15 percent monthly, and 37 percent indicate rarely or never. Only 20 percent pray with their spouse daily.
John Piper was dismayed at the low percentages of those praying with their spouse daily.
“My relationship with my wife, Noel, is a barometer of my life and ministry,” he said. “If I feel estranged from her spiritually, an emptiness and worry gnaw at my soul until every burden in the ministry is compounded.”
There’s a gap, we discovered, between reality and respondents’ desire. When asked, How important do you think it is to have devotions or regular prayer with your spouse? 54 percent indicated it was “very” important and another 38 percent said “somewhat important.”
One way Wayne Jacobsen and his wife carve out time for prayer is by regularly fasting together.
“With the exception of summertime, we try to fast once a week,” said Jacobsen, “though we don’t hit it every week. The night we’re fasting we’ll fix dinner for the kids and then go into another room and spend 30-45 minutes together. That’s our best time of prayer together because it’s concentrated and we’re not off rushing to do something else.”
Finding a discipline that both enjoy, believes Charles Mueller, who was pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church in Roselle, Illinois, for fourteen years, is one key to spiritual union with your spouse.
“It took me a long time to figure out that my wife, Audrey, is not my clone, and that spirituality does not come in one size, shape, or form,” he said. “Some people enjoy conversations about spiritual matters, for example. But for some it would be sheer tedium. If you are a person who loves that sort of conversation and you’re married to someone who doesn’t, you can’t force the other person to conform to your wants and needs. I urge couples to begin exploring the common areas that are most helpful to spiritual growth.”
Roger Barrier and his wife, Julie, used to sit down regularly for an hour or so and pray through a long prayer list. But that didn’t work.
“We’ve tried just about every model throughout the years,” Barrier said. “What finally worked was to say, ‘Julie has her spiritual life and I have mine.’ Julie likes to read the Bible every morning, taking notes, and then have a concentrated time of prayer. I’m not that way: I don’t keep a prayer list or a specific time each day when I pray. I pray when I wake up and then throughout the day.
“But still we interact throughout the day. Few days go by without our praying together. Mostly that consists of her praying for my day and my praying for her, and we both pray for our family.”
Dallas Willard adds this caveat: “Every person should be spiritually intimate with someone other than their spouse. They should not make the spouse their spiritual point of reference. You need someone else who is not involved in the relationship, who sees you differently.”
The topics married pastors share with their spouse parallels that of what they share with their same-sex confidant. When asked, What types of topics do you share with your spouse? 92 percent of married pastors indicated ministry hassles, 88 percent dreams/goals, 87 percent family struggles, and 78 percent said prayer requests. Only family struggles differed from the top four topics shared with a same-sex confidant. And sexual temptations came in last at 27 percent.
A Habit of Growth
Pursuing a life in the Spirit while engaged in ministry, however, requires overcoming some obstacles.
When asked to Check the most common obstacles to your spiritual growth, the top five were busyness (83 percent), lack of discipline (73 percent), interruptions (47 percent), sin (33 percent), and anger (17 percent). (See Chart 5.)
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What often lies behind these obstacles, says Dallas Willard, is simply habit. “We’re just in the habit of living our lives that way,” he said. “We’re unwilling or unable to see a way to break them. The interesting thing about habits, though, is that they always produce rationalizations.”
To interrupt habit and rationalization, he says, we have to reposition our bodies in space and time for a long enough period of time. In effect, create new habits.
“We generally don’t do justice to the role of habit in the spiritual life,” said Willard. “Most of the things that people who are quite devoted will say that they just can’t do, like memorizing Scripture, they could do. They simply have the habit of not doing them.
“Nothing will take the place of decision. You’ll always be busy, and people will always be disappointed. But one doesn’t have to live that way no matter how large their ministry is. But you have to know it’s okay not to be busy, that it’s okay to make the decision that will free you.”
The death of his first daughter, Jesse, was instrumental in helping Roger Barrier decide growing up spiritually was important. When Jesse was born at full term, she weighed only three pounds, having been born with a bad heart. Eight months later she had gained only two pounds. Her heart was so underdeveloped she couldn’t physically grow.
“The bitterness and anger were tough to handle,” said Barrier. “Shortly after she died, I was in the shower praying, asking, How could Jesse’s death bring God glory? and Did I commit some sin?
“Then there in the shower, I experienced one of those precious times when God spoke to me, not in an audible voice, but inside me. ‘You know how much it hurt having a baby who couldn’t grow up,’ God said. Then there was silence. The voice returned: ‘This is how it feels to have spiritual babies.’
“That experience was a life-changing mark on my personal life and ministry.”
Spiritual Warfare
In addition to obstacles, another more powerful force can mitigate our spiritual intensity: spiritual warfare. To the survey question, Compared to five years ago, how often do you think about spiritual warfare? 74 percent indicated “more” or “a lot more.”
In light of the recent spate of popular Christian books on the subject, says John Piper, it’s understandable people are thinking more on this topic. But at least two additional reasons account for this increase, he says.
“I see an increasing disillusionment with psychological and management theory within the local church,” said Piper. “These two things have captured our minds for a generation. Now we’re in the nineties, and the whole world seems to be caving in on us; it’s not working: therapy isn’t fixing people and management isn’t making powerful churches even if it might be making a few big ones. Our society isn’t feeling the impact of the church.
“Another is the profound sense of mega-evil in the world. More people are dropping their jaws as they listen to the news and read the daily papers. We’ve lost our verbal capacities to express dismay at American evil. The whole world appears to be coming apart.”
Charles Mueller sees spiritual warfare not on an international scale of intrigue but in a more subtle, plainclothes sort of way. “I’ve discovered the devil works best,” he said, “one by one, person by person, flock by flock, place by place, strife by strife, and low vision by low vision.
“Those with low vision have low expectations of themselves, are so preoccupied with their sin that they can’t see the grace of God. They struggle to be energetic and alive to the Lord’s opportunities of today.”
Whatever its form, more pastors seem to be aware of spiritual warfare today.
Joy Unbeatable
Overall the survey results were upbeat, though almost everyone admitted feeling spiritually dry at least occasionally.
When asked, Within the past month have you experienced any spiritual drought or emptiness? 81 percent indicated they had at least experienced a little. And when asked, How often do you experience spells of spiritual drought or emptiness? 73 percent indicated “occasionally” or “often.”
Yet when asked to complete the statement In the last 5 years, I have spiritually . . ., 79 percent indicated they had “moved closer to God.”
One apparent reason is 60 percent also indicated they’re investing more time developing their spiritual lives compared to five years ago.
Another may be the result of becoming more self-aware. The survey asked, Have you taken any tests to measure your personality type? and 83 percent indicated they had. When asked How helpful was this in understanding who you are and how you function? 89 percent of those who’ve taken a test checked “very helpful” or “somewhat helpful.”
On a scale of one to ten (with ten being extremely strong), the survey also asked, Please grade your current condition in each of the following areas: emotional/mental condition, spiritual condition, and physical condition.
It’s significant to note that those marking either a nine or ten when grading their spiritual condition also, on average, graded higher their emotional/mental-8.76-and physical condition-7.78. Those marking a one through seven on the same scale graded lower their emotional/mental condition-6.64-as well as their physical condition-5.99.
Does this indicate that people in good physical condition tend to be more spiritually positive? Or does it show that those in good spiritual condition tend to keep their bodies and emotions in shape, too? More study will have to be done.
What can be said, though, is that God will draw near to those who draw near to him: “Come near to God and he will come near to you” (James 4:8). To know God and to be known by him is the joyful end of our spiritual practices.
-David L. Goetz is assistant editor of LEADERSHIP.
Copyright © 1993 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
