A Spiritual Growth iPlan

This morning I taught on the importance of continued spiritual growth.  Spiritual growth is a lot like weight-training.  You start somewhere, with whatever you can do, and go from there, increasing the weight as you can.  But after two years, if you are still doing the same exercises with the same amount weight, something is wrong!

Like exercise, spiritual growth is natural, but it is not automatic, easy or quick.  In other words, if you are a follower of Jesus you should be growing- if you are not, something is wrong!  However, spiritual growth requires attention, effort, hard work and patience.  This is the school with no graduation!
 
I also talked about the various spiritual disciplines, or habits, that help us grow.  Someone later asked me for a copy of the full grid.  Here it is:

	Beginner	Novice	Intermediate	Advanced
Bible	Read	Meditate	Study	Teach
Prayer	Needs	Thanks & Praise	Intercession	Conversation
LIFE Group	Attend & Talk	Prepare & Contribute	Lead	Coach
Quiet Time	5 Minutes	15 Minutes	30 Minutes	1 Hour or Multiple
Ministry	As-needed	Regular	Leading	Overseeing
Giving	Donation	Regular	Tithing	Tithe Plus
Other	Journaling	Silence	Fasting	Direction
Sins	Outer sin	Omission	Inner Sins	Consistency
	Practices	Habits	Character	Destiny

 
  All of this is great and helpful, but doesn't bring change unless it is put into practice.  And you most likely will not put it into practice until you devise a plan.  How and when will you do which of these practices?

Here is a sample five-day plan that you can begin this week!  And for you iPhone folks, you can do most of it with your phone. 

Meditating  Mondays - No, we are not referring to the empty-your-mind kind of meditation, but rather, the fill-and-focus-your-mind kind, specifically with Scripture.  If you have not done so, download the free YouVersion Bible app (available at the iTunes app store, or at www.youversion.com) and read the Bible on your phone.  This handy app also features several Bible reading plans to help you get started!  How about filling your drive-time with the Word of God?  YouVersion will even read the Bible to you, just like if you were listening to a song!  So on Mondays, how about popping in your earbuds and filling your time with God's Word?

Teaching Tuesdays - The beauty of the internet is the availability of so much great material!  If you attend New Vision Church, you can listen to previous messages by visiting our iTunes Podcast page or just search for "Jason Matters New Vision Church" in iTunes.  I recently talked with one of our members who downloaded a previous teaching series on parenting and really appreciated it!  Also, check out other great teachers.  I subscribe to the podcasts of Andy Stanley at NorthPoint Church and Craig Groeschel of Life Church.  How about listening to some Bible teaching while commuting to and from work on Tuesdays?

Worship Wednesdays  - More drive-time help here.  Rather than listening to some random radio station with the same-old morning show, how about your favorite worship music? I typed "worship" in the search bar of the iTunes store, and the top 50 songs listed many of my favorites.  How about making your own worship playlist?  You could even find songs that you like but don't get to hear at church.

Thankful Thursdays - Sorry, no app here, but you still won't need to make an actual phone call on your, um, phone.  Think about 2 or 3 people for whom you are thankful.  Take some time and tell God why you are thankful for these people in your life.  Now grab your phone and send them a brief text message, telling them, in 140 characters, why you are thankful for them and what they mean to you.

Fasting & Feasting Fridays - Fasting is not weird.  It is merely taking something out of your life for a short time in order to replace it with something more important.  Like noise.  How about riding to work in absolute silence?  No music, radio or phone calls.  Just silence.  Maybe skip lunch to just sit quietly, and read more of the Bible and pray a while.  Then go home and feast!  Spend your Friday evening surrounded by family and friends, celebrating life with them!

There it is.  A sample plan, with enough alliteration to make even Rick Warren proud.  It is not the only plan, and it certainly is not the best plan.  But it is a place to start.  Try it and you will grow.

I Believe In Public Schools - Part 3 - Why 'C' Students Rule the World

I am a nerd and always have been.  I am pretty sure one of my school pictures features my brown, plastic-rimmed glasses, my hair slicked-back with the help of too much gel, and the only thing missing from the picture is a pocket protector.  By the end of high school, my transcript displayed only A's, a class ranking of 1, and an ACT composite that was well within the 99th percentile.  College was similar, with a solitary B that I earned while in high school taking a college class. (I still regret transferring that class.  I should have just taken the CLEP test and saved my transcript the embarrassment of an inferior grade.)

All of that is only important because of what comes next:  it turns out that good grades are not the greatest factor influencing success.

In my previous posts, I addressed the concerns that are raised, mostly by Christians, regarding the morality of the atmosphere in public schools.  In this post, however, I want to address the other concern: the quality of education.  I often hear parents claim that they can do a better job of teaching in their children in three hours per day the material than the school teaches in six.  Some parents insist on a private school education because of its superior curriculum and results.  After all, what good parent would not want their child to get the best education possible?  The assumption is that if their children are surrounded by higher-performing students, taught by better teachers, and led by better administrators, then they will get better test scores and have greater chances of success.  But is this assumption true?

In 1995, psychologist Daniel Goleman published a book entitled Emotional Intelligence.  A person's emotional intelligence quotient (their EQ) is based on 5 factors: self-awareness, self-regulation, social skill, empathy, and motivation.  He argued that a person's (their EQ) is a better predictor of success than is their intelligence quotient (their IQ).    Psychologists and researchers have hotly debated his claims over the predictive value of a person's EQ, but they do not question the significance of these factors.  Note that 2 of the 5 are social skills, and 2 more highly influence a person's social skills.

Related to education, we have assumed for years that the best and brightest go on to achieve the highest measure of success.  But it is just not true.  Why do so many scientists, inventors, business owners, and even world leaders have embarrassing transcripts?  Because it ends up that C students really do rule the world.  Why?  Because while the A students were sitting alone reading books and writing papers, the C students were hanging out with their friends, partying, playing sports and learning teamwork, conversation skills, leadership, conflict resolution, and a whole host of other social skills.  And now, in the real world, they are able to flourish because they work well with people.  Whether we like it or not, the work-a-day world is collaborating and working in teams.  Office walls are torn down and even managers are expected to work in open floor plans.  Students in Harvard business school are never alone even from the first day of entering the program.  Why?  Because success is really determined by how well we work with others.

This is not to say that academics are not important.  A diploma is not just a piece of paper.  It suggests that a person has been exposed to a class of ideas and has demonstrated a set of core competencies and understanding.  But that is about it.  After graduate school I was called to serve a church. (That is preacher-speak for, "I got a real job.")  And they never even looked at one transcript! 

I believe in public schools because they provide the greatest opportunities for social interaction and for building social skills.  Compared to private schools, public schools offer an unmatched range of diversity, pushing students to learn how to work and get along with others who are richer, poorer, faster, slower, popular, overlooked, of all different religions, native backgrounds and moral influence.  The public school, like no other institution, provides a place where our kids can best develop academically and socially.

I am not looking forward to the day one of my children comes home with tears inflicted by a bully.  But bullying is not reserved for minors.  Bullies grow up and learn sophisticated adult bullying techniques. Learning to handle a bully is not a social skill reserved for children.  But I am guessing that adults who learned to handle bullies in a healthy way while they were young  do a better job of it as adults.  Which brings us back to the idea of the secure base.  If we, as parents, will provide a secure base at home for our children, from which we launch them daily and then wait for them to return, they will be well-equipped to grow academically and socially while attending public schools.