Spiritual Health – Nick Poole

With the recent talk of revival in Florida, I’ve heard a lot of discussion taking place about this topic. Revival is a very interesting subject and it seems everyone has their own definition of what revival is. The more I’ve thought about it myself, I’ve come to this conclusion. A person’s definition of revival will often determine the direction of their spiritual walk. Let me explain.

Revival to many followers of Christ is the ultimate spiritual experience. Call it right or wrong, many followers of Christ would agree. The issue, however, is what does revival look like to you?

My definition of revival isn’t a week or months or years of having services every night. It isn’t necessarily a few services where people are being healed. I think revival is most effective as it impacts the mundane. True revival doesn’t actually start in the church, the church simply becomes a gathering of ‘revived’ individuals. There are numerous components of revival, but I think if personal change in the mundane aspects of life aren’t taking place, I don’t want any part of it! The reason is because true life doesn’t take place on the mountaintop – it takes place in the valley. The question I have for you today is this: How is your definition of revival affecting your spiritual walk? Are constantly looking for the “Rah-Rah” spiritual experience or are you taking intentional steps to cultivate the divine presence of Jesus in your everyday life?

Any normal pastor would agree that they would love to have some kind of handle on the reality of where their church is spiritually. Measuring a person’s spiritual health is such a difficult thing, and if done with the wrong motives can actually be a very destructive thing. But as a pastor, it’s important to be able to gauge the effectiveness of your discipleship programs. Are they doing what we think they’re doing? Pastors can take a guess or just hope they are, but unless you have visible proof, it’s very difficult to have even a grasp on the reality of your church’s spiritual health. And while you can’t really gauge a person’s spiritual health because it’s such an intangible thing, you can measure how many people are placing themselves in a healthy discipling environment (small groups, Sunday School, etc.).

Here’s a few questions to ask yourself to see where your church is?

What does an individual in your church do to be discipled? Is their a program or process to walk them through a journey of discipleship? If not, you might want to work on that.
What percentage of those that attend your church on a Sunday morning are going through your discipleship process? You will never have 100%, but a healthy percentage is 50-60%. Don’t get discouraged if you’re well below this percentage. The big thing is that you’re actually looking at the number. Part of grasping the reality of your church’s spiritual health is measuring. Looking – not assuming.

Tag: Spiritual Health

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