What Is Spiritual Growth...Exactly?

A lot of people are interested in spiritual growth, whether Christian or not. If you believe that, as a human being, there is a spiritual aspect to your life, and you don't want it to atrophy, then you want it to grow. People pursue spiritual growth in a variety of different ways: Bible study, prayer and meditation, reading books or websites about spiritual subjects, serving others, the list goes on. But seldom does anyone really define what spiritual growth is. In fact, it seems almost un-spiritual to define it, or especially to measure it. The word "spiritual" equates with "mysterious" or "unknown," and attempts to examine it or approach it in a scientific way seem out of sync with the whole idea of spirituality. But have you ever considered that, by viewing spiritual growth this way, we only ensure that we never really know if we are making progress? How do we know if we are growing spiritually? Do we just feel it?

I suppose it's easy to miss, but Jesus gave us a simple and straightforward definition of spiritual growth. We call it the Great Commandment: "Love the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength; and love your neighbor as yourself." (Luke 10:27). Jesus said that these two loves, if you will, sum up all the Law and the Prophets, which was a whole lot of content about spiritual growth for the people of Israel. And his definition puts very real boundaries around spiritual growth; it tells us what it is and, just as importantly, what it is not. It's not anything as cold and lifeless as rule-keeping, but it's also not vapor. It's not religious activity, unless it revolves around love for God or neighbor, and it might be irreligious activity if it promotes loving God or neighbor better than religious stuff does. It's spiritual life being poured into a human being, causing that person to be and to do things he or she would not have done on their own; namely, loving God and others. In my experience, no one can just muster up the willpower to do this. So you may or may not go into a trance, and you may or may not feel tingly, and there may or may not be any candles or incense involved. But Jesus said one thing would be true, if it's real spiritual growth: love for God and love for neighbor would be increased.

Some very devoted and very smart people conducted a 3-year study into spiritual growth in Christian churches. It's published in a book called Reveal, which is listed among the books I'm reading in the right hand column of this blog. They performed in-depth studies of spiritual growth in a variety of different churches using--and here's an astonishing idea--Jesus' definition of spiritual growth. When growth was measured according to whether or not people increased in love for God and neighbor, some amazing information came to the surface. I won't "reveal" the whole study, but here are two big light-bulb moments:

• Neither gender, adult age, or particular church attended was a significant factor in how people grew spiritually. Think about that: how much do we separate into age, gender, and cultural groups based on our personal preferences, supposedly in order to receive customized help in spiritual growth? This study reveals an ugly secret about us: our spiritual pursuits are often more about our own comfort than they are about actual spiritual growth. In fact, it may just be that our intent on hand-picking where, how, and with whom we grow spiritually is preventing our growth as much as it is promoting it. I'd like to see a study on that.
• There is only a limited connection between involvement in "church" activities and spiritual growth. [quotations around "church" are mine; church is used here in an institutional sense, which may differ from a biblical definition of church.] The idea that participating in an array of church programs is an effective path to spiritual growth just doesn't hold up to the data. I don't believe that church programs are bad or even poorly executed; it's the inherent limitations of a class or seminar or worship service that pose the problem. Loving God and your neighbor in increasing measure inevitably takes you out of an auditorium or classroom, and into new places like the lives of people and a personal relationship with God. This is important, because it's certainly not the case that you grow spiritually by yourself: the work of the Spirit of God directly and through relationships with others is crucial...just not insitutional.

At the Springs, we're addressing these issues head-on. Our mission is to connect people to Christ and teach them to love God and their neighbor. We've locked in on the Great Commandment as our definition of spiritual growth so that nothing else can define success for us. And we're pushing the church out of the classroom and into the neighborhood, where loving God and your neighbor has real meaning and consequences.