Hey Friend - It's Friday morning and I just wrapped up a fantastic time of private devotion. I love talking about the power of the private devotional life. It is part of the Christian tradition spanning throughout time, but I still don't think it gets thought about enough. What I want to share with you today is how I think through spending that time throughout the week. One of the fallacies we can fall into is thinking this takes significant time. I don't think it does. What it does take is deliberateness in focus and a willingness to experiment and think through how we each do this uniquely. I have a couple of assumptions as part of it.
So with those assumptions, let me share with you how I see three different types of devotional time and how they relate to a busy schedule. This works for those in ministry, or those simply following Jesus. The basic/non-negotiable This is a 20-minute process if extremely truncated. Normal Devotions I also try to read a short chapter in classic devotional writing. I like EM Bounds, The Imitation of Christ, or something similar. The normal devotion time takes around 45 minutes. The Long Devotion The long devotion might stretch for a couple of hours. I know this might seem a bit much, and I recognize my life and family rhythms give me time for this. The long devotion for you might look very different. But I think learning to value the devotional life in ways to make sacrifices and decisions to do so. This morning, I read in Augustine about his own ill-focuses in his younger life that moved him away from pursuing God. There are other things we can choose to spend our life on, in pursuit of what we call good...but if we aren't recognizing the call of God on our hearts and pointing ourselves toward a greater experience, are we actually following God? I hope this finds you well as you enter the weekend. And I hope you take a few extra moments to spend with the presence of God. Chad |
I steward Productive Pastor, a podcast and community of ministry leaders focused on how productivity and strategic ministry in the average church. I write about practical approaches to ministry productivity. I also write emails about church stability/development and my own theological musics in our current social moment.
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