Succeeding Spiritually During the Summer – Some Ideas

In my last post I outlined what I think are the 3 main challenges we struggle growing spiritually. Below are some ideas for pushing back on these challenges and pursuing Christ during the summer.

1. Take Initiative – Create a Schedule
This is important whether you are a scheduled person or not – and especially if you do not like to be a scheduled person! For some reason the summer immediately creates in me the desire to go on vacation, be lazy and not do a lot. I could blame this on the school system, but in reality it is just my own selfishness. The best way I’ve found to fight this is to take the initiative and create a schedule for myself when it comes to spiritual growth. This “schedule” can take many different forms…
a) Set a specific time to spend with Jesus in prayer and in His Word on a regular (not necessarily daily) basis.
b) Find a Bible study that you can attend weekly.
c) Set up a weekly meeting for coffee or lunch with a friend to talk about your pursuit of Jesus
d) Set up a weekly phone call with a friend (if you are out of town & away from friends) to discuss your pursuit of Jesus (and His pursuit of you!)
e) Find a place to serve Jesus with others this summer – some of my deepest relationships have been formed while serving with others!
f) Find some books you want to read and set a time (at least weekly) where you will sit down and read. In a future post I will give you a suggested list of books as well as a list of what I am reading this summer. For now you can go to http://www.campusimpact.org/resources/growth/
g) Find a podcast that will challenge and lead you spiritually and listen to it regularly. I suggest Lincoln Berean’s Podcast or Andy Stanley’s church podcast.

If you know me well, you know I don’t like tremendous amounts of structure in my life, however, I also recognize, my life (spiritual as well as the rest of life) very quickly goes to shambles without some type of structure! The bottom line is if you want to grow in the summer, you can, the change in schedule and apparent laziness of summer is not preventing you…and a schedule can help!

2. Find encouragement & Accountability
This idea is primarily for those who are out of town and away from christian friends, but it applies to all of us. If you are struggling being back around old friends or back in a location where temptations from your past seem harder to resist, then you need to do something about it. I would say do something about it ahead of time, but we are well into the summer now….so I’ll just say do something. The temptation is not going to go away on it’s own and as I said at the last CWH, “We were never meant to follow Jesus on our own for an extended period of time. We were meant to exist as followers of Jesus in a community!”

The primary (and maybe easiest) thing I think you can do is get a hold of a christian friend and plan a time where you will have a phone call every week for the purposes of encouragement and accountability. There are other things you can do, like check out churches and groups in your area. It may not be exactly like what you are used to in terms of church or bible study, but that does not mean God can not use it to grow and challenge you!

At the end of the day, I think growing spiritually in the summer boils down to one question, “Do I want to know Christ?” Another way to ask that would be, “Am I willing to seek God?” If the answer to that question is yes, then it doesn’t matter where I am or who is around me. Hebrews 11:6 tells us that God is a rewarder of those who seek Him. If you seek God this summer, He will reward you. The reward will be a closer relationship with Him.

I pray this summer we will be like Abram in Genesis 12. When the Lord told him to go out and leave everything he knew except for his immediate family (which was unheard of in those days), Abram went. Abram’s location in Genesis 12 is a great picture of summer for many of us. He is not in a comfortable place, he is away from almost everyone he knows and I wonder if some of those who were with him weren’t completely on-board with this trip they were making to an unknown land, sent by an invisible God. In Genesis 12:9, Abram calls upon the name of the Lord. It’s a beautiful picture of what we should be doing this summer – calling upon the name of the Lord…seeking Jesus…pursuing God!

Next Post….my summer reading list….

Keep Seeking Jesus…Matt