With the busyness of the summer, many of your members will have spent time away from home and out of their routines. Their habits of attending church every week and participating in activities have likely broken down.
As you enter this new season, now is the perfect time for your entire congregation to undergo a spiritual reset.
Highlight Prayer and Bible Study
Prayer and personal Bible study are essential to spiritual growth.
If you want to build a relationship with a friend or family member, you should spend time talking and fellowshipping together. Neglecting to make time for each other often has the opposite effect and drives you further apart instead of drawing you together.
Dedicating time to prayer and Bible study builds relationships with the Father. To successfully use the fall as a spiritual reset for your church family, you have to highlight the importance of daily prayer and Bible study.
Offer resources to teach people how to pray. Plan a month-long prayer calendar that your church can do together. Create a set of devotionals everyone can do daily, centered around your sermon series to reinforce what they’re studying.
Simply reminding your congregants that they should be spending time in the Word and praying every day might not be enough. Make the most of this time to re-engage your congregation not only with each other but also with their relationships with Jesus.
Focus on Discipleship
One of the most significant charges believers are given is to make disciples.
Even if people are in the building every time your doors are open, involved in every activity, and serving in every ministry, if they aren’t genuine disciples of Jesus, they’re missing out.
Part of a successful spiritual reset is focusing on discipleship.
Yes, having congregants in your pews and regularly worshiping with other believers is important. But ensuring everyone who walks in truly understands what it means to take up their cross to follow Him is more important than how many bodies you have in the building.
Spend time in your small group Bible studies, Sunday School classes, worship services, and every event or activity you host during the fall, focusing on what it means to be a disciple.
Encourage Serving
James tells us that “faith without deeds is dead” (James 2:26).
You want your congregants to know that their salvation isn’t contingent on their works, but they should have a faith that produces works.
As you focus on discipleship during this spiritual reset, you should remind your congregation that outsiders should know they are disciples by their love for one another, which is demonstrated through their service to the Church.
The 80/20 rule, which claims 20% of the people are doing 80% of the work, is not a new concept for churches.
Ministries have struggled to get everyone involved in service from the very beginning. During this season of spiritual reset, take time to encourage serving.
Serving is such a vital part of discipleship that James claims that those who don’t do the good works that result from their faith have failed to find salvation.
There will be some in your congregation who are limited in their ability to serve due to physical barriers or work/personal commitments that make serving difficult. But since the command to serve others isn’t dependent on someone’s ability or availability, it’s your job to help find out-of-the-box ways for them to fulfill their calling to serve while meeting them where they are.
Emphasize Giving
While there is some debate in the modern church on how much believers are expected to give to ministry, the instruction to give hasn’t changed.
In Mark 12:41-44, Jesus and His disciples saw a widow place two small coins into the offering box while those around her made a show of offering large sums.
There are likely people sitting in your pews who don’t have much to give, just as there are those who’ve been blessed with abundance and are able to contribute significantly to your ministry.
You may be tempted to spend time during this spiritual reset focused on the importance of bringing the full tithe into the storehouse (Malachi 3:10), but if you don’t address the hearts of your givers, you’ve missed the point.
It’s true, bringing the full tithe in is huge. It speaks to a faith that God will provide and gives your ministry the freedom to do all that He has called you to do.
But as with all habits and new skills, learning to give takes time. If you push too hard to provide a full 10%, those who have little to give are likely to choose not to give at all if they don’t have the foundation of faith required. At the same time, those with much may fall to the temptation of boasting in their giving or give solely out of obligation rather than a desire to obey.
This season of spiritual reset is all about re-engaging your congregation and moving them deeper into discipleship.
So, as you emphasize the importance of giving, start small. Look first at why each member of your church should give and the heart behind their giving before you talk about amounts.
It’s time for a reset.
The summer and all its busyness have drawn to a close. Now is the time to re-engage your congregation with your ministry, drawing them into fellowship and relationship with other believers and their Creator.
Use this next season as a time for a spiritual reset to reconnect your members with their discipleship journeys so they can become all that God has called them to be.
Making disciples doesn’t happen on its own. Take time this fall to pull those in your flock closer to the Good Shepherd!
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