Spiritual Discipline
The Church leader must first and foremost be a disciple of Christ: one is a disciple only if one is disciplined. Discipleship deals with being both corrected and conformed. The leader will be corrected by the Lord (Proverbs 3:11, 12), and must be conformed to His image (Romans 8:29; 12:1, 2). It is only as one engages in this process that the call to ministry is authenticated. Personally traversing this path of discipline will empower the leader to move others in the same direction. As Jack Hayford states, “wise leaders will not only pursue discipline in their own lives, but will also answer the call to cultivate the same grace (not laws) in others.” Authentic Christian leaders will answer that call themselves and announce that call to others, in that order.
The leader within the church must understand that the first person in the community and congregation that needs to be continually transformed into the image of Christ is the leader himself. Leo Tolstoy is quoted as saying, “Everybody thinks of changing humanity and nobody thinks of changing himself.” In order for an individual to be qualified to lead others within the context of the church there must first be a transformative process within that individual. One must be transformed into the image and likeness of Christ if he or she desires to lead others into that reality. The oft-quoted line applies, “You cannot lead others where you are unwilling or unable to go yourself.”
“Spirituality is paying attention to the life of the spirit in us; it is going out to the desert or up to the mountain to pray; it is standing before the Lord with open heart and open mind; it is crying out, ‘Abba, Father’; it is contemplating the unspeakable beauty of our loving God.” In order to be a Christian leader, one must be willing to engage with the disciplines that lay the heart open before the Lord so that the image of Christ can be formed within. It is vital that the leader of a congregation develops a systematic approach to the disciplines.
Aubrey Malphurs wryly writes in Being Leaders, a Christian leader needs to be a Christian. The way that one becomes a Christian is not simply by accepting Christ as Savior, but by engaging in the disciplines of the spirit to ensure that Christ is Lord of one’s life. The spiritual disciplines are tools used to form Christ in one’s life. The spiritual disciplines are, "a means of receiving God's grace. …[They] allow us to place ourselves before God so he can transform us. The task for us then is to cultivate our daily lives into fertile ground in which God can bring growth and change.” It is important to note that the disciplines themselves do not form Christ within an individual; rather they place one in God’s presence where His transforming grace can be extended.
In his seminal work The Spirit of the Disciplines, Dallas Willard addresses the importance, development, and exercise of the spiritual disciplines. Willard argues that there is a balance that can and should be stuck between the doctrine of grace and the exercise of the spiritual disciplines. The balance between legalism and liberty in terms of discipline is an issue that each leader will have to address. Robert Mulholland states,
Somewhere between the extremes of avoidance of discipline and the imprisonment of discipline is the holistic practice of balanced spiritual disciplines which become a means of God’s grace to shape us in the image of Christ…Holistic spiritual disciplines are acts of loving obedience that we offer to God steadily and consistently, to be used for whatever work God purposes to do in and through our lives.
Both Mulholland and Willard would agree that the wholesale denial of the disciplines has removed a vital resource for spiritual growth and development from the lives of believers. The vitality of this resource is echoed by Jack Hayford who states, “I don’t know of anything more important to my whole life in Christ than having early learned two things: 1) Always invite and welcome the Lord’s correction and instruction, and refuse to argue your own ‘righteousness,’ and 2) Continually seek and pursue patterns of basic Christian disciplines, even when it seems you may never perfect any of them!”
In order to engage in the disciplines they must be examined in light of their historic exercise. Willard classifies a series of the disciplines into two categories: 1) Disciplines of Abstinence (Solitude, Silence, Fasting, Frugality, Chastity, Secrecy, and Sacrifice), and 2) Disciplines of Engagement (Study, Worship, Celebration, Service, Prayer, Fellowship, Confession, and Submission). One can personally research these historic practices to determine their present value; this short article is intended to simply broach the subject.
In closing, it should be understood that advocating engagement with the spiritual disciplines is in no way a plan for putting practice over passion. The love in the leader’s heart for the Lord, and His people, should be the impetus behind a disciplined life. In fact, it is only through a loving relationship with God that the spiritual disciplines become a vital and vibrant life-giving exercise. Without the foundation of love for the Lord the disciplines collapse into a self-congratulatory display of self-righteousness. Donald Miller makes a great observation in his book Blue Like Jazz, “Self-discipline will never make us feel righteous or clean; accepting God’s love will. The ability to accept God’s unconditional grace and ferocious love is all the fuel we need to obey Him in return…Our ‘behavior’ will not be changed long with self-discipline, but fall in love and a human will accomplish what he never thought possible.”
Spiritual Disciplines are an expression of one’s heart for the Lord. They serve to announce to the Lord, “Do what needs to be done.” This attitude arises in the heart of one who desires to become all that God has planned and who desires to know God in a greater capacity. The Westminster Shorter Catechism states, “Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him for ever.” Engaging personally in the Spiritual Disciplines actuates both of those purposes.
Paul’s words serve as a sober reminder to all church leaders, “Therefore I run thus: not with uncertainty. Thus I fight: not as one who beats the air. But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.” May the word “disqualified” never be spoken over the life of any church leader. The Spiritual Disciplines are a tool to ensure that the Christian leader remains a qualified leader.