Spiritual Growth Plan
What Is a Spiritual Growth Plan?
A Spiritual Growth Plan (SGP) is an intentional, thought through, and written out plan that describes and defines what you believe God would have you do to walk with Him and grow spiritually.
God causes us to grow, but it is our responsibility to put ourselves in the position to grow. There are certain resources and disciplines that have long been recognized as “means of grace” that God has ordained to nurture our spiritual life.
A spiritual growth plan is simply thinking through and personalizing how we will incorporate these things into our lives.
Start Here
This is the plan we suggest if intentionally thinking through your spiritual growth is new to you: For the remainder of the year, I will thoughtfully read the Woodlands in the Word: New Testament plan. Answer the following questions to make a complete and achievable goal!
When to read?
Pick a consistent time in your weekday that you can commit to 20 minutes of {mostly} quiet time.
Where to read?
Plan for where you will read and pray. Make sure you have a Bible (print or digital), a pen, and maybe a journal present!
How do I thoughtfully // responsively // profitably // meaningfully read the Bible?
Structure your 20 minutes. Here’s a suggestion:
- Get there & rest: just take 1-2 minutes to sit and be in the presence of God. Settle your mind and heart in his presence.
- Begin with prayer: spend 1-2 minutes in prayer, committing yourself to God’s loving shepherding and recognizing that God is delighted to be in your presence, too!
- Read the assigned chapter: it takes about 3-7 minutes to read a chapter of the New Testament. Read it slowly and thoughtfully. Read it twice if you have time.
- Interact with the text: take another 5-7 minutes to interact with what you’ve read. There are many ways to do this – highlight a portion that stuck out to you and use those verses as a prompt to pray through, or journal about them, or use a reference or study Bible that will lead you to other places in Scripture to help answer questions you may have.
- End with prayer: spend your final 1-2 minutes praying in response to what you’ve read.If you’ve got the time, spend another 10 minutes praying for yourself and others, your church body and the church around the world!
Building your sGP: Supporting Questions
As you think about your 2024 Spirtual Growth Plan, we encourage you to consider our Woodlands Church priorities. Click on each priority for more information, and think through the sample questions below. Your plan shouldn’t answer every question, but this should help!
Grounded: Building on the Word of God and prayer
We aspire to be a Christ-centered community grounded in the Bible and prayer. The Bible is God’s Word, our ultimate authority, and we seek to study it, understand it, and be transformed by it. Therefore it will be the basis of our teaching, shape our ministries, guide our decisions, and govern our conduct. Prayer is powerful and essential in the pursuit of God and His purposes. Therefore we will engage in widespread and consistent prayer at all levels of church life.
How Will you aspire to be grounded in the bible and prayer?
- What will you read in Scripture this year? What reading plan will you use? If you don’t know where to start, take our simple, Woodlands in the Word reading plan from above!
- Will you memorize Scripture this year?
- Think about spending extended time in prayer.
- How will you keep track of your prayer requests and prayer plans?
- How can you pray in a group or in community this year?
Grace-Filled: Proclaiming the gospel of grace and living graciously
We aspire to be a community marked by grace. Grace is the foundation of our faith, and the essence of Biblical love. All people are made in the image of God, infinitely valuable to Him, and yet in need of His grace. Therefore we will love all people and will continually proclaim the grace-filled love that has come to the world in Jesus Christ. God is honored and people thrive when Biblical love is practiced, so we will express our differences with graciousness and pursue our mission with unity.
How will you aspire to be grace-filled?
- What can you do with regularity to remind yourself of the gospel and the incredible grace that has been shown to us?
- Do you express differences graciously? How can you grow in this area? Who can hold you accountable?
- Is there a forgiveness or grace you need to extend to someone? How might you rebuild particular relationships in 2023?
- How can you show love towards those around you this year?
Going: Sharing the good news about Christ and the love of Christ
We aspire to be a church that goes intentionally into our local community and world with the Gospel. Jesus is the hope of the world, so we will strategically and creatively share the good news and love of Christ in relevant ways. We will seek to bless and impact others by doing good works to meet pressing needs.
How will you aspire to go with the gospel?
- Do you know how to share your faith? What steps can you take – books, classes, etc – to learn how to share your faith better?
- Who do you know who doesn’t know Jesus? Who are you praying for that they would meet Jesus? How can you be intentional about sharing your faith with them this year?
- How are you praying for our missionaries? Pick up a guide of our supported missionaries at the Info Center on Sunday.
- Would you consider a missions trip in 2024? Start planning today about whether you’ll go!
Growing: Helping everyone become more like Christ, in all of life, and for all of life.
We aspire to be a community where everyone is growing in their knowledge of, trust in, dependence on, and obedience to Jesus. He is Lord, and calls us to live surrendered to Him, so we will help people pursue spiritual growth in all of life, for all of life. To facilitate spiritual growth in our community we will coach people to walk with Jesus, equip them for service and witness, and develop leaders.
How will you aspire to grow in christ likeness?
- What areas in your walk with Jesus do you most need to grow? Pick a book or podcast or online class that can help!
- Is there someone you could ask to mentor you? Who do you look up to spirtually – perhaps you could meet with them intentionally throughout this coming year?
- Do you have sins or habits that need to be changed? How can you structure your spiritual growth around confession and repentence?
- How can you be helping others around you grow? Can you coach or teach or mentor?
Gathering: Pursuing the Christ centered life together in large and small gatherings.
We aspire to pursue life in Christ together; therefore we commit to gather consistently in two ways. Every Sunday morning, we gather for corporate worship, prayer, and the teaching of God’s Word. We also meet together in smaller groups as transformational communities to support, challenge, and encourage one another to be Christ-centered. In our times together the Holy Spirit shapes us to be like Jesus and sends us to be Jesus in our community and the world.
How will you aspire to pursue life together?
- How often will you attend church this year? Make a plan to gather consistently on Sunday mornings!
- Consider where you sit in the Auditorium. Are there people around you you can connect with? How will you get to know them?
- Will you join or continue in a Life Group this year?
- How will you use the fantastic sermon resources put together each week to deepen your faith in community?
Giving: Practicing faithful generosity with our time, talents and treasures
We aspire to practice faithful generosity in all areas of our lives, believing that the extent of our fruitfulness will be determined by our faithfulness with what He has entrusted to us. Jesus gave his life for us so we will give our time, talents, and treasures for his purposes. As stewards of everything and owners of nothing, we will seek to manage the resources entrusted to us with integrity and use the abilities he has equipped us with to serve faithfully.
How will you aspire to give generously?
- Do you tithe? Consider how you’ll use financial giving this year to conform your heart to Christ. Plan where to give, and plan to give generously. Don’t forget your local church!
- Where might you serve in 2023? Do you have gifts or talents you want to put to use in the church or the community?
- Who are you needs to be cared for in a specific or generous way? How can you give to them?