So, what are the 9 pathways? They are: naturalist, sensate, traditionalist, ascetic, activist, caregiver, enthusiast, intellectual, and contemplative. I will give a brief explanation of each but please remember that these are titles that the author ascribed to certain activities that he observed. There might be other terms that better describe the pathway but the issue isn’t the name but the activity that restores your soul.

The naturalist is a person who finds being outdoors does something to awaken their hearts to God. Naturalists find more spiritual stimulation in a natural setting rather than in a cleverly crafted human one. I find water particularly soothing and a doorway to intimacy. When we lived on Vancouver Island, I would go to a beach, find a large boulder to lean upon and then soak up the presence of the Lord. An hour or two would fly by and I would leave with such a sense of refreshing in my inner most being. At the time of this writing we are in a landlocked city with no sea nearby. But I find the little brook in the park down the street or a walk along the canals so incredibly worshipful. The majesty of a first growth forest is great but nothing does it for my soul like water.

The sensate finds God through the five senses: taste, touch, hearing, seeing, and even smelling. A sensate becomes spiritually attuned when their senses are brought into play. We went to a prayer meeting organized by the youth of a church. Before we could go into the meeting they blindfolded us and kept us in the hallway of the building. They then gave us a spoonful of bitter lemon juice to stimulate our prayers for those believers who were suffering prosecution for their belief in Christ. Inside the hall they had stations of prayer. Some stations had a video playing, others writing in sand, one centre wall had sheets of white paper where you wrote the names of those you were praying for. There was incense and loud music with lights. We put handprints on the paper on the other side of the centre wall. They had a time of worship with dancing and then a short message, which ended with the speaker crashing through the centre wall. It was an amazing experience but it did not personally bring me into an intimate place with the Lord. It did for others who were deeply moved by this expression of worship.

The traditionalist is designed to appreciate the role of ritual, which builds on the power of reinforced behaviour. There is something profound for you in worshipping God according to set patterns. You may choose to make good use of Christian symbols. It is wise to record insights and truths before we forget them. A traditionalist uses carefully chosen symbols to trigger those truths we want to live by. The types of symbols are unlimited. I know of believers who have experienced the most profound connection with the Lord through a traditional liturgy from the Anglican book of prayer. They had been to many free flowing and prophetic meetings but had never experienced the intensity of God’s presence like they did at a formal liturgy. When I was leading a church, I encouraged my worship leaders to have total freedom to flow wherever the Spirit led. At times I wondered about one of my leaders in that they struggled with the freedom. I used to wonder if I should put more structure into the format for that person’s sake. They lived with us in community and I noticed that in their room they had all kinds of icons, posters and even incense. At that time it never clicked with me that this person found God through tradition and a set pattern. This person’s journey eventually brought them to a church with a very defined, structured format for worship. I thought that they would never be happy in this situation but now realize it is exactly where they will find their greatest fulfillment in meeting with God. They love the role of ritual in worship.

The ascetic is someone who goes off on his own to meet with God and recharge. You like to meet God internally by shutting out the world and basking in solitude. Silence is ideal for personal worship, preferably no distractions. If you need to have alone time on a regular basis you most likely are part ascetic. Ascetics are advocates of many of the classical disciplines of the faith like fasting and meditation upon scripture. I love worship music but often when I want to draw close to God it is silence I crave. Over the years I have learned to be alone in the midst of crowds of people. I will find a café or park where I can sit with people all around but not have to interact. I withdraw into myself and find God in the inner silence. When you have a family it isn’t always expedient that you withdraw from everyone. You need to function in this while you are traveling home in the car or on the subway. Lately I have had to call myself back into being present when there are people around that I need to connect with.

The activist is one who loves to meet God in the vortex of confrontation. If you're an activist, you want to fight God's battles. As an activist, you're one of the movers and shakers of the Christian community. God seems most real, present and exciting when you are in the midst of God's active work. Your focus may be social justice or evangelism or intensely pastoral but the joy and life flows from doing something to bring change. I know pastors who spend all day meeting with people from their fellowships speaking intensely into their life situations. For me to do that is exhausting, for them it is exhilarating. They finish a day of constant coffee meetings refreshed, not to mention buzzed from the caffeine. Activists seem to always be busy and if you aren’t one of them you think when do they get time for God. But the time for God is found in their doing. They can’t understand why the ascetics have to draw away by themselves and sit around doing nothing. Not all people who appear equally as active in the same projects will feel refreshed afterwards like an activist will.

Caregivers love God by loving others. The opportunity to serve and meet others’ needs spiritually energizes you, drawing you ever closer to the Lord. Caring and serving doesn’t weigh you down or feel obligatory or a duty. Caring is the doorway to intimacy with God. This type of service is fulfilled in multiple expressions such as nursing sick people, fixing someone’s plumbing, serving as a volunteer firefighter, or researching a cure for a disease. Again like the activist it seems as if these people are avoiding intimacy with the Lord and may even feel guilty, as their joy doesn’t necessarily come from being alone with God. Care needs to be exercised with this pathway so that it isn’t abused by being overused or busyness draws you from the other paths in your unique blend. I recently met a man who shared that he had the opportunity to purchase gifts for a Christmas gift project. He was so moved by it he said that he would love to do something like that all the time. He was surprised by how much caring brought him into a place of intimacy with God.

The enthusiast loves excitement and celebration reveling in God's mystery and supernatural power. As part of your pursuit of the Lord you tend to buy far more worship CDs than books. You favor group worship, as enthusiasts are generally more relational. The excitement of other believers praising God encourages and strengthens you. Your exuberance draws you to expressions of worship, such as dancing, music, and singing. A spiritual risk taker you look to God to do something new and fresh. You not only want to know the word but you want to experience it too. I would say that enthusiast is part of my unique pathway to God. I love taking spiritual risks and seeing the Holy Spirit move in a meeting or in my life. I came to the Lord through witnessing my father in-laws physical healing. Up until that point in my life I had discarded Jesus’ claims because I had not experienced what the bible said He did. When it happened that close to home, I could no longer ignore the reality of God but had to engage with Him. It led to my conversion to Christ. As it was so fundamental to my conversion it has always been a part of my pursuit of knowing Him more.

The intellectual experiences worship when they receive new revelations about God. These are people who Gallop’s Strength Finder would label as learners because new intellectual understanding literally releases awe and a love for God. They may pursue learning in subject matter beyond the Bible where the more they understand the more they worship the Lord. Intellectuals usually start with the Bible as their initial point of contact with the Lord. As I said earlier I found that reading the word of God led me into a place of intimacy with Him. If I observed a principle or precedent in the environs around me, I would ask Him to show me if this was a godly principle found in His word. I would use scripture as a plumb line for interpreting or confirming my observations.

Often I will think in questions. I wonder why this or that doesn’t happen. I have learned that those questions are often God speaking to me. When I have been wondering about something for sometime and asking myself if we can do it or not, I have realized that God is speaking by making the question a statement. When I was first on my journey towards Christ, my in-laws would say that they prayed against intellectualism standing in my way of coming to Christ. But it was through reading scriptures and books and asking questions of God that I received understanding that helped me respond to God. I knew from scripture that I had to come to Him by faith and not by my understanding, which I eventually did. But they were praying against one of my sacred pathways to Him. Good thing He didn’t answer those prayers.

The contemplative can be distinguished by their emotional attachment and abandonment to God. Contemplatives are lovers of God who spend time in God's presence listening to Him and simply just enjoying Him like Mary. Solitude is a key for you as it is for ascetics. You love to sit still enjoying being in God's presence. Relationship is very important to you. You even relate to the Lord along the same lines as a couple would to each other. Keeping a journal is essential to expressing your heart's devotion. One of my wife’s pathways is contemplative. Her first encounter with the Holy Spirit was late at night when a presence filled our camper awakening her and filling her with awe and wonder. Often over the years since then she has awakened in the middle of the night to go and sit in His presence talking and writing in her journal. I have been amazed how refreshed and physically sustained she has been after hours spent in prayer rather than sleep.

Take some time to analysis your responses to God. What pathways resonated with you? What is the unique blend that brings you into intimacy and the presence of God? There may be elements of one that you don’t flow in simply because the characteristics of your other pathways modify that pathways expression. There may be one that is slightly more dominant than others.

Spiritual vitality is the quest to live in close relationship to God. Jesus said in John 15 that if we remain in Him and He remains in us we will bear much fruit and we can ask whatever we will and it will be given to us. He is emphasizing the need to be connected with Him. When we are in His presence we are fruitful, fulfilled and can know that He hears our prayers. Jesus’ sacrifice made a way for us to relate to God as God always intended for mankind too. It is not about buildings or evangelism or bible study or seeker sensitive services. It’s about relationship. It’s always about relationship.

Christianity is not about going to church or doing good works. To be a Christian a person needs to enter into a personal relationship with God through Jesus. According to Jesus in Matthew 16 the key to entering is revelation, which is a gift from God. Without the revelation that Jesus is who He said He is and our subsequent surrender to that we can’t truly call ourselves Christians. We need revelation and surrender to His goodness. This ushers us into the presence of God, no longer separated by all the barriers and hindrances that made Him seem so distant. This revelation comes to each one of us differently.

Amazingly the church tends to then lump all of its parts together as if they were all cut from the same mould. In my joy and excitement I sought out wisdom from those who were in the faith before me. How do I pursue my faith and relationship with my Father further? What must I do to know Him more? I was told: read the word daily, witness to your faith, pray, and go to church.

At church I was told to get up an hour earlier every day to pray and seek God. I wasn’t being a true believer if I prayed for anything less than an hour a day. This was bad advice for me. I am not a morning person. Getting up an hour earlier led to a constant guilt trip. I would either sleep through the alarm or wake up kneeling by my bed with my arms asleep or find myself reading the same line over and over and over again because my mind was not able to engage at that level that early. Yet in the evening I would spend hours reading and praying and soaking up the presence of God but still feeling guilty because it wasn’t the first thing I did in my day. The church commandment was: GIVE GOD THE FIRST FRUITS OF EVERYTHING.

So I wasn’t being obedient by not giving Him the first hour of my day. Thankfully I read scriptures in the evening for I found one that changed my perspective. “On my bed I remember you; I think of you through the watches of the night.” (Psalm 63:6) On my bed, hallelujah! Through the watches of the night! So it doesn’t have to be in the morning to be acceptable to God.

I found that as I read the bible I would be drawn into prayer. The word of God stimulated conversation and intimacy with my Lord. Then I went to a pastors’ conference where one of the keynote speakers rebuked us for our lack of prayer. He told us that we weren’t praying enough and that some of us were substituting reading the bible for time in prayer. I felt so chastised that I wasn’t praying enough and that I was the very one who read the word instead of praying. From that point on I started going to the Father in prayer without reading the word. It was so dry and fruitless. I would walk back and forth for an hour trying to pray, trying to hear the Lord, trying to fill the time. I read lists of requests to Him in an effort to feel good about interceding for the people in the church. I saw very few answers as a result of these lists of petitions. I felt like I was dying spiritually even though I was fulfilling this man’s directive on prayer. I felt guilty if I read the word and it then led into prayer. But, fortunately, after a time I realized that his sweeping generalization about prayer was wrong and I renounced his teaching on prayer. He taught from his experience, which he projected onto all the other leaders. He assumed we are all the same and that his way was the right way.

Isn’t it amazing how we, the church, serve a God of such incredible creativity and diversity in equally uncreative and mundane ways? We talk about being God centred and yet centre all our understanding out of our inner most being. I am, so I must be right. We need to expand our horizons of understanding and include diversity of expression within worship.

The Alpha course’s first lecture is entitled “Boring, Irrelevant and Untrue” wherein Nicky Gumbel explains that those words summed up his observation of Christianity before he met Christ. For someone observing Christians from an outside perspective it would be easy to come to this same conclusion. Most Christians are bored, avoid prayer like the plague and exude as much joy as a prisoner tortured on a rack. We start off with joy and then end up dead, dead, dead due to the lack of true intimate worship of God. 10 – 15% of the congregation may relate to the style of worship that is the norm for a particular church. The rest are bored stiff.

Call a prayer meeting and see how many turn up. Often a very small percentage of the congregation! Then we belittle those who didn’t come as unfaithful backsliders who only look to be entertained on Sundays. But why would you go to something that puts you to sleep? Often I only went to prayer meetings because I was the pastor, not because I really wanted too. It was something you had to do; it was good and right but not at all enjoyable. Prayer meetings were akin to drinking cod liver oil for your health. It’s good for you! Then you meet the people at the meeting who are excited and full of joy and can’t wait to pray. What happened? Oh, I know, they must be intercessors and that is their gift! It isn’t true. I have seen people who didn’t like to pray come alive in prayer once the method matched their pathway to meeting with God.

Do you know the sacred pathway that restores your soul?

The third key to thriving spiritually is the ability to set wise priorities. Too often we let the busyness of life and the demands of others dictate our time and activities. We respond to the tyranny of the urgent – the most seemingly pressing demand at the time. If we are the ones responding, we call it tyranny. If we are the ones wanting something done by others, we call it “the squeaky wheel gets the grease”. One is a blessing to you, the other a tyrant. It just depends if you are the inflicted or the inflictor. Regardless, life is often controlled by outside influences if we are not careful.

Living a life of faith can end up being all about church business, which can get in the way of what needs to be done most. Our enthusiasm for the kingdom of God naturally leads us into involvement with the church – the physical expression of Christ on earth. We want to do the stuff that Jesus did. Luke 4:18 becomes our anthem. "The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour." This truly is God’s heart for you as a believer too.

Church easily morphs into an institution versus an organism. Instead of letting structure compliment the growing life within the believers, the structure can assume that it is the life and everything needs to fit within its form and function. Order, form, proper behaviour become the mandate of the church rather than life and that more abundantly. People end up serving and maintaining a service rather than touching a community. The more you are involved, the more involvement the church demands from you. Often the result is people burn out from serving, leaving the church completely or retreating to another one where they determinedly set their faces against volunteering ever again.

I am involved with a co-operative group formed from various churches that have gap year students volunteering for them. This group formed out of a concern for the well being of these young people. The church (generally) tends to use them up and spit them out at the end of the year. This group is looking to bless them, disciple them, pray for them and encourage them so that at the end of their year it has been productive for both parties. What a blessing!

If you have been unfortunate enough to be caught up in the activity wheel of the church and spit out the other end, you know what a painful experience it can be. Once you step off the treadmill you can feel discarded as the attention shifts to whomever takes your place. Spiritual activity does not equate with spiritual growth or spiritual vitality. Busyness draws you into a cycle of endless activity that cuts out effective disciplines like reading the word, meditating on a revelation or God thought, or praying and listening to God. We just don’t have time anymore.

When talking about priorities, Mary and Martha, the sisters of Lazarus, are the ones we first think of. “As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, "Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!" "Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her." (Luke 10:38 – 42) Martha was a good woman with a gift of hospitality. She wanted to bless Jesus but lost her focus. He wasn’t that fussed about dinner, He was concerned about their relationship. All the things she was focused on were important but not needed. What He had to say was the one thing she needed. All the rest would fall into place after that.

I have spent far too much time doing things that I thought were necessary for growing the church only to have the Lord take us a completely different direction. Now I am not about to do anything unless I am quite sure I know it’s what He wants. Many Christians whether leaders in the church or not have done as Martha. Our efforts were directed to good concerns and appropriate behaviours and yet they weren’t the really important things: the one thing that the Lord requires. We need to abide (or stay or hang around) with Him. I went to visit a pastor one morning. He had a really sheepish look about him when I came into his office. I asked what was up? He was embarrassed, as he had spent the morning sprawled out on the floor of his office worshipping the Lord. He then said, “I think it is probably more effective than anything else I could have done.” Even as a pastor it is hard to set the priorities that are truly important.

Christians and churches grow through prayer and stagnate when we stop praying. In church growth literature they call it “growth barriers” and then try to explain how to break through them by implementing different organisational strategies. The simple answer is a lack of prayer. When you start a church, you know you haven’t got a hope of getting it off the ground unless God shows up. So you pray and pray and pray and then pray some more. God hears, answers and blesses you with people. Then you get so busy taking care of them you no longer have time to pray. Seriously, you think that the concerns of the people are the priority for your time. They aren’t. God called you first to one thing: relationship with Him.

I was invited to do a weekend conference at a church a while ago. I took along a team to support me and to pray for people. When I finished the first message, I looked to my friends for some input into the situation. I asked each one of the five if they had any sense of what we should do next. All of them looked like they wanted to run away and none of them had anything to say. I thought, ‘great, just great. You bring along these wonderful gifted people and they have nothing’. As I stood there sweating out what to do next one of them came up and took the microphone. He said I have one word for the church, then spelled it out elaborately: P – A – I – N! (I thought, ‘Oh great! What am I supposed to do with that?) Then he turned to the pastor and said he had a picture for him. He said that he saw a 6-car garage. 3 of the bays were for giving out and 3 were for taking in. The 3 for giving out were completely empty, not even dust in them, and the doors were gone. But the 3 for receiving in from the Lord were empty too. But the doors were sealed shut as the hinges had rusted from lack of use. He then sat down.

I asked the pastor how he felt about what had been said. He affirmed that it was exactly how he felt and exactly where the church was too. The time of prayer was one of deep release and healing as the pain and despair had been oppressive for some time. The pastor later shared that he was a “pastor’s pastor” and that he called everyone of his congregation once a week to talk and make sure they were all right. Because of the size of the church he had nothing left to give as he had missed the one thing that was needful. All that he was doing was noble and thoughtful but ultimately detrimental, as he wasn’t leading from a place of richness in God. The church reflects the leader’s heart, not his head. If his heart is dry, hard, or empty, the church will be dry, hard and empty. If the leader is overflowing with the presence and the love of God, the church will be too.

Life is full of choices and obligations that require fulfilling. You can’t ignore some things and expect life to go well for you. But you can choose what you put first. To choose the right thing you have to assess your situation. Are you even aware of your priorities? What do you spend the most time at? What would your spouse say? What would your kids say? What would your friends and colleagues say? Are you open to reality or trying to justify yourself because the truth could be embarrassing?

Are you choosing the best thing like Mary?

Great! If I were praying, I wouldn’t be reading about ‘maintaining or restoring my spiritual vitality’. It is important to understand that prayer is not in this case petition and intercession. Vitality isn’t maintained when you are praying down lists of petitions nor when you are interceding, i.e., standing in the gap for another. Both of these forms of prayer are warfare in that their goal is to undermine the foothold the enemy has in people’s lives. If anything they will eventually drain you and leave you worn out.

Often the daily grind of being a good Christian can slowly rob you of your spiritual vitality. You start off in the faith with a revelation of how much God loves you and what He did for you through His son, Jesus. Do you remember how wonderful that was? You didn’t have to do anything but believe and then His wonderful presence filled you with life and joy. But having started off in this wonderful grace we often end up working to maintain our salvation. Paul warned the Galatians in his letter to them. “Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort? Have you suffered so much for nothing--if it really was for nothing? Does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you because you observe the law, or because you believe what you heard?” (Galatians 3:2-5) Trying to attain your goal by human effort is the problem.

We all start well but somewhere along the way someone puts in a “you should”. The “you should” was probably well intentioned but usually puts you back under the law trying to please God. “You should” read your word everyday, “you should” witness, “you should” make sure you are in fellowship, i.e., in church, “you should” pray if you want to grow in the Lord. I have never seen a new believer who didn’t naturally share their faith when they first got saved. Likewise they are praying for everything and getting it, which makes the old timers mad. If we give them a bible, they’ll read it. They are excited and want to know God more. Unfortunately new believers look to the older believers for advice and mentoring, and therein is the rub. The law creeps back in and steals the joy out of being and it becomes about doing. Doing is human effort and that leads to nothing but joyless, dead service.

The prayer that revitalizes you is true communication with the Almighty who wants to speak to you too. It is crucial that you hear Him. Listening is an active form of prayer. It is the position from which one receives revelation. And revelation breathes life into us. It gives us purpose and vision. Without purpose and vision there is no focus and life becomes self-indulgent.

Revelation is so essential to maintaining and releasing spiritual vitality. Without it you are trying to grasp the majesty of Christ and the magnitude of His kingdom through the limitations of your intellect. Scriptures tell us the mind of man is at enmity with God. We need revelation in our heart to really see God and to understand. Jesus spent three years teaching and demonstrating the kingdom of God to His disciples. During that time He was waiting for the penny to drop. In the book of Matthew he asked them a question. Who do people say I am? Then, who do you say I am? Peter answered that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the Living God. Jesus replied, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven.” (Matthew 16:17) This knowledge and understanding did not come from the power of his observational skills. The disciples were forever mystified by what Jesus was doing. This was heady stuff, particularly the fact that the Lord was going to build His church upon Peter and His revelation.

“Then he warned his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Christ.” (Matthew 16:20) Why would He tell them not to tell anyone? Because it has to come to people by revelation! He didn’t tell people He was the Christ, He demonstrated it. The demonstrations left them asking and seeking God for understanding. That leads to Him releasing revelation, a fountain of life. No one can actually tell you that Jesus is the Christ. It has to come as revelation.

When Peter got the revelation, Jesus started to share more of what that meant. He told them of how he was to suffer, to die at the hands of the religious rulers and to be raised on the third day from the dead. Peter, I believe, still heady from his revelation began to rebuke Jesus, as what He was saying didn’t in Peter’s mind jive with his understanding from his culture of what the Messiah would do. He needed further revelation. Jesus rebuked him saying: "Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men." When Peter had the revelation, he had the mind of God, but his thinking still needed to be transformed as he was now speaking the things of men. Revelation brought life, the thinking of men brought confusion and stole life from him.

When did you last sit before Him and just listen? This is the key. Find a quiet spot and say something like: “Lord, here I am, listening. Speak to me.” Then wait. Jot down thoughts that come to you. They may be random distractions or they might be from Him. Either way you want to capture them. If they are distracting and seemingly important, you will have them recorded to refer to later. If they are God, you will have them to meditate on and look back over at another time. Sometimes it is good to simply go back over things you think He has said to you in the past before you receive more. It allows you to clear the thoughts and to focus on how He does speak to you.

Be alert to busyness and all the important things we need to do that take up so much time. These are the “I just need to do this one more thing” scenarios that come up before you decide to sit and listen. You know the sequence; I’ll just whip off that email before I forget. The computer crashes and you spend an hour an half getting it functional again so you can do that 3 minute email. By the time you’re done it’s too late to pray.

Wherever you are you can listen. It takes practise but once you value the importance of it the results are amazing. Life starts to flow afresh. That dead, desert time you were in reshapes and becomes a valley that the Lord is walking through with you. No longer feeling abandoned and alone His Spirit comforts you. In the darkest places the light will shine. Sssshhhh! Listen!

The first of the possibilities is passion. The dictionary defines passion as a strong and barely controllable emotion. It’s a fire that burns in your heart. It may not be expressed as exuberantly as it once was but it still simmers. Passion arouses people, not only you, but those who are around you.

Bonnie and I were in a restaurant in Charlotte in the autumn. We had been holding hands across the table, talking intently and laughing. Our waitress asked us after a time if we were newly weds. She was shocked when we told her we had been married 36 years. She told the other waitresses what we had said. You could see the look of amazement on their faces. Passion doesn’t have to wax cold if it is nurtured and encouraged.

When we were newly weds, we used to wonder what our marriage would be like in our fifties as it was so much fun and full of passion in our twenties. Our passion hasn’t waned but gotten stronger. I adore my wife even more after 36 years for now I know her.

A spiritual reality is that people reflect what is in our heart, not what comes out of our head. The book of Corinthians says that the wife is the glory of the husband. Glory is the goodness of a person reflected through someone else. The goodness of a husband to his wife is reflected in her continence. When we look at a wife, we can see how happy and how godly her husband is. She will reflect back what is coming out of our heart. What does your spouse reflect to you? What do your children reflect to you? A man’s spiritual condition may be masked by his words and outward appearance but his wife reveals the truth. If you are in tune with this, they don’t have to say anything for you to perceive it.

Some pastors have told me they don’t like their church very much. That is unfortunate at any time but particularly so if they have led for more than two years. After a couple of years the church starts to reflect the leader. My wife and I had a difficult time with the first church we led. Upon leaving the church under advisement of a mature leader in the greater church I started a new church. We had 18 quality, spiritually healthy adults join us in our new adventure. I should never have done it but I did. At the end of a year my wife and I were mystified by the pain and hurt our congregants exhibited. It finally dawned on us that despite what appeared to be a great year of pursuing God they simply reflected our spiritual condition back to us. We know in hindsight that we should never have started a church. We needed ministry to some deep pain inflicted during our tenure as pastors.

We had lost our passion and it’s all about passion.

What thrills you? Is it preaching, evangelism, signs and wonders? Could it be leading? Creating a new business? Closing a sales deal? What was it that you couldn’t wait to do? Couldn’t wait for the opportunity to open up to you?

For me it was preaching and teaching the word of God. I wanted to do it before I became a Christian. In the process of discovering what Christ has done for me I had such a burning desire to go to bible school. Bonnie would tell me I was crazy because I wasn’t even a Christian yet. I did go to a bible school and then I couldn’t wait to pastor a church so I could get an opportunity to preach. It took five years but the Lord opened the door for me to walk through. I was so happy. I used to spend hours pacing my prayer room calling out to the Lord. He would impart what I thought was divine inspiration for messages into my mind. I loved it.

There were a few minor problems I hadn’t anticipated. One was a lifelong feeling of rejection that could overwhelm me. I had learned to push through it as a teenager and had become very outgoing. As a minister it returned with a vengeance. After a time I didn’t want to go to church, let alone preach, and I was the pastor. I did get set free but the oppression took its toll on my passion to preach.

The second problem I naively walked straight into was criticism. There is no one who everybody likes. We can’t please all the people all of the time. I had a lovely, older saint in our congregation who felt it was her duty to tell me how poorly I preached. She offered to pay my way to Bible College to improve my skill and revelation. When I asked a friend who had been in ministry a long time about the criticism, he said to me that some people like baloney sandwiches and some like ham sandwiches. He said that I couldn’t help which one I was but that even though some didn’t like me others did. I finally accepted my nemesis’ offer to pay for college. Amazingly, she stopped harping about my preaching and rescinded her offer.

The third problem was church growth. Despite my apparent lack of ability to preach the church grew phenomenally over the first two years. People and their needs consumed my time. I had no idea that I could set some boundaries that would help me sustain energy for the long haul. I ministered, ministered, and ministered. It was wonderful to see friends set free. But my time in the prayer room was gone, so was the revelation. I found myself sitting up late on Saturday nights and early Sunday mornings. I had to preach. I had to have a word. It became such an obligation without joy. That which had been my passion became my toil.

Years later at Billy Graham School of Evangelism one of the speakers said people often asked him if he had to preach on Sunday. In a southern drawl he said I don’t have to, I get to. It was an epiphany moment for me. Revelation is often like that. Bam, it hits you. So simple, yet so profound! I don’t have to - I get too!

In the movie, Chariots of Fire, Eric Liddell’s sister chastises him for putting his running first before the Lord. She is concerned that he is backsliding or neglecting his relationship with God. He tells her that when he runs he feels God’s pleasure. Where do you feel His pleasure?

Alex Ness, one of my bible school professors, told us that sometimes as the pastor of the church he would get bogged down with administration. He felt like it was squeezing the life out of him. He would drop everything he was doing, grab his hat and coat, and go door to door in the neighbourhood around the church building until he found someone he could lead to the Lord. He would return refreshed and able to apply himself to the tedious tasks once again. Alex Ness felt His Lord’s pleasure when he led people to Him.

When do you feel His pleasure? What is keeping you from the thing that makes you tick? If you can answer these two questions, you have the pathway back to restoring passion. Take a moment to reflect and write it down. It maybe so buried you will have trouble remembering. Sit, wait, and ask Him to bring it back to you. Now rectify whatever is hindering you from stoking your passion.

Do you remember what it is like to be a new Christian? Everything is fresh, new, and exciting! There’s a discovery around every corner. Every message you hear is full of revelation and previously unknown wonders. We call it the honeymoon phase of our walk. Ah, the honeymoon, that glorious stage where no matter what you ask for, it happens.

After a time there is a subtle sift in seasons. God doesn’t seem to answer every prayer the way you think it should be answered. Then there is this issue of character that He seems awfully interested in. We go through a process of transformation, which, even if we know it’s going to happen, isn’t really easy. His processor seems to be trials, temptations and tests. This is a time when God doesn’t tend to miraculously deliver you of the object of His attention in your life. We have to go through it to be changed. He allows this process so that we see what’s truly in our own heart and learn to surrender it to Him. It can be a tough grind and can wear down your enthusiasm and exuberance. Some people never make it through, like a plant with very little root; they wilt under the heat of His scrutiny. We call this process maturing in the faith, only problem is we all seem to lose a measure of joy and unbridled passion that we first have. Sometimes we can become a little jaded or cynical. We prayed for the miraculous to happen and instead got dragged through sheep shears backwards. We are steady, stable, staid, mature believers that leaders and others can depend on but some of the fire is gone.

Well, can you have some fire and passion as a mature Christian? Does the pilgrimage have to rob us of this joy? Obviously we gain knowledge and revelation as we walk in the way. But does it have to become boring, tedious or hardly relevant to our everyday life?

No – it doesn’t have to be!

The criterion for maintaining passion for the Lord is to learn from others. I have become an avid fan of learning from others’ mistakes. When younger, I used to think either it would never happen to me like that or I can do it just fine all by myself, thank you. Fortunately that kind of attitude allowed me to experience many a situation and period of dryness that I regretted but shaped my passion for learning from others. If you are willing, there are a number of actions that you can take that will help you keep on track. They have been learned the hard way, which can be to your benefit.

Remember anything you neglect will deteriorate. It’s like a marriage. Your relationship takes some care and nurture. So it is with the Lord, you can’t simply expect the relationship to continue vibrantly without some effort and imagination. We can do something to maintain the vitality. During a time of reformation, i.e., God’s dealings, in our life we can become so used to our situation that we fail to notice the change formed in our life. Failure to notice can cause us to continue in the same mode of behaviour because it’s become routine.

There are ten possibilities that you can apply to your situation to shake you out of lethargy and restore your vitality. These are possibilities because they will only be effective if you follow through with them. I can’t do it for you, only you can do it.


I have learned these the hard way. I haven’t had a walk that has been all roses. I have struggled through periods in my life where I have been loath to invite anyone to become a Christian and end up like me. Yet, I have found ways to restore the love and joy I first had for the Lord. Some of the possibilities I used to stubbornly resist, thinking I didn’t need to do that. But, after finally relenting and seeing the effects, I have wished I did it earlier.

This is not like a get rich quick scheme or fad diet. The effects like exercise may not be immediately noticeable but if you follow through, you will enjoy the rewards.