Although my book High-Voltage Spirituality is a compendium of forty-eight different spiritual habits (disciplines), in practice I maintain there are five core spiritual habits that provide a foundation for personal maturity and church growth.

And so it was with a mix of horror and relief when I was informed my book High-Voltage Spirituality was going out of print. Horror because I realized that I hadn’t been talking about spiritual disciplines as much as other topics. With a core belief that sustainable transformation is only possible when church leaders are committed to spiritual formation, I realized I’d lately been putting the cart before the horse. On the other hand, relief came when I realized that the Kindle version will still be available, and that we’ll be able to directly offer the PDF version on our sites.

And so, as a first step to rectifying my recent lapse, I present the five core spiritual habits. Practice these yourself and watch life fall into place. Get your leadership to practice these and watch your church embrace transformation. Over the next couple of days, I’ll post on each habit separately and there I’ll share details on how to practice the habits effectively and offer observations on what happens in churches when the leaders collectively begin to practice them.

If a church’s leaders practice the five core spiritual habits, the church will be transformed.

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The five core spiritual habits are:

1. Personal, regular scripture reading
2. Prayer that listens more than it talks
3. Intentionally encouraging other Christians
4. Kindnesses done in Jesus’ name
5. Personal faith sharing

In my experience, the list order provides a progression from those habits that most aid personal transformation to those habits that most aid church transformation. Sort of. Without the personal transformation of the leaders, congregational transformation simply isn’t going to happen. The church might grow by having excellent programming or an extraordinary marketing budge, but it won’t be sustainable growth – and it won’t transform the lives of those who come to taste and see. If leaders aren’t spiritually transformed, it’s a virtual guarantee wanderers (seekers/guests) won’t be either.

The next five posts will explore each spiritual habit in detail.

Question: Which of the spiritual habits do you believe is most important and why? Are there any you’d add to the list? Share your thoughts in the Comments section below.