A SPIRITUAL CHECKUP
I want to suggest a way for you to engage your congregation in a spiritual conversation that will both stimulate their reflections and provide you with information that can inform your ministry. What I am suggesting is that you send out to a random sample of your congregation a letter like the one I have shared below. Depending on the size of your church, you can alter the number of letters you send out. A good sample of the thoughts of every tenth family in the church can provide you a fairly accurate measure of the whole church. Then, you follow up these letters with a phone conversation. You could do an email exchange, but a phone conversation is more personal and immediate. Feel free to alter these suggestions in a way that meets the context of your congregation.
A SAMPLE LETTER
Dear_______________
I am writing to inform you as to why I will be calling you within the next couple of weeks. To put it succinctly, I want to experiment with a way of offering a spiritual checkup for our congregation. In the same way that a doctor is concerned with your physical well-being, I, as your pastor, am concerned with your spiritual well-being. When I call, I would like to take about twenty minutes of your time, either then or at a convenient time which we would arrange, to ask you to respond to questions in four areas of your spiritual journey. I don’t expect you to have prepared anything ahead of time, but I am writing so that you will have an idea of the subject of our conversation.
First I would like to ask you to share with me how you are experiencing worship. While I will be glad to hear about particular likes and dislikes, I am more interested in hearing to what degree you are sensing a connection with God as you gather with the Body of Christ to praise God.
Second, I would like to ask you about your experience with prayer. This will be a private conversation with your pastor, so I would like to ask you if you are finding prayer to be meaningful, how frequently you pray, and what help you might need to enhance this essential part of your relationship with God.
Third, I would like to ask you about your experience with Scripture. Again, I want to know whether and to what extent you find it meaningful, whether you have, or would like, some sort of discipline in reading it, and what help you might need in allowing God to speak to you through Scripture.
Fourth and finally, I would like to ask about your experience in this part of the Body of Christ known as (NAME OF CHURCH). Again, while it will probably be valuable for you to share with me particular aspects that please or displease you at this church, I would also like to hear what you think God wants from you as part of the Body of Christ. Does God have some particular purpose in mind for you? Do you think you are having an opportunity to be faithful to that purpose? What might help you in this regard?
I realize that these are very heavy and somewhat sensitive questions. You may, of course, answer them at any level you desire or even ask to be excused from answering them. My hope, however, is that in reflecting on such questions with your pastor, we might both learn something more about what God is doing with us here at our church. I will be initially calling a random sample of about twenty-five people over a period of a couple of months. The conversations will be private but I would like to share the cumulative results with the officers as we seek to provide responsible leadership.
Thank you for considering this.
Your pastor,
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