The Mission Briefing – September 2023

Our mission to advance the Kingdom of Jesus is a human extension of God’s power and purposes. The power to change the world is the Lord’s and it comes to us through His Word. That Word is the person of Jesus but also the message of the gospel. We communicate Christ’s death, resurrection, and glorification as good news to the world. That is a power beyond us but one we are stewards of. We have this treasure from the Lord in jars of clay (2 Corinthians 4:7). There is nothing fancy about clay but it has an important purpose. This series on forming good spiritual habits is important because our maturity comes through God’s presence and power but also through forming obedient and God honoring habits. The clay needs some molding. To help us think and apply good habit-forming practices, I have been referencing the four laws of habits from James Clear’s book Atomic Habits. The first law was 1) Make It Obvious, the second law was 2) Make It At-tractive and now the third law is 3) Make It Easy. I’m applying these laws to Bible reading as a concrete illustration of how these work but the laws can be implemented for all kinds of spiritual habits includ-ing Bible verse memorization, practicing hospitality, continuing your BELLS practice, letting go of re-sentments, and countless other practices. Use these to help you add the most bene-ficial habit for your life.

Make it Easy

Reduce the friction.
Friction slows things down and where it exists in our lives, it makes things more dif-ficult. We do not want a good habit to be difficult because that makes it too easy to quit. To adopt a new habit like daily Bible reading we want to reduce all the friction by decreasing the number of steps it takes to get to the habit. What has worked best for me over the years is to make Bible reading the very first thing I do in the morning. Perhaps you want to start the coffee maker first but try to reduce the num-ber of responsibilities you have before Bible reading so you do not get distracted or sidetracked.

Prime the environment.
Make it easy by preparing your environment so the practice is intuitive and natural. Keep your Bible in its regular place. You don’t want to have to go looking for it when time is short. If you take notes in a journal, make sure it is also in its place. Think about the lighting. Anticipate dis-tractions. Keep your phone in a different room. Get up early enough so you have time before your kids wake up. Make sure the pets have what they need so you can get right into your reading habit and listening to the Lord.

Master the decisive moment.
This refers to that moment of decision we all have when practicing a habit. There is al-ways a fork in the road with other options tempting us away from reading our Bibles. Will I sit down and read or will I scroll through social media or go water the plants or do the dishes? These could be very important and valuable things but we have to learn to say, “No” to the urgency of other things to spend time with listening to the Lord. You are go-ing to fail at first but with practice you will begin to master this decision-making mo-ment and others like it consistently.

Use the Two-Minute Rule.
When beginning a new habit, it helps to scale it down so that it is easier to complete. This rule refers to scaling your habit down to two minutes. For example, if our habit takes three hours every day, you will find it very hard to practice without a large amount of leisure time. If you are new to reading your Bible, you may not want to read the whole Bible the first year. Start by just reading the New Testament portion of the One Year Bible or if you really want to keep your under two minutes just read the Psalm. That is actually a very wise place to start. Keep it short and simple. Less can be more. As you build this habit, it will be quite easy to stretch your time out longer and add the New Testament, the Proverbs and eventually the Old Testament. When I first started to work out again, after years of sedentary life as a student, I thought I had no time for it. So, I started with a fitness app that took me through a 5-minute
workout. It was plenty of work in the condition I was in. I did it every day for about a month when I began to have the desire for more. I would add extra pieces to the workout like running or weights. Fast forward three years and I was working out about two hours five days a week. How did that happen? Start small and as you build the habit, let the habit build you.

Automate the habits.
We want to make our habits automatic. Sometimes investing in technologies or other aids can help lock in our future behaviors. In the case of the One Year Bible readings, you might want to use your phone or computer to read when you don’t have your paper copy on hand. You can use oneyearbibleonline.com to read online. From there you can even select your favorite translation. For those of you who can listen while moving, the audio version of the readings is also available on the website. It’s great for walks, runs, and your daily commute. Try to leverage whatever you can to  make your habit consistent.

In Christ,

Pastor Kyle