Abiding Tools
What one tool would you choose for your daily walk with Christ?
As I was reading Movements in America by Rodger Shull (link below) I was challenged to consider this question: If I could only choose ONE tool to abide in Jesus and train others to abide in Jesus? What would it be?
This post started as a search for that tool, but it also turned into a bank of Abiding tools.
Why are we looking for just ONE tool?
Most of my readers would understand that training someone with seven ways to share the Gospel means they would be frozen into doing nothing. What if that same thing is true for our daily walk with Jesus? Have we given our disciples (or ourselves) too many options which means we do nothing well? Or even worse, have we given them nothing? Could we choose just one abiding tool as our “go-to” tool?
Of course, any disciple of Jesus who pursues abiding should be free and encouraged to do so in whatever ways help him or her. Still, there is so little actual abiding that I worry we are not helping people by keeping it simple enough.
Tools that get you to the Next Step
In the same section of Rodger’s book, he provides a simple chart to evaluate a tool. Is it Simple? Is it Reproducible? Is it Biblical? And does it “Get to Next Step”? (For example, does your discipleship tool get you to the next step of healthy church).
What should be the “Next Step” in an abiding tool? I would love to hear your thoughts, but I would propose these three simple goals: 1) Having our hearts more in line with the Father, 2) Being more in line with the ways of Jesus, and 3) being more ready to pursue the promptings of the Holy Spirit.
Tools I’m currently using to walk with Jesus:
One Hour of Prayer. (There are LOTS of versions of this out there, but currently, I am using this sticker from Sent Ones as a guide.)
Three Column Method. (I first saw this in Spent Matches by Roy Moran. Here is a short explanation.)
The good old “quiet time” when you sit with a prayer journal and Bible and spend time praying and reading.
Praying the Bible by Donald Whitney has a great framework for using Psalms as an ongoing prayer guide.
In his book Spirit Walk, Steve Smith offers the SWAP framework for time with the Lord: Surrender to the Lord, Wait on God in prayer, Avoid sin, Pursue the Promptings of the Spirit.
Abiding Tools I have used in the past:
Life Transformation Groups. I first heard about these in a book by Neil Cole. Here is a version close to the one I first used.
The NPL Army Network uses a combination of Say Obey Share (the second page of this PDF has a short explanation) and an Accountability Team Meeting.
Tools I know others use
I love this resource I got from a response to my question on the NPL Facebook Page: https://searchparty.org/abiding-in-christ/
I found the Abiding Heart through www.sentones.com:
Grace-Based Accountability Groups. (I got this one from
).A couple of people on Facebook recommended Zume’s SOAPS formula: https://zume.training/soaps-bible-reading
As I worked on this post, I realized that a lot of our discipleship sort-of assumes people will pick up abiding. There is zero mention of it in the “Commands of Christ” which is my go-to for short-term discipleship. As I looked through the tool banks I have collected or know about, most of them are pretty sparse in the area of abiding.
What tools would you add for an abiding life? What ONE tool would you choose to train a new disciple in to get them started abiding?