Recently I came across two pieces of information about Seventh-day Adventists that left me surprised and chagrined.
The first was a story in USA Today in March stating that our church is the fastest-growing Christian denomination in North America. (Some of us have wondered if the church was shrinking here, so that was unexpected). The second was a statement attributed to Pastor Lee Venden that, on average, 70% of Adventists in churches where he’s conducted revival meetings in recent years admit to having little or no daily devotional life.
Wow! These aren’t the inactives he’s talking about. These are the folks who turn up in church most every Sabbath. You and me. The regulars.
How does one synthesize these two disparate pieces of information? I mean, how much more growth might our church have achieved if, say, 50% of us had a daily devotional life powerful enough to impact our Christian witness? Or 75%?
But maybe numerical growth isn’t all that important! Spiritual growth—becoming more like Jesus—is what matters most, wouldn’t you agree?
So how are you doing in that department?
In that context, let me share with you an amazing little tool that has been helping me bigtime in my devotional life. It’s called a checklist. I have one and use it relentlessly every day. Let me tell you what got me started.
In his book, The Checklist Manifesto: How To Get Things Right, Atul Gawande, a surgeon, writes how a simple checklist is enabling mankind to be more successful in a variety of fields. He describes a typical checklist as five to seven points on a 3” by 5” card that cover the essentials of how to do something. Like performing a successful surgery. Building a skyscraper. Or flying an airplane. Here’s a case in point.
On Oct. 30, 1935, the U.S. Army Air Corps held a flight competition for airplane manufacturers seeking the contract to build the military’s next generation of long-range bombers.
It wasn’t supposed to be much of a competition. Boeing’s bomber had trounced the designs of Martin & Douglas with a plane that could carry five times as many bombs and fly faster and twice as far as previous bombers.
But when the Boeing plane roared down the runway and took off, it climbed sharply to 300 feet, stalled, turned on one wing, and crashed in a fiery explosion killing two of the five crew members, including the test pilot.
What had gone wrong? Pilot error! This plane was substantially more complex than previous aircraft. Amid all the procedures, the pilot had forgotten to release a new locking mechanism on the elevator and rudder controls before taking off. “Too much airplane for one man to fly,” said the experts. Douglas’ smaller design was declared the winner. Boeing nearly went bankrupt.
Afterward, however, a group of test pilots got together and reflected on the problem. They did not come up with the idea of better pilot training. Instead they came up with an ingeniously simple solution: they created a pilot checklist. Perhaps one of the first checklists ever. They made it simple, brief, and short enough to fit on an index card.
The checklist contained the kind of basic steps all pilots know. Dumb stuff, Dr. Gawande writes. But with the checklist in hand, pilots went on to fly this airplane 1.8 million miles without one accident. The army ultimately ordered almost 13,000 of the aircraft which you and I know as the famous B-17, the plane that gave the military a decisive air advantage during the Second World War and helped defeat the Nazis.
This anecdote appears in Gawande’s book where he eloquently makes the case for the lowly checklist to become a tool to help all of us be more successful in a world where increasing complexity and TMI (Too Much Information) causes increasing mistakes and failure.
I was intrigued at the possibility that a checklist could help me be more successful in my Christian journey. I present mine here as just one example. Whatever its limitations, it helps me stay on course and not meander, especially in my early morning prayer time before I’m fully coherent. My checklist has helped me so much in so many ways that I’d like to encourage you to create one of your own.
A checklist, experts say, should contain no more than 5 to 7 points and should fit on a 3” by 5” index card. It need not encompass your entire prayer life, but should cover the essentials. For whatever it’s worth, here’s what mine looks like.
My Daily Checklist
1. Invite God into my life first, seek the Holy Spirit’s infilling, surrender my will to His will. (Matthew 6:33).
2. Go to the cross, look at Jesus, and die there (to self). (Eph. 4:22f)
3. Ask God for a new heart & to install in me the mind of Christ. (Ezek. 36:26; I Cor. 2:16)
4. Ask God for a fresh provision of power, wisdom, & grace.
5. Ask God to change me into a different person (I Samuel 10:6).
6. Put on the whole armor of God (Ephesians 6:11f).
7. “Eat” Jesus flesh & “drink” His blood (His promises) & “set my heart & mind on things above” (John 6:53-56, 63; Col. 3:1-2).
Here are some of the ways my checklist is helping me.
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My checklist reminds me to seek first the kingdom of God before I check the weather report, read the paper, or powder my nose. (My days always end better when I seek God’s kingdom first).
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Going to the cross helps me remember I’ve got to die if I want to live. For one thing, like the snakebit Israelites of old (see Numbers 21), when I personalize looking at Jesus hanging on the cross (“Jesus, You Yourself bore my sins in your body on the tree…”—I Peter 2:24), I more quickly choose to die to my old self (and my old compulsions and obsessions get hammered). Then I receive the amazing new life that Jesus promised–Zoe life. Life as it is in the Godhead; I receive a new DNA.—John 10:10.
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Getting a new heart daily enables me to love as Jesus loved and to obtain the mind of Christ. Obtaining the mind of Christ gives me the Heavenly software to think correctly and reprogram the hardware that is my messed-up brain.—I Cor. 2:16.
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Knowing I have received “power…over ALL the power of the enemy” (Luke 10:19) and wisdom (James 1:5) gives me far more oomph to face my day than if I hadn’t obtained these gifts.
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For me, being “changed into a different person” (I Samuel 10:6; Romans 12:2) every day is a wonderful new way to live the Christian life. I don’t become a nicer person, I become a different person who also happens to be nicer.
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Nothing beats heading into the war zone of our planet each new day knowing that I’m fully protected by the “shield of faith”. And with the “sword of the Spirit” in my mouth (God’s promises), I can even win my battles. Of course, it’s wonderful knowing “the Lord will fight for (me)” Exodus 14:14 if I ask Him to. And believe me, I do.
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With Jeremiah (“When Your words came, I ate them”) Jeremiah 15:16, I feast on Jesus’ promises every day and ingest His love, wisdom, grace, and power into my life. I often finish “eating” by “drinking.” “For God’s love has been poured into your heart through the Holy Spirit.”—Romans 5:5.
So how does my checklist impact my daily life? Here’s a small example of how my checklist affected my relationship with my wife, Diane, recently.
It was a Sabbath morning when Diane criticized me about something. Like most criticisms between spouses, it was no big deal. Rather, it was more like, “We can’t go to church until you trim your nose hairs,” though that wasn’t the actual incident. However, thanks to my having processed my checklist earlier, I was able to receive her criticism instead of rejecting it. And I told her (seriously, not sarcastically), “This will be a good anecdote for one of our upcoming talks.”
Diane was horrified. She apologized and made me promise not to tell the story. So I won’t. But I will tell you the rewarding result for our relationship. Instead of responding defensively (which would have been normal for me), I was able to be positive. Not because I’m such a nice guy. But my checklist—which calls for me to be emptied of self and to be changed into a different person every day —had done its work. So I was able to receive what was in fact a valid criticism even if it was hurtful.
Now if you were to tell me, “It sounds like Diane’s criticism was just a little thing, Mike,” I would remind you that it’s often the little things that ruin relationships—or enhance them. Thanks to my checklist, however, Diane and I did not have the conversation that might well have left our day (“Since when did you take on the role of Deity in my life?”) like the aftermath of a tsunami.
If checklists are important enough to be used for surgeries, flying airplanes, and building skyscrapers, might they be important enough for you and me to use every day in our devotional life? For me, the answer is a resounding Yes.
If you’re among the 70% who have no devotional life, you might think about creating your own checklist. With my checklist in hand, I find myself in a closer walk with Jesus, becoming more of a healing agent in the lives of others, and tackling life’s challenges more successfully.
Would creating your own checklist help you on your journey? I hope you’ll think about it. P.S. If you’d like to see the expanded material my checklist is based on, contact me at mjones@paclink.com. Just
say, “Mike, send it!”
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Mike Jones is the author of two new books, HELP, LORD, I BLEW IT AGAIN & SOMETIMES I DON’T FEEL LIKE PRAY-ING. Both books deal with the challenges of Christian living. Out of the church for 16 years and back for 10, Mike presents weekend seminars on revival and reformation plus reconnecting with missing members. His column appears monthly in the Gleaner. His books can be purchased at the ABC or at www.reconnectnow.com.
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Interesting piece Mike. I realize that checklists are important, but I’ve never thought to put it on a list to “spend time” with Linda. For me a checklist usually contains the nitty gritty stuff like, fix the toilet, get a haircut, etc.
When I wake up and realize I’m still breathing, saying good morning to God is one of the first things I want do. Your point is well taken, we need to follow through with our best intentions and not let the day grab them away.
My question is: Did Jesus or John the Baptist have a checklist? I’m not saying it is a useful thing in this hyper distracted time we are living in, but that the real reason a high percentage of our church members don’t know Jesus and the Scriptures intimately, is because of worldliness and lukewarmness that pervades our churches in the NAD. I might add that warm and fuzzy “Revival” meetings that don’t point out sin will not change worldly sin loving SDA members. Why do I say that? Because the Prophets of old were compelled to give very pointed messages to backsliding Israel of old, not watered down messages that made the pew warming members feel good telling “Jesus loves you” with no biblical requirements needed other than accepting Jesus. Jesus said to sinners who accepted him as Lord, to go and “sin no more” that is the missing link in our SDA preaching these days. No definitive pointing out of sin, because it is not politically correct! Political correct SDA preaching doesn’t change lukewarm SDAs into on fire for God SDA.
I would like to follow your blog on Twitter. Can you set up a Twitter account and tweet your posts? It is much easier than coming to the Gleaner site. Thanks so much!
The year of my birth was the same year the Boeing plane crashed for lack of a pilot’s check list. Much has changed since then, but not enough.
For some reason I pulled a book off the shelf my husband and I hadn’t read for years. It’s called “Life Sketches of Ellen White”. The more we read the more convinced I became that we need video games for our children just as much as the early church needed to print pamphlets and get them out to the people. They sacrificed greatly to accomplish that. Many of our children are being taken down by satan’s games. We need to counteract him!!!!!! It should have been done yesterday. I know nothing about what it takes to do this but I believe God will perform miracles to save our children. Who would like to join in this project? Mike Jones, you are a man of intellect- do you know if our denomination has such games already or do you know people who can get the ball rolling. I have ideas. The games must be exciting, have levels of accomplishment and certainly be worth playing, according to our young people. How about it? My e-mail is blfun@msn.com My plan is to perfect the games, give them to our denomination- Seventh-day Adventists- to be maketed through ABC and even sold door to door by our own young people. Am I giving away my chance to be a part of this??? I hope not.
This doesn’t have a lot to do with your subject, Mike, but God has given me such a burden to get this done that I will try every avenue I can find.
Thanks for the thought provoking insights. As a dedicated follower of Jesus Christ and a 6-generation Adventist, I still know that having the “dumb stuff” of a checklist provides necessary accountability. The spiritual life is complex (though not complicated) in these distractable times.
Thanks!