Build On-ramps, but Help People Learn to Drive on the Highway Too

We have an on-ramp to a major highway near my house. It used to be awful. It was short, and you had to immediately merge into speeding traffic. It's since been improved. You no longer have to merge; you're just fed onto the highway in your own lane. It makes it so much easier for drivers to get up to speed safely and easily.

But it's not foolproof. Sometimes I see drivers merge slowly or enter the on-ramp slowly, and then continue on the highway slowly. This creates a hazard for them and unsafe conditions for everyone else. To learn how to drive well on the highway, you need to learn how to enter a highway slowly and then quickly get up to speed.

The same is true spiritually.

Build On-ramps

Some people fail to create on-ramps for those wanting to learn spiritual practices like Bible reading and prayer. If statistics are to be believed, many of our people aren't practicing these habits. In Canada, only one out of seven Christians reads the Bible regularly. My sense is that people struggle even more with their prayer lives.

I'm convinced that the solution is giving practical guidance to believers on how to develop these habits in their lives. These are on-ramps. They should be doable. Many of our plans and recommendations don't take into account how hard it is to begin. So, I always try to keep things very simple for new believers or those who've never developed this habit.

Help people create a practical plan. They don't have to follow the same intense Bible reading plan that you do. They shouldn't begin by aiming for an hour of prayer every morning. Give them a good study Bible. Help them develop basic skills for reading the Bible, including what to do when they get stuck. Give them a simple prayer structure that they can follow. Build good on-ramps for Christians to build these habits into their lives.

Help Them Drive on the Highway

On-ramps are good, but people can’t stay there. It's fine to merge, but at some point, you need to get up to speed.

Help people start with good on-ramps, but then help people grow. They don't necessarily need to read more. Trevin Wax has written a good post on this topic. They should work on improving their Bible reading skills and discipline to cultivate a delight in Scripture, as described in Psalm 1.

Help them progress from beginner to slightly better at prayer. (I have yet to meet many experts at prayer.)

Encourage them to embrace their God-given freedom in building habits, but ensure they strive beyond a beginner's level. We should aim to progress in our reading of Scripture, meditation on its truths, and in becoming more prayerful. Sometimes in our efforts to provide on-ramps, we settle for everyone staying in the beginning stages.

Build on-ramps, but help people learn to drive on the highway too. Don't settle for a church that's one or the other; you need both. Work at being a church that helps beginners but doesn't let them stay there.

Build good on-ramps, but then help them get up to speed.