One thing they talk about a lot in our church is the "3 habits" for Christian growth. They had a class tonight for Habit 1...which is developing a daily "quiet time" with God. As starting points go for growth in a relationship, actually TALKING TO and SPENDING TIME with them is probably a good beginning. :D

I do go to church..regularly....and I do pray daily but the idea of me spiritually "starving" through most of the week and then trying to "gorge" on Sundays to make up hits a lot closer to home than it really should. I don't really have a set time that I sit down, absorb God's Word, see what He's saying to me that specific day, and then set about to "apply" it. So I went to the class tonight.

Some of the ideas were things I already knew about from when Pastor Steve had gone over them in previous sermons. You need a plan for what you'll do, a set time of day and set length and a specific place (somewhere you can get away from noise and distraction). All of which is fairly common sense stuff...but stuff I tend to forget nonetheless. Steve suggested we view it as our "appointment" with God each day and that's probably where I need to go with it to make it a discipline.

So...here's my plan:

1. Get up an extra 45 minutes early. 15 minutes of that is to wake up and make coffee.  
   
2. Use the Bible study plan that's printed in our sermon notes. That means tomorrow is John 10 (then 11, 12, etc. through John 14 on Saturday)
3. Write down what I get out of it with the "S.O.A.P." method.
   S=Scripture..the particular verse that jumped out at me
   O=Observation...what I think God is wanting me to see/learn
   A=Application, What I will do SPECIFICALLY with this knowledge such that I will see a change in my life TODAY because of what I read
   and P=Prayer, specifically focused around asking God to help me apply what I've learned.