Many pastors and believers have seen it happen. A retreat, a new Bible study or a strong season of preaching brings real spiritual growth. People take Scripture seriously, respond to it, and grow in love and obedience. Then, over the following months, much of that growth fades, and things settle back to where they were.
Why does that happen, and what helps growth continue?
Scripture does not point to more information or stronger feelings as the answer. It describes growing in godliness as a kind of training: faithful practice that continues over a long time. It also calls believers to encourage one another every day. In this article, structure means that kind of regular, intentional practice, done together with other believers: set times and ongoing relationships in which God’s Word keeps being brought into everyday life. It does not mean a particular program. Structure does not make anyone grow; God does. But without some regular pattern, even sincere intentions are easily crowded out.
Growth Is More Like Training Than a Good Season
Paul writes to Timothy:
“…exercise yourself toward godliness. For bodily exercise profits a little, but godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come.”
1 Timothy 4:7–8, NKJV
Paul uses the language of physical training for spiritual growth, and says godliness is worth even more. Training depends on continuing. No one gets fit by working hard for one week and then waiting for the next burst of motivation. An athlete returns to the same practice again and again, including on days when it is not exciting, until what once took great effort becomes familiar. The New Testament often speaks of growth in the same way, using words of continuing: abiding, walking, persevering, holding fast.
Knowing the truth and wanting to live it both matter. But a person can have both and still see little lasting change. Old ways of thinking and reacting do not usually change in one good week. Change usually comes more gradually, as God’s truth is brought back again and again to the everyday situations where those old patterns show up.
Why Good Intentions Fade
Good intentions are real, and they matter. But on their own, they depend on things that change: how we feel, how much energy we have, what else is going on in life, and even whether we remember. A demanding month, a disappointment or simply a busy schedule can quietly crowd out something a person fully intended to keep doing.
When effort comes and goes, growth often comes and goes with it. And in the gaps between good seasons, old habits of thinking and reacting have room to settle back in.
The same thing can happen in a church. A congregation can sincerely value discipleship and still find that its people grow in seasons rather than steadily. In that case, the teaching is often not the problem. What may be missing is a regular, planned way for people to keep returning to that teaching together and to work out how it applies to their lives.
What Scripture’s Examples Show
Scripture also gives examples of faithful people who kept regular practices. These passages describe what they did; they are not instructions to follow a particular schedule. But they are worth noticing.
When a royal decree forbade prayer to anyone except the king, Daniel “knelt down on his knees three times that day, and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as was his custom since early days” (Daniel 6:10, NKJV). Daniel did not start a new practice when the pressure came. He continued one he had kept for years.
Jesus Himself kept regular practices. Luke records that in Nazareth, “as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day” (Luke 4:16, NKJV). And His relationship with the Twelve was intentional:
“Then He appointed twelve, that they might be with Him and that He might send them out to preach…”
Mark 3:14, NKJV
He chose them so that they would be with Him. He sent them out, and when they returned, they told Him all that they had done (Luke 9:10). Being with Him, being sent out and reporting back were all part of how He prepared them.
None of these passages tells us to adopt a particular course, program or schedule, and they should not be made to say that. What they do show is that faithfulness in Scripture was often practiced regularly, not only in moments of inspiration, and that Jesus prepared His disciples in an intentional, ongoing relationship. Scripture’s direct call to regular, shared practice comes in its teaching, as the next passage shows.
We Are Meant to Keep Going Together
Hebrews gives believers a direct instruction:
“but exhort one another daily, while it is called ‘Today,’ lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.”
Hebrews 3:13, NKJV
Two words stand out: daily and one another. The danger the verse names is that sin deceives people and hardens their hearts. The protection it gives is not a stronger personal resolution. It is encouragement from other believers, and it is meant to happen every day, not once in a while. The instruction is given to the whole church, not only to its leaders: ordinary believers are meant to do this for one another. The Christian life was never meant to be lived alone. Much of the consistency believers need is meant to come through walking with others who keep pointing them back to the truth.
Structure Helps, but God Gives the Growth
Paul is careful about where growth comes from:
“I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase.”
1 Corinthians 3:6–7, NKJV
Paul is speaking about his own work and Apollos’s in the church at Corinth, but the principle reaches further. Planting and watering are real, deliberate, repeated work, and they matter. But they do not make anything grow. The same is true of structure. A regular pattern of reading Scripture, praying, practicing what it teaches and talking honestly with others does not transform anyone; God does. What a regular structure can do is keep bringing people back to the things God uses to change them: His Word, prayer, obedience and the encouragement of other believers. That gives new ways of responding time to take root.
When a structure loses sight of that purpose, it becomes empty routine. When it keeps that purpose in view, it helps people keep coming back to God, including in the weeks when motivation is low.
What This Means for You and Your Church
So consistency is not mainly a matter of trying harder in the next good season. It means giving what you believe a regular place in everyday life, alongside other believers, and trusting God to give the growth. Renewing Your Mind Discipleship Ministry sets out its approach to that kind of regular, intentional practice in a guide called The Process. It explains what the practice involves and why doing it consistently, with others, matters.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
