How Spiritual HABITS Fuel Growth

Spiritual habits are the guardrails and health indicators for our journey with Jesus. They’re not spiritual hoops to jump through—they’re pathways for me to connect with the King.

And in my life, spiritual habits have fueled my relationship with Jesus and generally made my life better. So, one series that regularly finds its way into my teaching rotation is something I picked up from Doug Fields called HABITS. The HABITS series has become one of my favorite youth ministry tools in helping kids map out their walk with Jesus.

One of the cool things about HABITS is that it’s not merely a teaching series—it’s a pathway for learning and growing spiritual disciplines. HABITS is an acronym for six core spiritual disciplines:

Hang Time with God
Accountability
Bible Memorization
Involving Yourself in the Church
Tithing, Money, God, and Me
Studying Scripture

This downloadable message series is packed with everything you need to promote, teach, and implement six solid weeks of teaching. The bundle includes: audio of Doug teaching each week along with transcripts of each message, six PowerPoint games, drama scripts for three weeks, countdowns and backgrounds, and six weeks of PowerPoint sermon notes. It’s all done for you!

>>>You may also like our NEW Jesus-Centered Guides on how to pray, read the bible and know God’s will.

When I teach this series in our ministry we give our students a little “prep kit” to set them up for success. For example…

Hang Time With God is about growing our one-on-one time with Jesus. So we send a journal home with everyone—it’s a stack of paper folded in the center and stapled like a book.
Accountability is about doing life with others. So we have sign-ups for our small groups.
Bible Memorization is about memorizing scripture. So we recommend apps to download, and have a stack of scripture cards anyone can take home.
Involving Yourself In the Church is all about serving. So we give kids options to serve, including a list of areas in our church where they can volunteer on a regular basis. We want the options to be wide, so anyone is able to step in somewhere.
Tithing is about knowing what to do with our money. So we pass out banks and invite teenagers to start giving and saving.
Studying Scripture is all about getting into the Word and digging deeper. We have these Bible studies from Group that, once purchased by your church, are freely reproducible for your youth ministry.