Fictitious Statistical Study of the Evaluation of Personal Devotion amongst Leaders of the Christian Organization in Colleges

Introduction

In a life which is full of activities in this current generation, pressures of life and pursuit of success is a great challenge to Christianity. The study of the Bible, meditation and prayer by individual leaders of the Christian societies in colleges is, therefore, impacted greatly by the current trends in this postmodern world. People seem to be more action oriented. Involvement in the community and a host of church activities are viewed as a manifestation of a devout Christian life. These activities should not be at the expense of personal piety. We have many driven people both in the Christian circles and the secular world; these are individuals whose concentration and emphasis is on performance and achievements. More often than not, we find ourselves on the extremes of life. The inner life is wanting and many of God’s people are tired. The Scriptures give the account of people who were successful in ministry and life in general. One thing which characterized these people was a strong devotional life. A life sustained in prayer, study, and meditation on God’s word. Daniel 6: 5-10 and Mark 1: 35 give us the account of Daniel and our Lord Jesus Christ. They consistently observed moments of communion with God in prayer. We must follow our master’s footstep by communing with God in prayer.

Christian leadership is all about pointing the direction to God’s children. It is impossible to take people where one has never been, thus, the need for having a strong devotional life. Many people wonder how someone can have a relationship with a God who is invisible and transcendent. This is just a subtle way of blocking out God and even other people. These are ways that people use to hinder the existence of a relationship between them and God and even other people. In reality, this should not be case since God is so loving and beckoning on every day to come to Him.

Statement of the problem

In my interaction with some leaders in the Christian Union (CU), they have cited personal devotion as a challenge they face in their Christianity. This is attributed to high level of engagement in activities as leaders. The demands of leadership in one way or the other would have an impact on the devotional life of the leaders. The fact that they are students and that they have social aspect of their life to take care of has even worsen the situation. These are besides the demands of this postmodern generation.

This paper sought to establish whether there’s inconsistency in aspects personal devotion such as personal study and meditation on God’s word, personal prayer and quiet time (QT) in general amongst the amongst the leaders of Christian organizations in colleges.

Objectives

General Objective

To evaluate the practice and consistency of personal devotion amongst the leaders of Christian organizations.
To determine the level of understanding and consistency in personal devotion amongst the leaders Christian organizations in colleges.
To establishes the possible causes of inconsistency in personal devotion.

Specific Objectives

Research Hypothesis

H_O-The leaders do not have better understanding of personal and they are consistent in their personal devotion.
H₁– The leaders have better understanding of personal and they are consistent in their personal devotion.
H_O-Participation in corporate prayers does not have influence on personal devotion.
H_1- Participation in corporate prayers has influence on personal devotion.

Literature review

Christian Leadership

Unlike other leadership, leading the children of God demands that one build a relationship with Him. It is not people’s enterprise, thus to lead from the throne room. It is in this place that people forge strength, knowledge and wisdom to lead God’s people. Christianity is not mere religion, but a relationship with the Maker. This relationship is founded on grace by repentance and through faith. People must continually burn on the altar of worship with our bodies as living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is their reasonable service (Romans 12:1). Personal devotion holds the key to fruitful fellowship with the Maker. It is the centrality of a strong inner life and the very hinge on which leadership swings. MacDonald (1985: 8) states that it is in the inner life where people know themselves best of all: where self esteem is forged, where basic decisions about motives, values, and commitments are made, where they commune with their God. No greater greatness than an ordered inner life, it is the oil that lubricates the wheel of leadership.

Personal devotion (QT)

Sweeting (1998) states that personal devotion or quiet time is the heart of personal walk with God and discipleship. A functional devotional time is the bedrock of a devout Christian. It ensures a victorious Christian living, healthy spiritual growth and rich personal experience with God. However, spiritual decay and shallow Christian life are the results of the neglect of personal devotion. No Christian in all of Church history has been able to continue the Christian life and neglect individual worship.

If QT is just Bible study and prayer then the rationale dimensions may easily get lost. One may end up merely going through the motions of religious activities and gaining some new information. However, if your goal is to set aside time to meet with God, then the whole dynamic of quiet time is changed. It becomes a cultivation of a relationship and an opportunity for discipleship as the LORD meets with us. Likewise, prayer is the means by which we talk with Him and ask for His help. But we must make sure that our prayers involve listening as well as asking. If we allow our prayers to degenerate into offering God a list of our desires and our recommendations for running the world, then we’re longer in a personal teacher-student relationship (Stephen and Eyre, 1995).

Most leaders of the CUs are engaged in a number of activities, thus, the challenge of consistency in personal devotion. They find it easy to participate more in public worship, which most of the time is out of obligation. They appear in all the meetings in a bid to show their commitment to the things of God, consequently, their inner life is hurting. They can either stop growing when they become leaders or grow remarkably. The pang of leadership can be so heavy until one longs to hand over.

Quiet time has three major components, being alone, hearing from God’s word, and communion with God through prayer.

Alone:

Take attention away from others.
It provides opportunity for proper focus.
Helps in understanding God.

God’s word:

People hear God through His word.
Engaging the Scriptures helps in opening our life to God.

Prayer:

In prayer, we commune with God and also allow Him to speak to us.
Has to be two way.

These are major building blocks of a healthy inner life of a leader or any other Christian who wants to have a fruitful relationship with the Father. MacDonald (1985), states that if the inner life is ignored, then it will not sustain the weight of events and pressures that press upon it. We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. The focus is not on our words, but God’s words as we commune with him. Whatever we say will not hold unless they emanate our innermost being. It is important to have our focus on Christ. Our world is filled with the noise of endless music, chatter, and busy schedule. Seldom do we see believers having moments of reflection and evaluation of their lives and walk with Christ. This is even worse when it comes to people in leadership position. They lead lives full of activities and with a greater emphasis on result.

MacDonald (1985) notes that our relationship with God is based on what Christ has done for us, not on our performance. But it is important to develop “habits” or “disciplines” as a disciple of Christ. This calls on us to continually ‘beat’ our body to realign itself to God’s will. Thus, we should be deliberate on reading and studying of God’s word, meditating on the very word and personal prayer and fasting. In summary, quite time entails:

Studying of the Bible not just for the sake of gaining knowledge to, but with an aim of meeting Christ as you read the written Word.
Meditation on what is read as supported by the scriptures “Meditate on the Book of the Law day and night” (Joshua 1:8).
Communication with God through prayer.

Methodology

Sample Population

The sample population was Christian leaders from Southern Waton Region colleges.

Sample size

The sample size was 40% of the total sample population and responses from 50 respondents was sought.

Data collection

Semi structured questionnaires were used to collect views from respondents. (appendices 1.0).

Data analysis

From the numerical and non-numerical data collected, charts and graphs were used to display the results. Frequencies, percentages, cross tabulation and Chi-Square was done using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). The parameters evaluated included:

The understanding of personal devotion.
Whether people have gone through training on personal devotion.
Whether people have allocated time for QT.
Participation in cooperate prayers.
Impact of QT.
The pattern, daily, weekly, biweekly.

Result and Discussion

Results

Out the 50 respondents involved in this study, 32 (72%) were serving in the Executive Committee for the first time while 13 (26%) were serving for the second time. The result also showed that 22 (44%) had gone through training on personal devotion while 25 (50%) had not gone through training on personal devotion. With regards to specific time for quiet time, 37 (74%) had specific time for quiet time while 13 (26%) had no specific time for quiet time. It was realized that 41 (82%) preferred doing their quiet time daily while only 4 (8%) did their quiet time weekly.

49 (98%) had personal Bible Study and 45 (90%) practiced meditation on the Scripture. Only 3 (6%) never practiced meditation on the Scripture. 24 (48%) stated that they had gone through a decline in their personal devotion since joining leadership while 23 (46%) had improved in their personal devotion since joining leadership as shown in the table 1.0 above and the figure 1.0 below. Refer to appendices 1.0.

Figure 1.0 graphical representation of Occurrence and Percentage of the variables.

A cross-tabulation analysis showed that out of 22 people who had gone through training on personal devotion, 16 had specific time for QT while 6 never had specific time for QT and out of 25 people who had not gone through training on personal devotion, 20 had specific time for QT while 5 never had specific time for QT. Out of 36 who had specific time for QT, 34 preferred doing their QT daily while 2 did their QT weekly. 7 who never had specific time for QT still did their QT daily (refer to appendix 2.0)

The relationship between PBS*MOS showed that out of 48 who had personal Bible Study, 45 meditated on the Scripture and 3 did not practice Scripture meditation. The relationship between STFQT*PCUCP showed that out of 35 people who had specific time for QT, 31 participated in Christian Union Cooperate Prayers and 4 did not. It also showed that out of 13 individuals who never had specific time for QT, all (13) participated in Christian Union Cooperate Prayers (refer to appendix 3.0). It was also noted that out of the total 44 who participated in the Christian Union Cooperate prayers, 31 had specific time for QT while 13 never had specific time for QT and only 4 never participated in Christian Union Cooperate prayers (refer to appendix 4.0). The Chi-Square test showed a small of relationship between participation in Christian Union Cooperate prayers and specific time for QT with a more preference for cooperate prayers to QT, though the relationship was not significant since P value was greater than 0.05 (P>0.05).

Fig. 2.0 Pie chart showing challenges faced with regards to Personal Devotion.

The leaders cited tight schedule as a major challenge followed by inconsistency and distraction respectively (78%, 12%, and 8%).

4.1.2. Discussion

From the result, it was clear that there was a good understanding of personal devotion amongst Executive Committee Leaders despite the fact that 50% (25) of them had not gone through any training on personal devotion. Out of 50 respondents, 37 (74%) had specific time for QT and 82% (41) preferred doing their QT daily, thus we reject the null hypothesis and accept the alternative hypothesis. This was quite encouraging to note since though some never had specific time for QT, they still did their QT daily. As stated by Ogden (1998:35-36) and Tangelder (2007) that QT is a private meeting each day between a disciple and the Lord Jesus Christ and that once you spend time daily with the Lord, you have already conquered 90% of the battle, it was a clear indication that the leaders understood the value of an ordered private world

It was also noted that a great percentage of the respondents did personal Bible Study and practiced meditation on the Scripture; this was 98% (48), and 90% (45) respectively. This showed an important aspect of Bible Study i.e. studying the Scripture with intent to apply it in daily living-meeting Christ through the written word (Ogden, 1998: 35).

Looking at the relationship between participation Christian Union cooperate prayers and the number of individuals who had specific time for quiet time, it was noted that the was a more preference for cooperate prayers to QT. 35 people who had specific time for QT, 31 participated in Christian Union Cooperate Prayers while 13 who had no specific time for quiet time, all still did participate in cooperate prayers. This poses a challenge to worship, since public worship should be guided by a strong inner world (Macdonald, 1985), thus the need for a balance. A Chi-Square test on the same showed some relationship though it was not significant since P> 0.05 (1.621). Thus, there is acceptance of the null hypothesis that participation in corporate prayers has influence on personal devotion.

An evaluation of the devotional life of the leaders before and after joining the leadership showed that 48% (24) of them had gone through a decline in their devotional life since joining leadership while 46% (23) cited improvement on the same. 48% is a significant percentage thus the need for focus on this group as we seek to help the 46% remain consistent. It would be more interesting to narrow down to the 46% and study their devotion patterns after finishing their term of service. This would help to answer the question of as to whether they were doing their devotion out of duty or as a way of building ones relationship with the God (meeting God in quiet moments).

Of the challenges with regards to personal devotion, busy schedule scored high (78%) followed by inconsistency (12%) and distraction (8%). In a fast moving society, the best way to have a consistent devotional life is balanced Christian living and planning for the activities of the day in advance.

APPENDIX

1.0 Occurrence and Percentage score of variables.

Key:

TOS- Term of service (1-first term, 2- second term).
TOPD- Trained On Personal Devotion (1-trained, 2- not trained).
STFQT- Specific Time For Quiet Time (1-have, 2- do not have).
PT- Pattern for Quiet Time (1-daily, 2-weekly).
PCUCP- Participation in Christian Union Cooperate Prayers (1-do, 2- do not).
PBS-Personal Bible Study (1-have, 2- do not have).
MOS-Meditation On the Scripture (1-do, 2- do not).
DBJL- Devotional Life Before Joining Leadership (1-declined while in leadership, 2-improved since joined leadership).

2.0 cross tabulations showing relationships of TOPD* STFQT and STFQT*PT

STFQT

TOTAL

TOPD 1

TOTAL

STFQT 1

TOTAL

3.0 cross tabulation showing relationship of PBS*MOS and STFQT*PCUCP

PCUCP

TOTAL

STFQT 1

TOTAL

MOS

TOTAL

PBS 1

TOTAL

4.0 cross tabulation showing the relationship between PCUCP*STFQT

STFQT

TOTAL

PCUCP 1 Count

% within PCUCP

2 Count

% within PCUCP

70.5%

29.5%

100.0%

TOTAL Count

% within PCUCP

72.9%

27.1%

100.0%

5.0 Chi-Square test of significance-PCUCP*STFQT

Value

Asym. Sig. (two sided)

Exact Sig. (two sided)

Exact Sig. (one sided)

Pearson Chi-Square

Continuity Correction^b

Likelihood Ratio

Fisher’s Exact Test

Linear by linear Association

N of valid Cases^b

1.621^a

.470

2.659

1.587

.203

.493

.103

.208

.563

.269

References

Ogden, G. (1998). Discipleship Essentials. USA: Intervarsity press (Pg 35-37).

Sweeting, G. (1998). How to continue the Christian life. Chicago: Moody press.

Stephen, D. & Jacalyn, E. (1995). Sitting at the feet of Jesus. England: Stanley L Hunt ltd, midland road, Rushden, Northants.

Tangelder, M. (2007). Personal Devotion. Devotions (Pg 1-9).

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