Discipleship in Action: Spiritual Life Inventory As A Tool
RenewalWorks recognizes that each church has unique needs and circumstances. There is often no one-size-fits-all curriculum, which is why RenewalWorks prides itself on the ability to tailor our offering to a church’s specific need and circumstance.
Churches report using RenewalWorks for many reasons, including spiritual strategic planning, leadership transitions, lay leadership development, ministry assessment, and community outreach focus. They also use the offerings in different ways, as you will read in the reflection below from the Rev. Jason Ingalls from Holy Spirit Episcopal Church in Waco, Texas.
We would love to talk with you about your church and how RenewalWorks can support you. Please fill out an interest form if you have questions or want to begin a conversation around understanding your congregation and creating church cultures of discipleship. We look forward to hearing from you.
| I Already Know How to Plan Strategically. Why Should I Use RenewalWorks? You already know how to lead a strategic planning process in your parish. You have guided one to completion before. Now it is time to plan again. So what does RenewalWorks have to offer? I understand the question. I am the Rector at Holy Spirit Episcopal Church in Waco, Texas. Eight years ago, we implemented the Entrepreneurial Operating System. Since then, we have been through staff-level and whole-parish visioning cycles. We have used tools like Appreciative Inquiry to listen carefully to our congregation. But in our current visioning cycle, we chose to begin with RenewalWorks’ Spiritual Life Inventory. Why? Because we needed a more structured way to understand the spiritual life of our congregation, and the shape of the tool matters. Some congregational tools focus primarily on organizational health. The Spiritual Life Inventory (SLI) focuses on spiritual growth. When Holy Spirit took the SLI in January and February of 2026, we were encouraged to learn that we are, comparatively, a spiritually healthy parish. But the SLI also named something we had not been able to see clearly: a lack of ownership. If we had relied only on our familiar internal tools, I am not confident we would have identified that underlying issue. I know we would not have been able to articulate the parish’s relative spiritual vitality with the same clarity. Holding both together has helped us move forward with greater confidence and discernment. So how might you use the Spiritual Life Inventory in your visioning work? 1. Take the Spiritual Life Inventory early We took the SLI at the beginning of a year of visioning. We completed it in time for Lent, which allowed the findings to shape our Lenten preaching. We also discussed the results with the Vestry and staff so the ideas could begin to percolate. That prepared us for the next step. 2. Use the RenewalWorks Dot Exercise to focus and pray At our quarterly parish meeting in May, we reviewed the SLI results with the congregation and then walked through RenewalWorks’ “Dot Exercise.” We placed more than thirty statements of Episcopal belief and practice around the room. Each person received five red dots, representing where their heart was, and five green dots, representing where they wanted to grow. The exercise gave us three clear areas of focus for discernment: Worship, Formation, and Service. For example, the congregation said they wanted to grow in the disciplines and prayers of the liturgical seasons. The following Sunday, I preached on the shift into Ascensiontide and made the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Novena available for prayer. The Dot Exercise was already bearing fruit. Next, with some automated help, I am developing a series of twelve three-minute devotionals around each of the three focus areas. Throughout the summer, we will pray with them as we prepare for the final step. 3. Use your normal processes to flesh out the vision At Holy Spirit, we use Appreciative Inquiry, so this fall we will conduct discernment interviews around the three focus areas. We hope to interview more than 75% of our communicants. From there, we will host a Vision Day, where the congregation can gather to help finalize a vision for our next three years of ministry. None of this would have been possible without a structured inventory and a willingness to adapt the RenewalWorks workshop process for our context. It is already bearing fruit in deeper prayer and stronger engagement across the parish. You do not have to do visioning alone. And you do not have to do it exactly the way someone else does. Use a good tool, then trust the Spirit with the rest. ~The Rev. Jason Ingalls from Holy Spirit Episcopal Church in Waco, Texas |
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