As for me, essentially nine tools were handed to me by fellow Christians in my earliest Christian months, three of them emphasized as “big ones”: (1) go to church, (2) read your Bible, and (3) pray. That is: do whatever it takes to be in the church building for Bible class and worship every time the doors were open on Sundays and Wednesdays, study your Bible daily, and privately talk to God often.

Now not nearly so frequently mentioned, but certainly emphasized, were six more tools, namely: (4) deliberately jettison as many non-Christian friendships as possible and hang out with Christians instead, (5) talk to others about how they need to be baptized, (6) drop something in the offering plate every week, (7) be willing to serve in Sunday assemblies in some way (i.e. – help serve communion and/or lead public prayer), (8) read Christian literature authored by members of the Churches of Christ, and (9) “go down front” on Sunday morning and request the church’s prayers if you commit a “big sin.” And that’s about it. Anything else would fall under one of those headings.

Now I will refrain from comment here as to the quality or practicality of those tools. I’m simply reporting what much more experienced believers stressed to me as a new Christian as to what I should do in order to grow up to be a strong, healthy Christian. And I know I’m anything but alone in my experience for I have encountered a legion who would offer essentially the same testimony.

What I will offer is a singular observation: the spiritual Honey-Do kit I was given could have been selected with much greater care. I could have been given more and better tools, some of them far more Biblical, God-centered, and effective for the task of helping me grow up in the Lord. Tools that would have powerfully assisted me in being “built into a spiritual house.” (1 Peter 2:5). And those tools have historically been known as “spiritual disciplines.”