General

Part 2 – The Physics of Spiritual Momentum – The Speed (Life Change) Component

Click here for Part 1 of this post (The Physics of Spiritual Momentum – The Mass (People) Component)

This is the 2nd of a 3-part post on Spiritual Momentum. Each of the posts covers one of the 3 components of momentum from physics and relates the physical law to our spiritual context. I realize most Pastors will not have the patience for this series of posts. However, the physical laws of nature give us insights into how God has made things to be and are inherently spiritual. What can we learn from these laws as we look at some spiritual truths through some not-so conventional lenses?

Part 2 – Speed (Life Change) Component of Momentum

In part 1 spiritual momentum was defined by how many people are taking large next steps toward God in a given period of time. The mass component deals with the number of people on the journey. The speed component deals with the speed or distance people are traveling toward God in a specific period of time.

In the physical law of momentum, speed is defined as the distance traveled per unit time:

speed = distance traveled / time

If a car travels 60 miles in one hour, its speed is 60 miles per hour. If you increase the distance traveled in an hour you’ve increased the speed.

So how do we relate speed to our spiritual journey? We can apply the same basic principle. Spiritual speed is the distance a person travels in their spiritual walk toward God in a specific period of time. We increase speed by increasing the distance a person travels in becoming more like Jesus in a given period of time OR by decreasing the time it takes for the person to become that much more like Jesus.

We often talk about people taking spiritual next steps. Every person has a spiritual next step no matter where they are in relation to God. The atheist has a next step with God while every Senior Pastor has a next step with God. Our next steps vary based on where we are in the journey.

Lets put this in concrete terms. Imagine that you need to measure the length of a field beside your house but you don’t have a tape measure. You’d assume your steps are each 3 feet and then you’d count how many steps it is from one end to the other. 100 steps equals 300 feet. If we wanted to be exact, the total distance we walk is the length of each step (or the average step) multiplied by the total number of steps.

Now, if I wanted to measure my speed in walking the length of the same field, I’d simply count off the 100 steps and measure the amount of time it takes to walk. In this case if it took one minute to walk 100 steps, my speed would be 100 steps x 3 feet per step / 1 minute = 300 feet per minute.

Using this same approach, spiritual speed would be the number of “next steps” a person is taking toward God multiplied by the size of the steps taken divided by the amount of time it takes. The larger the next steps and / or the more steps a person takes in a given period of time, the greater their spiritual speed.

Finally, Life Change can be measured by the distance we travel in becoming more like Jesus. From the discussion above, its the number of next steps we take multiplied by the size of these steps. Speed is then essentially Life Change per Unit time.

This helps explain why there is so much momentum around new Believers. Typically new Believers are taking sequential large next steps in a short period of time. Their spiritual speed is high. The longer we are Christians, often the slower we move (unfortunately).

We’ve assumed in parts 1 and 2 that mass (or people) are moving with a speed in a direction toward Jesus. This is a very BIG assumption that is often not entirely true. In part 3 we will deal with the final component of momentum — the directional component.

© 2011 Envisaging.