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Bishop Dyck's Spirtitual Pyramid

The Bishop's Pyramid Scheme

February 15, 2006

I invite you to join me in my new "pyramid scheme."

In the last few weeks, I have developed another tool for thinking and teaching about healthy, holy habits for our Christian living and discipleship. I was inspired by the United Methodist Women of Mora United Methodist Church who, in early February, led an event on "Women's Healthy Hearts."

The women asked me to speak to them on how to have a spiritually healthy heart. (Other presenters spoke on how to maintain physically healthy hearts.) They suggested I borrow from the food pyramid to develop a spiritual health pyramid. I was intrigued. While it isn't within the agricultural metaphor of "feeding the root" that I have been using--and will continue to use--I do think that the pyramid helps us to claim our own responsibility for spiritual-heart health.

You are probably familiar with the food pyramid. It shows the importance that certain foods play in maintaining good health. Whole grains, fruits, and vegetables constitute a major part of the pyramid. These are the basis of healthy eating. In a smaller part of the pyramid are meat and beans, sources of protein to be eaten in lean portions.

In a similar way, the spiritual pyramid I've devised depicts the building blocks of healthy spiritual living. I also recommend "portions"--the minimum number of hours per month one should devote to each category of spiritual practice. (Of course, some of us do more of one than another, but it's our putting them all together as building blocks of faith that fosters our spiritual health.)

Starting at the foundation of the pyramid, the activities that cultivate spiritually healthy hearts are as follows.

Bible study and prayer: 30 minutes per day
Small groups for discipleship: 2 hours per week or 14 hours per month
Worship: 1 to 2 hours per week or 4 to 8 hours per month
Service within the congregation: 1 to 2 hours per week or 4 to 8 hours per month
Service and Outreach: 30 to 90 minutes per month
Retreats: 8 to 16 hours per year


Here are some basic principles to keep in mind as you consider how to use this pyramid to maintain the health of your own spiritual heart.

Just as no one else can eat (healthfully or otherwise) for us, so no one else can develop spiritually healthy hearts for us. We must practice the spiritual disciplines ourselves.
Individual Bible study and prayer are the basis of healthy spiritual hearts. Praying and reading the Bible once a week doesn't adequately feed our spirits any more than eating once a week feeds our bodies. Someone else's Bible study and prayer doesn't make our own spirit healthy.
When each one of us practices what makes for healthy spiritual hearts, our churches will be healthier and more vital.
Small groups that nurture our faith are essential to healthy spiritual hearts because they encourage and hold us accountable for our own spiritual health, provide opportunities to learn from others about the Bible and prayer, and give us the fellowship and support that we need in order to build spiritually healthy lives.
Daily personal spiritual practices are no substitute for corporate worship. Corporate worship is no substitute for daily personal spiritual practices. Corporate worship and daily personal spiritual practices enhance each another. Our faith is strengthened when the community gathers to hear the Word together, pray for one another, and partake of the means of grace at God's table.
We need to serve those in our faith communities as well as those in need who are outside of our community. Because I don't have a local church I find this the most difficult practice to maintain. Others may find that service within and outside the community has taken the place of daily personal spiritual practices. The pyramid shows that we need to balance them all.
I recommend retreats; they can enhance our spiritual growth. However, too often I observe that people use retreats as the foundation of their spiritual growth rather than as an enhancement. As a result they try to support their spiritual growth on the smallest part:

Retreats like those provided by the Walk to Emmaus, Cursillo, men's groups, women's groups, and camping ministries are great. People experience a spiritual high after a good retreat. However, it can be difficult to return to the workaday world or maintain the joy of the experience if the other building blocks of spiritual health aren't in place. Retreats are like seasoning on our food. They are more effective when they augment all the disciplines.
On any given day, we may not be able to follow the recommendations of either the food pyramid or the spiritual pyramid. But these do give us guidelines as to what will help us develop healthy spiritual hearts.

I'm interested in your responses to my "pyramid scheme" as you think and teach about it. May your spiritual heart grow healthy!

Bishop Sally Dyck

Conference session members received refrigerator magnets of Bishop Dyck's spiritual pyramid. Order more at $6.50 per pack of ten. Send orders to Minnesota Annual Conference UMC, Magnets, 122 W. Franklin, Room 400, Minneapolis, MN 55404. Make checks payable to Minnesota Annual Conference.

You may also download your own copies of Bishop Dyck's "Spiritual Pyramid" at our web site's library in PDF and JPEG formats.