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The classical practices of the Christian life — prayer, fasting, Scripture meditation, sabbath — are not works of merit but means of grace. What that means for how we practice them is the debate.
Last updated: April 17, 2026
Spiritual disciplines are a path to growth when practiced in dependence on God's grace, but become legalistic when treated as merit-earning works. Evangelicals agree disciplines like prayer, Scripture reading, and fasting help believers grow, though they debate whether God works directly through these practices or whether they train us to receive His grace more fully.
The spiritual disciplines have a history as long as Christianity itself. Prayer, fasting, Scripture reading, sabbath, solitude, silence, worship, service, confession — these practices appear throughout the Old and New Testaments, were cultivated by the desert fathers and mothers, systematized by the medieval church, and recovered in various forms by the Reformation and subsequent evangelical revivals. The question is not whether Christians should practice them but why — and whether the reasons given determine the form the practice takes.
Dallas Willard’s revival of interest in the disciplines in the 1980s and 1990s reframed them for a new generation of evangelicals, arguing that spiritual transformation does not happen by willpower but by training — by the sustained engagement with practices that reshape habits, desires, and the soul’s orientation toward God. That framework, combined with the ancient-future renewal associated with Robert Webber, has brought many evangelicals into conversation with older forms of Christian practice: the Daily Office, lectio divina, the prayer of examen, and the rhythms of the liturgical calendar. Not all evangelicals have welcomed this development.
Evangelicals agree that the disciplines matter. They disagree fundamentally on what they are, why we practice them, and what they actually accomplish. Here are the three main positions shaping the conversation.
The spiritual disciplines are God-ordained means through which the Holy Spirit works to sanctify believers — they are not methods of earning God’s favor or producing spiritual experience on demand. Don Whitney’s Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life provides the definitive evangelical case: prayer, Bible intake, fasting, worship, service, stewardship, evangelism, and silence and solitude are all biblical practices that, when engaged consistently, serve the believer’s growth in godliness. The key is that they be practiced in dependence on God’s grace, not in the confident self-sufficiency that makes them a form of spiritual achievement.
Willard’s framework draws on the athletic metaphor of training: just as a runner does not run a marathon by willpower on race day but by training the body over months, a Christian does not become like Christ by trying harder in moral moments but by training the soul through the sustained practice of disciplines that retrain desire, attention, and character. The disciplines are not the goal; Christlikeness is the goal, and the disciplines are the reliable means of training for that end. This framework reclaimed much of the older Christian tradition — Benedict, Thomas à Kempis, John of the Cross — for evangelical use.
The evangelical church has impoverished itself by cutting off from the ancient practices of Christian formation — the Daily Office, the liturgical calendar, lectio divina, fixed-hour prayer, and the prayer of examen. Recovering these ancient-future practices is not Roman Catholicism but the common inheritance of the whole church, available to Protestants through their own history. These practices work not through technique but through patient attention to God’s presence and voice in the ordinary rhythms of Christian life, reshaping how we see and move through the world.
The evangelical disagreement over spiritual disciplines masks a deeper agreement: that Christians are formed, not by information alone, but by practiced engagement with means of grace that God ordains and blesses. Whether one emphasizes gospel-motivation, soul-training, or ancient-future recovery, the conviction is the same — the disciplines matter because they position us before God in dependence, attention, and desire. Prayer forms the soul to speak to God honestly and listen for his voice. Fasting trains the body to say that God matters more than comfort. Scripture reading submits the mind to wisdom beyond our own. Sabbath declares, one day in seven, that the world does not depend on our labor. Solitude and silence create space for the Spirit to work in the depths where noise and distraction cannot reach. Together, these practices attack the self-reliance and self-sufficiency that are the default modes of fallen human beings.
The practical question for every Christian and every church is not whether to practice disciplines but how to sustain them in gospel-centered ways. Disciplines that begin as rules tend to die when life becomes difficult; disciplines that are rooted in love for Christ and understanding of grace tend to deepen. The current moment in evangelicalism has recovered something precious: the conviction that the Christian life is not something we muster the willpower to live, but something we train for through practices that position the soul before God. Centuries of Christian wisdom are available to us — prayer, Scripture, fasting, sabbath, solitude, the liturgical rhythms of the church year. The call is not to add these as burdens but to discover them as gifts, structured opportunities given to us by generations of saints, to place ourselves again and again before the God whose grace is the only power sufficient for transformation.