This past semester I began meeting with three freshmen girls. All of them came from Christian homes and knew about quiet times but they were vague on specifics. Don’t assume because someone knows the term that they also know what to do – or are doing it!
After sharing a quiet time, I encouraged them to take what we did and do it daily on their own. All three began intermittently. Each week as we met we camped out in a different Psalm. I would take them to special places in scripture where I knew they could easily find treasure applicable to their lives.
Eventually I started them in Colossians, encouraging them to pick up the next day where we’d left off and start working their way through this book (or another of their own choosing) on their own. Not one of them did this, so I started our next shared quiet time where we’d stopped in this book the previous week. I always begin our times together asking where they are reading in their quiet times. This lets me know how frequently they are having quiet times on their own, and whether they started working through a book sequentially.
After a month, one of the girls started working her way through the book of Mark on her own – and was soon hooked! Until now, Jesus had only been part of the background of her life. Now He took center stage, and it showed. As soon as I learned she was working her way through a book, all three of us began having our weekly quiet time wherever she happened to be. This kept her on track and gave the others a taste of reading sequentially.
Week after week, this student shared how she was experiencing Jesus meeting her where she “just happened” to be. It wasn’t long till her application was to have a quiet time every day. She said, “It really is making a difference in my life when I do this! I don’t want to miss out!”
As soon as someone understands the format, I encourage them to pass this treasure on to another friend. If you really want to learn something, teach it to another person. You don’t have to know much, and this method is very easy to reproduce. I encourage them to “do with a friend what you did with me.” There is always much excitement when they return and share what happened. Plus, as they start encouraging others to have quiet times, it keeps spurring them on in their own new-found discipline.
Want to teach someone how to have a quiet time? Check out these resources you might find helpful in sharing a quiet time with someone.
