From Performance to Practice // DiscipleSHIFT // Doug Glynn // 02.15.26

Many followers of Jesus live with a quiet pressure to perform spiritually. In this message, Doug shares honestly about his own early experience of striving to impress God through prayer, discipline, and effort, believing that spiritual growth depended on his consistency and intensity. But instead of producing freedom, that performance mindset led to exhaustion, shame, and distance from God. Through this personal story, Doug introduces the key shift of the message: moving from performance to practice.

Jesus never invited His followers into a life of performance, but into a life of abiding. Drawing from John 15 and the Sermon on the Mount, Doug explains that spiritual practices like prayer, Scripture, Sabbath, and generosity are not ladders we climb to earn God’s approval. Instead, they are more like a trellis that supports a vine, creating space for the life of God already within us to grow and bear fruit. Practices do not produce transformation on their own, nor do they make God love us more. Rather, they help us remain connected to the One who is already transforming us by His grace.

Doug also addresses a common reaction many people have after being freed from legalism. Some, after experiencing the pressure of performance-based religion, disengage from spiritual practices altogether, assuming that effort itself must be opposed to grace. But as Dallas Willard famously said, grace is not opposed to effort; it is opposed to earning. Spiritual practices are not about earning God’s love, but about participating in the relationship we already have with Him. The invitation is not perfection, but direction. Not striving, but remaining.

As the church enters the season of Lent, Doug invites the congregation to embrace one small, honest, and sustainable practice as a way of intentionally making space for God. Lent is not about proving devotion or succeeding spiritually, but about creating room to abide more deeply in Christ. In the end, this message is an invitation to release the burden of performance and rediscover the freedom of practicing the presence of God, trusting that as we remain connected to Jesus, He will faithfully produce fruit in our lives.