It’s just so much easier (and more pleasant) to work out how other people should change than it is to unsettle our own hearts and lives. If you really want to listen to sermons in an apparently godly but non-growing way, pick one encouragement from the sermon which will make no difference to your life, and share it with the preacher on the way out.

I know these ways are effective because I have fallen, and still fall, into all of them, and need prayer that I will battle against them every day of 2013.

1. Regularly go away for the weekend and go to a different church

You’re still in church each Sunday. It just happens that no one church family gets to know you well enough to be able to challenge you where and when it’s needed. Being away once a month should do the trick; twice will make sure of it.

2. Be too busy doing ministry to pray or read your Bible daily

This way, you can look busy and godly to everyone around you, while growing more and more self-reliant and self-congratulatory, and never needing to be disciplined in working on your relationship with the Lord.

3. Think hard about how sermons apply to others

4. Talk to work colleagues and friends about church, but never about Christ

6. Buy Christian books and put them straight on your bookshelf

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