Do daily devotions really make a difference?

This summer I had an interesting conversation with my friend Chelsey about faith. We shared our concern about why it is difficult to take time each day to spend with the Lord. We also talked about how sometimes we just feel so far from God. We began to ask why and discuss if those two concerns are connected??

So on a long truck ride home from a car show with Jeff I started to talk with him about doing an experiment. What if I asked Christian women in my life to be part of a 60 day - 2 phase study that would try to answer these questions.

PHASE 1

Women in the survey would get a daily survey like this to answer. They would simply answer how they would describe their "cup of faith". It also allowed room to describe more about their day. 

After Phase 1 some women shared that this process of reflecting on their faith each day helped to keep God more in mind each day. But I was excited to start Phase 2.

PHASE 2

I was most excited to see how Phase 2 would change the women's daily cup of faith surveys. For the next 30 days I sent a daily devotion in the morning for the women to read. The devotion had 3 parts.

First was the Scripture of the Day:

Second was the actual devotion for the day. I used various devotionals online, personal experiences, and devotional books to write the daily devotion. 

Third was the Focus Point of the day.  It usually included a question and an action step.

I asked the women to try to read these devotions within 1 hour of waking up. I thought this might set the tone for the day.

At the end of the day I sent the daily survey. For this phase I also asked the women to share thoughts on the morning devotion.

RESULTS

So...what did we learn?

 

52% of the participants described their "cup of faith" as much more full after the 60 days

 

29% of women described their "cup of faith" as quite a bit more full after the 60 days.  

 

93% of women felt like a daily reflection on their faith affected their faith walk quite a bit or greatly

 

78% of women felt like the daily devotions affected their faith walk quite a bit or greatly