Spiritual Formation

CULTURE-SHAPING PRACTICE #5

Originally posted March 25, 2015

SPIRITUAL FORMATION AS RELATIONAL PROCESS

Spiritual formation is the process of strengthening the inner core of a person—their spiritual life. Spiritual formation involves learning about self (self-awareness) and learning about God. It involves growth, creative tension, experiences of disequilibrium, and it leads to change. 

Many traditions name spiritual disciplines including prayer, meditation, solitude, and fasting, and most focus upon seeking knowledge of the Divine in some way. Many coaching philosophies speak respectfully of prayer and meditation and include them among healthy life practices that reduce stress, increase mindfulness, cultivate gratitude, and help people to practice differentiation—a practice that we will explore in a future entry—in the midst of conflict and high anxiety.

Christian spiritual formation stands apart because it is specifically focused on the unveiled story of the God-man who rescues people from their inner, and relational, brokenness, and proceeds to his end goal of remaking the renegade world. Christian spiritual formation is also uniquely a response to something God has done first. It is centered on God's active pursuit of people, not their pursuit of him. It reflects and meditates upon—marvels at him—as he is restoring them to a right relationship with himself, others, and beginning the renewal of the entire universe.

In our highly individualistic culture in the West, especially in America, it is possible to think of spiritual formation as an individual pursuit. It is about "me and God"—possibly in that order.

Spiritual formation is a relational process.

What we've learned, and what is contrary to our instincts in our culture, is that spiritual formation is a relational process. It takes others to help us see ourselves as we are, without blinders on: people who will pursue us and speak loving truth to us even putting our friendship at risk to do so. It also takes the richness of others' experience with God while wrestling with issues like our own to help us see things about him that we can't see on our own. Individual and group coaching in a cohort are ideal contexts for spiritual formation. Also.... 

Spiritual formation is not a program.

Saying that spiritual formation is not a program does mean that organization, boundaries, structure, and intention are not needed, helpful tools in our spiritual formation. But it is to say that spiritual formation can't be reduced to a program. It can't be accomplished in the confines of a semester course, or a two year program. Or a seminary education. Intensive content and learning are powerful aspects of spiritual formation. But most often living life together with others in the ordinary ebb and flow of life is a more authentic arena. Experiencing the mundane, the day to day routines of marriage, work, friendship, pushing back weeds from gardens, of illness, loss of loved ones, and tasting drudgery—these are the wider, truer context in which spiritual formation takes place.  

If spiritual formation is not a program, that means it’s not one size fits all. 

Eugene Peterson says of spiritual formation that it is a process of "taking careful note of what God is doing in one another's lives and applying scripture and the Spirit's wisdom to one another." 

In our Western cultural context where we try to reduce nearly everything to a system and where we value the fastest route from A to B—that's uncomfortably non-programmatic.