Tulsa Lectures: First and Third Class, On Spiritual Formation

A few years ago, I learned a new church term: “spiritual formation.” In fact, for a while, my congregation had a man on staff called “minister of spiritual formation.” It’s all the rage.

The classic text in support of this sort of ministry is —

(Gal 4:19 ESV)  19 my little children, for whom I am again in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in you!

Hence, “spiritual formation” refers to the formation of Christ within the individual Christian. It’s about personal transformation. Indeed, it’s about helping the Holy Spirit do his work.

Good. Really. I mean it. I just don’t think we have a clue as to how to go about it.

Consider this very typical job description for a minister of spiritual formation —

PURPOSE – To provide leadership for the Bible teaching, Christian discipleship, and age graded ministries of the church, with a particular focus on children, youth and their families. In addition, assist the pastor and other staff in the overall ministry of the church.

Sounds like an “associate minister” or “minister of education” or the like. And it’s hard to imagine that whoever takes this job will be given permission to actually change things from the traditional approach to adult Bible classes, teen ministry, and children’s ministry. There is nothing in here that breaks the mold.

Another description of spiritual formation comes from Dallas Willard.

What, then, are the indirect means that allow us to cooperate in reshaping the personality—the feelings, ideas, mental processes and images, and the deep readinesses of soul and body—so that our whole being is poised to go with the movements of the regenerate heart that is in us by the impact of the Gospel Word under the direction and energizing of the Holy Spirit?

These means are, primarily, the disciplines for life in the Spirit: solitude and silence, prayer and fasting, worship and study, fellowship and confession, and the like.

At least Willard isn’t advocating merely the same old/same old. And yet his emphasis is on solitary spiritual exercises, and there is nothing here about submission, service, sacrifice, or suffering. Nothing. Indeed, he expends no effort to discern just what it might mean to be like Jesus. He just knows that his preferred spiritual disciplines will get us there. I doubt it.

Far closer to a scriptural vision of spiritual formation is Richard Foster, from the January 2009 issue of Christianity Today.

They have discovered that real, solid, substantive transformation into the likeness of Christ is possible.

They witness to a character formation that is nigh unto amazing. They have seen their egocentric passions give way to such selflessness and humility of heart, it astonishes even them. Rage and hate and malice are replaced with love and compassion and universal goodwill.

“Selflessness and humility of heart.” “Love and compassion and universal goodwill.” Now, we’re talking. We have some real meat on the bones. And so how do we get there?

First, we needed to revive the great conversation about the formation of the soul; and second, we needed to incarnate this reality into the daily experience of individual, congregational, and cultural life.

Foster admits that it’s easier to work with individuals than Christian congregations, and yet the greater need is transformation within the body. Amen.

It is no vain thing for us to return to our first love over and over and over again. It is an act of faith to continually cry out to God to search us and know our heart and root out every wicked way in us (Ps. 139:23-24). This is a vital aspect of the salvation of the Lord.

We are, each and every one of us, a tangled mass of motives: hope and fear, faith and doubt, simplicity and duplicity, honesty and falsity, openness and guile. God is the only one who can separate the true from the false, the only one who can purify the motives of the heart.

Yes, it begins at an individual level, especially in asking God to transform us. It helps if we submit to God’s work through the Spirit. And that begins by specifically asking to be changed.

But I disagree with Foster on one point. Yes, as he says, our actions follow the heart. But our hearts also follow our actions. Sometimes we have to do right before we enjoy doing right. Sometimes, we can’t know what our hearts will respond to until we try it.

Therefore, I may not think I have a heart for orphans or missions. I may feel no compassion or drive in those areas at all. But if I were to work with orphans or in missions, I may discover — much to my surprise! — that I feel called to this work. Sometimes, we have to take a step into service and submission before our heart is willing to admit that we’d enjoy it.

We are dealing with an overall consumer mentality that simply dominates the American religious scene. It is a mentality that keeps the individual front and center: “I want what I want, when I want it, and to the measure I want it.” Of course, spiritual formation work teaches us to turn away from our wants and instead focus on true needs, such as the need to die to self and to take up our cross and follow hard after Jesus.

This is true. We have to identify the barriers to congregational spiritual formation to defeat them, and our consumeristic selling of the church to the membership only feeds all that is opposed to spiritual formation.

Foster then argues that fellowship among those seeking to become like Jesus will encourage more widespread spiritual formation.

A person filled with the beauty of Jesus has fellowship gathering power. Others are drawn irresistibly toward such a person.

But this is not enough. He then urges a “church within the church.”

Second, let us do all we can to develop the ecclesiola in ecclesia—”the little church within the church.” The ecclesiola in ecclesia is deeply committed to the life of the people of God and is not sectarian in any way. No separation. No splitting off. No setting up a new denomination or church. We stay within the given church structures and develop little centers of light within those structures. And then we let our light shine!

This is a tough one to swallow. Maybe it sounds good in theory, but in reality a church within a church will be perceived as separated and holier-than-thou. After all, it sure looks like a schism!

I think it’s a very bad idea, and I would never want a minister of spiritual formation to operate that way. Indeed, this is the method of insurgency (as shown by his example of John Wesley, who wound up forming a new denomination due to lack of support among the denominational leadership).

Rather, the correct approach is to try — desperately — to draw the entire church into the image of Christ as one. That has to be the goal. And that can only happen if the leadership is in support, indeed, willing to exemplify the transformation required. But when the leadership leads, the church can be transformed as a whole.

Of course, some members will be transformed more quickly than others. People are just like that. But they definitely shouldn’t form themselves into an inner, holier church. That would just run the rest away. Rather, they should conscientiously mingle with the rest of the congregation, setting a good example among people who feel loved and appreciated by them.

Yes, it’s easier to be like Jesus among others who do the same — except it’s impossible, because Jesus spent his time eating with sinners. There is a natural human tendency to want to go off and work solely with the lost and not mess with the hypocritical, un-Christ-like, slow-to-change Christians, but God loves Christians, too. Even the slow-to-change ones.

And in the long run, working together, letting those who are closer to Jesus than others set an example from among the rest of the church, is the key. Obviously, this also requires that those who are slower to change be willing to associate with the rest. But rarely would this be a problem — if the rest are truly becoming like Jesus.

So what would a true spiritual formation ministry look like?