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What is the Meaning of “Spiritual Formation”?

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I like the term “spiritual formation.” We often use it as another term for discipleship. It is an essential thing, therefore, for every Christian.

So what is it? I was at a retreat a few months ago that defined it perfectly and in a very engaging way. They said: “Spiritual and emotional formation at its core is learning how to love God, others, and yourself well.”

Spiritual formation (and discipleship), in other words, is about love. Love for God first, love for others, and indeed, loving ourselves well. (For if we don’t love ourselves well, we often don’t love others well–just as if you don’t take good care of your car, it won’t help others get around much either.)

Note two things from this definition.

First, we are to love well. Have you thought of discipleship and spiritual formation in that way before? As learning to love well?

Often we speak of love as central to the Christian life, but don’t make the connection that we can love in better or less helpful ways. Perhaps that’s why Paul speaks the way he does in Philippians 1:9: “And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent [what’s best next!]” (see also the parallel prayer in Colossians 1:9-12).

Second, note that there is a tie between spiritual and emotional formation. For a long time as Christians, we tended to see these two issues as separate. But as Peter Scazzero points out in his book Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, you cannot be spiritually healthy unless you are emotionally healthy. For they overlap.

And so learning emotional intelligence, it turns out, is a key part of our Christian maturity and thus discipleship and spiritual formation. This is something we have not given much focus to, but need to.

So love God and love others — realizing that our call is not just to do it, but to do it well, and that affirming and learning how to connect emotionally is central to doing this.

Support The Gospel Fund, A New Platform for Global Missions Ventures

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The Gospel Fund is a brand-new platform that enables Christian missionaries, church planters, non-profits, churches, and individuals to raise money for global mission ventures.

I am incredibly excited about it. My friend Brannon McAllister is one of the co-founders, and he’s kept me in the loop as they’ve been developing the platform. Brannon also co-founded Noise Trade and was a key part of its growth. He understands the web, and is one of the best I’ve worked with.

Gospel-Centered Innovation, Better than Kickstarter

The Gospel Fund is the type of thing I’ve been wanting to see for a long time. It’s like Kickstarter, but for gospel-centered projects — and without the typical poor implementation and graphic design that we often see in ventures like this that are designed for the Christian world.

The Gospel Fund is on the same par in terms of professionally, functionality, design, and execution as Kickstarter, GoFundMe, and similar major sites that don’t have thegospel-centered focus.

I believe this can and will change the future of missions fundraising, and therefore missions itself. It is that important.

Get to Know the Site!

I highly suggest getting to know the site and using it! Read the about page, browse some of the projects, and if you have a project you are needing to raise funds for, consider doing it on The Gospel Fund.

Consider Giving Financially to Help Finish the Build

Beyond that, the main action right now is to consider giving to help finish the building of the site. The front end is done and the site is working. But there is back-end work that needs to be finished so that they can launch well. They are raising $70,000 so they can finish the work.

It is well, well worth giving to. I highly suggest checking it out, and if you can, giving a donation. I don’t say that lightly. This is a fantastic project that is worthy of whatever you can do to help it come to completion and launch well.

Paul Helm on the Call to the Ministry

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From my notes on his book The Callings: The Gospel in the World:

The call to the ministry is extraordinary, not in the sense that it is miraculous or accompanied by visions, but because “by it a man is taken out of many of the routine commitments of daily life.” Specifically, “he ought to be freed from the need to earn his daily living in order to give himself exclusively to the word of God (1 Tim 5:17).”

It also is extraordinary in that it arises out of the ordinary. A person generally will carry on a normal calling, and “it is when he is inwardly constrained to preach the gospel, and his gifts — his ability to handle Scripture, to preach, to give leadership — are recognized by the church, that his inward call becomes outwardly ratified. It is as these inward and outward circumstances combined that a man has a warrant for leaving his regular calling and attempting to obtain a position of pastoral oversight.”

The Vision of the Gospel Coalition

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I received the December issue of The Gospel Coalition newsletter in my inbox the other day, and I thought they did such a good job stating their vision for the organization that I wanted to share it here.

Here’s how they (Don Carson and Tim Keller) put it:

We helped to found The Gospel Coalition in 2005 with three goals in mind: first, to articulate the gospel in a theologically rich way to demonstrate its relevance to all biblical revelation and to all peoples; second, to deepen thinking and living to “act in line with the truth of the gospel” (Gal. 2:14); and third, to spread this vision of ministry to churches around the globe.

Most of you are familiar with TGC and its vision. Yet, in another sense, I think there is a lot here that is always worth a good refresher.

For example, note the first goal. Their point is that the gospel is at the heart of the Bible. In one sense that seems obvious, but that’s only because people like Carson and Keller have been making that point so well!

Many people still think of the Scriptures as a book of moral principles or disconnected stories. While it does teach us moral principles, and does have stories, the heart of everything — the center and that which connects everything together — is Christ himself, who died and rose again for us. All Scripture points to him ultimately, and is to be understood in that way.

If Christ and the gospel are at the heart of the Scriptures, then that means that mercy is at the heart of the Scriptures. For the gospel is at root a revelation of God’s mercy. And this leads to the second point: the gospel is to affect how we live every area of our lives.

It is, first of all, significant to realize that, just as the gospel is relevant to every facet of biblical revelation, so also the gospel is relevant to every area of our life. We are to think of every area of life in relation to the gospel. But what does this mean? Since the gospel is about God’s mercy, it means that we are to have a merciful angle in how we do and think about everything.

For example, with your business practices letting the gospel be the center doesn’t mean you don’t care about profit. But it does mean that you pursue profit in a people-affirming way — in a way that doesn’t use your employees or treat customers simply as a means to making money. Instead, you see your customers (and employees) as people who are valuable in themselves and whom you exist to bring real benefit to.

It also means that you don’t justify being inhuman or overly strict to people in the name of saying “this is just business.” Letting mercy govern how you do things means you act like a real human being, with emotion and compassion, in every area of life, including business.

Business is just a small example here. To act in line with the truth of the gospel in every area of life means to see yourself as a servant of others in every area, seeking to do what is right for them rather than first seeking to do what is right for yourself.

Third, this vision of the primacy of the gospel is so significant and crucial that it is not enough simply to live it; we must also spread it. And, of course, this is God’s call to his people. We are to believe the gospel, live in accord with the truth of the gospel, and spread the gospel and the vision for life that is in line with it to the world. The chief way that TGC does this is by spreading a gospel-centered vision to churches and ministries globally.

These three principles are incredibly profound, exciting, and life transforming. They are solid principles not just for a Christian ministry, but for a Christian life.

You can learn more about TGC’s vision in their vision for ministry document, and learn more about the ministry they are doing right now by checking out the full newsletter at their website.

Global Study Bibles for Leaders in Africa and Asia

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Crossway has just launched an effort to distribute 250,000 Global Study Bibles to leaders in Africa, India, and other parts of Asia that are under-resourced.

This is an excellent initiative for meeting a massively important need.

You can learn more at their blog post and in the video below.

An Urgent Ministry Opportunity––Global Study Bibles for Leaders in Africa and Asia from Crossway on Vimeo.

Live Like a Narnian

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Joe Rigney, Assistant Professor of Theology and Worldview at Bethlehem College and Seminary, has just released a new book on what C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia have to teach us about Christian discipleship. It’s a very innovative and enlarging book, and Rigney is a great guide. It’s called Live Like A Narnian: Christian Discipleship in Lewis’s Chronicles.

Brandon Smith has a good interview with Rigney over at Gospel-Centered Discipleship, as does Trevin Wax over at his blog. Rigney is also doing a message on Lewis this weekend at the Desiring God national conference which, of course, is on C. S. Lewis.

Needless to say, this sounds like a great weekend to dive back into the world of Narnia. So, here’s one more resource for you: a while back, Andy Naselli compiled a list of Ten Narnia resources he found most helpful when he took his daughter through the books.

 

 

 

Thanks to Mere Agency for the Faster Web Hosting

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Many thanks to my friend, Matt Heerema, for setting the blog up on a new and much faster, more reliable server. Thank you Matt!

Matt is the founder and owner of Mere Agency, a web agency that offers services in the area of organizational strategy consulting, website information architecture, design, website construction, and website hosting services. (Full disclosure: I do some contract work for Matt.)

Matt and his company do fantastic work , and if you or your organization are looking for help in any of those areas, it would be worth checking them out.