Ten Principles of Spiritual Formation
““For we are God’s masterpiece. He created us anew in Christ Jesus, so that we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.”
““Formation into the likeness of Christ is lived out in a million little ways day after day.”
Spiritual formation is kind of having a moment in the Christian community. In the wake of an approach to Christianity that favored the retention of information and knowledge to action and service, ministries and organizations are turning their attention to the spiritual disciplines of old. Podcasts are talking about silence and solitude, encouraging you to pray as the monastics do. You may hear of folks fasting or practicing the Sabbath even though you may not have been taught how to do these things or know what place they can have in your walk with Jesus.
While the conversation around spiritual formation and spiritual practices may be new to you (and we’re certainly growing in it as well here at GMO), this tradition is grounded in the very person and work of Jesus Christ and his body, the Church. These practices are not to be mistaken for trends of the moment. The perpetual longing and quest in the life of the church and of every Christian is just this: How do we become like him? Well, by following Christ’s example, by making his habits our habits.
At Grace Mosaic, we are launching an initiative this fall called the Daily Formation Project. The DFP seeks to guide the spiritual formation of our congregants so that we are growing in love and maturity in our life with God and being equipped to participate in his kingdom mission. As our community continues to explore this nonlinear process of spiritual formation through various avenues, we hope these principles will ground us in the loving-kindness of Jesus. It is He who invites us to respond to his amazing grace by imitating him as the beloved children we are in God.
Ten Principles of Spiritual Formation
Love. The mark of Christian maturity is an ever-deepening love of the Triune God, our neighbors, and creation. (Deut. 6:5; Mk. 12:28-31, 1 Cor. 13)
Spiritual formation is not measured in the mere doing of spiritual practices. Rather, it is measured by the love that the spiritual practices are meant to foster. The practices are a means to the end and the end is love. Our maturity is tested in how we relate to others and our formation cannot be measured apart from our engagement with the world around us. As Christians become re-formed into Christ’s image, their hearts will also be reshaped to love God’s people and God’s world more deeply.
God's Work. Spiritual formation is the work of the Holy Spirit, by whom we are “being transformed from one degree of glory to another.” (2 Cor 3:18, Phil. 1:6; 2:13)
Spiritual formation–our progressive sanctification into the image of Christ–is God’s ongoing commitment to make us whole and holy by the power of his Spirit at work within us. God is the one who raises us from death to life and enables us to walk in his ways. He is the one who began a good work in us and will bring it to completion.
Our Work. Spiritual formation requires our active participation. (Luke 9:23; Romans 12:1)
Spiritual formation necessitates that we present our bodies as a living sacrifice. Our participation in God’s work in our lives involves following Christ, receiving his easy yoke, taking up our cross daily, and doing what he has commanded. Formation is facilitated by a posture of “active passivity,” yielding ourselves to God’s work and learning as apprentices of Jesus.
Communal. There is no formation into the image of Christ without the body of Christ, the Church. (1 Cor. 12:12-14; Eph. 4:15-16)
The Church is Christ’s body, as Joan Chittister says, the “one place we are sure where God dwells.” Spiritual formation into the image of Christ must happen within the Christian community because one part of the Body can't exist without the others. We grow together into Christ.
Process. Spiritual formation is a nonlinear maturation over time that happens amid the pains, sufferings, joys, and triumphs of our everyday lives. (2 Cor 4:16; Eph. 4:13)
Our faith is lived out amidst the beauties and brokenness of life. Spiritual formation is not just for those living in monasteries, removed from the chaos and mundanity of the everyday. God invites us to work out our salvation in the realities of the life and callings he has given us. Though we might wish the process of formation to be more expedient (that we might stop struggling with a particular sin struggle or heartache), God is patient with us and will see his work through to completion. Formation is a “Dutch oven” not a microwave.
Inevitable. Everyone is being formed at all times and we will not be formed into the way of God accidentally. (Luke 21:34, Eph. 5:15-16)
Many forces in the world act upon us, within us, and around us to shape our affections and behaviors. The way of Jesus is counter-cultural and we will not stumble into Christlikeness without the counter-formative force of Christian worship and community.
Liturgical. The liturgy of the Church grounds us in how the world is supposed to be and how we are called to engage with it. (Acts 2:42, 1 Cor. 10:16-17)
Christian worship and the means of grace—word, sacrament, and prayer–nourish and equip us to engage the world faithfully. We rehearse the gospel in worship throughout the Christian year so that the gospel of the Kingdom seeps into our bones and pervades the way we live each day of our lives.
Practice-Based. The way of spiritual formation is guided by historical, embodied Christian practices (Phil. 2:12; 3 Jn. 11)
Our spiritual formation is not only a matter of our thoughts or insights but of our affections and our practices. We are not “brains on a stick,” but embodied beings who were created not just to think the right things about God, but to love what God loves and imitate him in our habits. As Dallas Willard has written: “True Christlikeness, true companionship with Christ, comes at the point where it is hard not to respond as he would.”
Kingdom Mission. We are formed to live on mission with the Lord, that his Kingdom may come and his will be done on earth as it is in heaven. (Matt. 6:10; 28:18-20)
Spiritual formation is not about us, our egos, or our private devotional lives. The Lord desires to form us into the kind of people who can participate in his renewal of all things, the coming of his Kingdom. God has placed us in the world to be a light in the darkness and the salt of the earth.
Cross-Cultural. We are formed together to be the cross-cultural family of God. (Ephesians 2:22, Revelation 7:9-10)
God, the Great Artist, is forming people of all different ethnicities, cultures, and backgrounds into a beautiful mosaic that demonstrates the glory of his Kingdom to the whole world. As we grow up and are fitted together as God’s cross-cultural and global family, we are formed into his manifold image.
