I hate how easy it is for people to become 'champions' of spiritual formation without actually becoming transformed. Better to be a loving person without knowing how you got there, than an expert no one can stand to be around.ģ. Wise method is always needed, in spirituality as in auto mechanics. Any technique is just a technique, and always only a shade away from becoming a new legalism. for inductive Bible study for lectio divina and learning about the difference between meditation and contemplation and engaging in Ignatian exercises. So, for example, someone who grew up in a traditional evangelical spiritual context will swap out meeting at Denny's at 6:00 a.m. I hate how spiritual formation gets equated with certain restricted methods. The question isn't if someone will sign up for spiritual formation it's just who and what our spirits will be formed by.Ģ. Everyone is being spiritually formed all the time. And it's constantly being shaped and tugged at: by what you hear and watch and say and read and think and experience. Just as there is an 'outer you' that is being formed and shaped all the time, like it or not, by accident or on purpose, so there is an 'inner you.' You have a spirit. People think of it as an esoteric activity reserved for introverted Thomas-Merton-reading contemplatives. I hate how spiritual formation gets positioned as an optional pursuit for a small special interest group within the church. So here are a few items I need to get off my chest.ġ. But like all language, the phrase has a way of taking on baggage and barnacles and misunderstandings. Now it's a subject I find myself writing and thinking about a lot. Although I grew up in the church, I never heard the phrase until I was out of college.

The phrase 'spiritual formation' expresses the most important process in the world.

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