Spirituality

We don’t like to talk about the Spirit. It makes us uncomfortable because it is not something that can be measured, or put on a checklist. I know when I have followed God’s laws, but how do I know the Spirit is in my life? How do I know the Spirit is in YOUR life? Being filled with the Spirit is the result of forming our lives around God and allowing ourselves to be shaped through Him. Christian spiritual formation is the lifelong process of the Christian person being shaped into Christ-likeness. This shaping is grounded in experience and enacted through intellect, relationships, intentional practice, and the interaction of the Holy Spirit in the lives of Christians. We are constantly being spiritually formed, but what shape that form takes is dependent on the practices and experiences of each person.

We are called to be part of a community, and this community shapes our faith. But, as a result of our modernistic focus on individualism and an American view that we must be self-made and not rely on others, we have developed a Christianity that requires nothing more than that I “accept Jesus Christ as my own personal savior.” Mainstream Christianity focuses almost exclusively on my own personal decisions to accept Christ, my personal behavior, and very little on the importance of community.

Spiritual formation is not a one time event but a life long process, a journey toward the life of God in the Trinity. We have a tendency to think of the gospel as the source of conversion but not of the gospel life as the continuance of that conversion. We check ‘get baptized’ off our list, but do not continue this path with a spirit-filled life.

The goal of Christian spiritual formation is for an individual person to become part of a community. This community includes the church, the body of Christ on earth, but it also includes being folded into the life of God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit; the community of the Trinity. We do not serve a God that expects, or wants, people to live isolated lives. Rather we serve a God whose very self is relational and communal. In order to be Christ-like, we must learn, grow and be formed in relationship with other Christians, with the world, and with creation. The life-long process of spiritual formation happens in community; in the way we interact and in the way we serve. But just as our community can be beneficial in forming our spirituality, it can also be detrimental; when we allow ourselves to give in to the pressures of appearance and material wealth, when we surround ourselves with gossip, when we excuse bigotry and hate by telling jokes… What affect does this have on our spiritual formation? What affect does it have on our community? We have to make an intentional effort to seek God’s will in controlling what shapes us, and even more importantly, to control how we are shaping others.

Corey Rose
Brentwood, California