My Philosophy of Spiritual Formation

Definition
I define spiritual formation as the process of being formed by God into the very image of Christ as we are immersed in the streams of a wide orthodoxy, diving into intimacy with others and the Trinity. Or as Robert Mulholland succinctly expresses it, Spiritual formation is the “process of being conformed to the image of Christ for the sake of others." To put it in terms more familiar to the church, spiritual formation describes how discipleship happens.

Jesus said he came to bring life and life to its full (John 10:10). Living in the kingdom of heaven means living that eternal kind of life now. There is within us the desire for the depths of relationship with Christ that make this full, abundant life possible.

Deep calls to deep
at the thunder of your cataracts;
all your waves and your billows
have gone over me. Psalm 42:7 (NRSV)

Defining Spiritual Formation

Rolheiser suggests that Private prayer, private morality, social justice, mellowness of heart, and involvment in a concrete community are “nonnegotiable essensials” to the formation of classic Christian Spirituality.

These remind me of Foster’s streams of Christian tradition, Contemplative (private prayer), Holiness (private morality,) Justice, Charismatic (mellow heart?), Evangelical, and Incarnational (Rolheiser would certainly see this to include having community).

Even we Pentecostals don’t go so far as to say that the Charismatic stream is essential for salvation. But then that isn’t the point; we’re not talking about a moment of justification, but a process of being formed. Perhaps each of these traditions is an absolute, nonnegotiable essential. Perhaps it is precisely those differences that sometimes divide us that in the end are the key elements to wholeness. I like this thought, and I think it is truly what Foster is getting at. The Evangelical stream isn’t singled out by Rolheiser, though I am sure the Word and it’s incarnation are central to his Catholic theology.

In keeping with these essentials, I would define spiritual formation as “Being formed by God into the very image of Christ as we are immersed in the streams of a wide Orthodoxy unto depth of intimacy with Trinity and Man.”