Spiritual Formation #01

From Pips to Lemon Trees

I love watching seedlings grow. About twelve years ago, I was given a small weedy lemon-tree seedling. We didn’t really need it so I stuck it way down the back of our property, in a corner, behind some large plants and forgot about it. Just recently I was hacking my way through those overgrown shrubs and weeds and found it! And it was no longer the tiny little seedling I remembered. It had grown into a tall strong fruit tree with some plump ripening lemons. It hadn’t remained as it was, it had taken in nutrition and it had matured.

In the same way, the life of faith is described in the scriptures as dynamic rather than static. It is a life-long movement towards Christ that requires deliberate attention and discipline. For example, there’s the image of a boxer in training (1 Cor. 9:26-27); an athlete running the race (1 Cor. 9:24-25); the putting off old behaviours and putting on the new pattern (Eph. 4:20-32); taking in nourishment as a baby that grows to adulthood (1 Pet. 2:2); warring against spiritual realities (Eph. 6:10-17); resisting temptation from the evil one (1 Pet. 5:8-9); submitting to pruning and bearing fruit (John 15: 1-16); and, being tested like precious metal in a foundry (1 Pet. 1:7). 

Each of these graphically captures something of the journey towards wholeness: “so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ” (Eph 4: 11-13).

Formation is a commonly used term for educational, relational, and contemplative practices, mentorship and direction of both a religious and even of non-religious nature. There is a sense, too, in which all individuals are being formed in one way or another. It is the unique factors and intent being brought to bear which eventually shape and form each person.

Dallas Willard notes that formation “is a process that happens to everyone…. Terrorists as well as saints are the outcome of spiritual formation. Their spirits or hearts have been formed.” Willard’s summary is that “spiritual formation for the Christian basically refers to the Spirit-driven process of forming the inner world of the human self in such a way that it becomes like the inner being of Christ himself.”

Michael Burer adds: “it is transformation in that it involves definitive, measurable growth in a certain direction; it involves the inner person in that it concerns itself with character, thoughts, intentions, and attitudes more than actions, habits, or behaviors; it has the character of Christ as its goal and standard of measure.” 

There are many different metaphors or starting points that frame different writers understanding. Friedrich Schleiermacher, way back in 1799 described the pilgrim longing for home and cleaving longingly to it’s ways evokes an image of fond, forward looking obedience: “… the pious longing of the stranger for home, the endeavour to carry one’s fatherland with one and everywhere to intuit its laws and customs, its higher more beautiful life.”

The journey and process that facilitates spiritual formation is complex. There are a broad variety of different approaches and models, that each shed fresh insight onto the factors that contribute to formation. What are the practices and approaches you find helpful on your journey from ‘pip’ to ‘lemon tree?’

In the next few blog entries, I’m going to muse on some of the helpful insights and approaches to growing in Christ.

___________________________

Dallas Willard, Renovation of the Heart: Putting on the Character of Christ (Colorado Springs: Navpress, 2002), 19, 22

Michael H. Burer, “Towards a Biblical Definition of Spiritual Formation: Romans 12:1-2,” Feb 9 2007, https://bible.org/seriespage/towards-biblical-definition-spiritual-formation-romans-121-2, Accessed 9 March 2015, 1

Friedrich D. E. Schleiermacher, On Religion: Speeches to Its Cultured Despisers. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 78.

Diary: 04

Friday 21st of June 2024

We're looking at getting together in a few weeks with some others to do some creative thinking and planning about actually launching Haven.

I remember some time ago making a batch of Chocolate Chip cookies. I threw together the flour, butter, and huge handful of chocolate chips, all the other ingredients, a pinch of salt -- and an extra large cup of sugar (Well, I thought it was sugar!) -- And the cookies were totally gross -- Because in my haste -- I'd put in just a pinch of sugar and a generous extra large cup full of salt. Yup! Nope! You need the right ingredients if you want a delicious cookie!

So, if you were looking for a delicious, crunchy, chocolatey, faith community (to push the metaphor beyond endurance), what ingredients would you want mixed in? 

What, for you, are the ingredients for a satisfying church community? 

As for me, I find it interesting how often food gets referenced in the New Testament. Whether it's the feeding of the 5,000, or Jesus grabbing a meal at Mary, Martha and Lazarus' place, or having dinner with Zacchaeus or sharing a lamb roast with the twelve at Passover, or sinking a refreshing water at Jacob's well, or all the wine at that wedding in Cana -- there's lots of talking and eating!

The only liturgical instruction Jesus gave was for his followers to keep on meeting around a table, and when they munched on the bread and drank their wine, they were to recognise their shared unity as Followers of the Way. They praised and prayed, encouraged and used their gifting to bless each other around their table. I do like the idea of a shared meal and slow conversation as the basis for worshipping community.

I also like the idea of dialogue. Most of Jesus 'sermons' such as we have them, were quite short and were followed with a fair bit of question-and-answer and robust discussion, often leading on to some practical 'hands-on' stuff, like feeding or healing. 

I also find it interesting that when James writes (early on in the piece) to a bunch of new Christians, who didn't yet have a New Testament to instruct them, on how they should 'do' church, one of the things he says is this:

"Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you." (James 1:27 NLT)

The word for "religion" here is "thrēskeia." It doesn't mean discipleship or spiritual maturity or anything like that. It means “'religious conduct or practice." It refers to formal worship services -- the external stuff, like ceremonies, offerings and liturgies.

In other words it's as if James has been asked: "So, how do we get our worship services just right? What icons, pews, pulpits,  songs, run-sheets, candles, smoke-machines and pipe-organs should we throw into the mix to make for genuine God-impressing religious practice?"

And, interestingly, James subverts the meaning of the word religion! 

"Fair dinkum thrēskeia?" he says, "You want to know how to get your worship services so that God is delighted with you? Well, genuine worship has all to do with caring for those who don't belong, who are on the margins, and for those broken and distressed and hungry for food and friendship. And, oh yes, don't live compromised by the dark ethics of the Empire."

To me that sounds like a pretty cool recipe for worship!

Well, what other ingredients would you add to the mix? Send them to me via email HERE

Snapshot #3 Outside The Square

The ‘Rebels’ Group. Many years ago now, my family attended what was then one ofthe larger congregational churches in Australia. This was (and still is) an excellent church, with a wonderful menu of effective ministry programmes and all manner of groups and people networks ranging from playgroups to craft groups, from financial advice to low cost accommodation. Back then, there was a large staff team and on weekends, we scheduled five or six different worship services, a massive Sunday school, and youth programmes. To serve there was exhilarating, worthwhile, but exhausting.

This was a fascinating time as that congregation had slowed growing numerically and had been on a plateau for at least five years. I saw how challenging it is for a large and successful church to appraise and change its paradigm. I also learnt, back then, how church growth and mission were closely related to strategic planning and corporate management. Back then, we often assumed the presuppositions, methodology and practises of the large, successful (mostly Northern American) regional churches.

Whilst we were great at asking demographic, marketing and organising questions,  we struggled to do the deeper work of thinking through together what our theological 'lenses' should be. We engaged in little contextual theology or in challenging unbiblical cultural traits. Instead, we tended to imitate the approach of other larger churches if they increased numbers. I recall planning meetings where issues were raised such as whether we ought to remain a geographically “local” church or evolve into a “regional” church; whether demographic segmentation was appropriate or not; whether we ought to implement a central, top-down management structure or rather decentralise through becoming a more inclusive home group network; whether we ought to organise functionally or organically; or whether the cultural assumptions under-girding suburban Australia ought to be imitated or challenged. 

The telling thing was not what was decided, but that nothing was decided on most of these questions. These issues were benignly seen as irrelevant to the process of articulating a strong mission statement, core functions, long term goals, growth and so on. Provided we were reaching out and moving off the plateau, bringing people in, then that was more the priority.  

After five years, I had moved into different vocational work, but we remained at the edge of this very large congregation. In the midst of this massive professional effort, we came to miss that sense of localised, permanent, intimate, and messy community. 

Snapshot #2 Outside The Square

The East German Fellowship

In the 1970s, when I was in high school, I vividly recall travelling to East Germany (when it was behind the Iron Curtain), with my family and visiting a small evangelical church in the south. A group of twenty or so adults and children gathered in the living room of an older, meagre home. Though my German was poor, it was good enough to follow the service, which was more a gathering of extended family than a public event. The singing was bright and heartfelt; there were tears of devotion in the eyes of some, singing about their Lord. 

The testimonies came thick and fast, and passionate prayers of gratitude for the Lord’s provision were offered. The sermon was grounded in the testimonies, connecting the passage to the congregation’s experiences. The pastor was more like a conductor who unpacked the stories and grounded them in the Scriptures than the 'professional' preacher. “This scripture is just for us for this week!” The prayers were not about security or protection but for courage to live authentically in the face of a truly hostile regime and the powers that supported it. Their clothes were not stylish, the communal meal was plain, but the stories of courage and grace in the midst of difficulty were inspiring. I learnt much later that the high school children present had been denied tertiary enrolment on graduation because of their disavowal of the communist youth league and their profession of faith.

Here was a community of faith whose faithful living marked it out as a joyful and appreciated witness to its locale, and also marked it for vindictive opposition from the State. It thrived in weakness in a way that I have not seen readily in our 'Christian' west. 

A number of years later, after the fall of the Berlin wall, we heard from the pastor’s wife who told us how they had so hoped that the collapse of communism would free the churches there to more powerfully witness. Instead, it had the opposite effect. Everywhere the churches were emptying as people pursued the lure of western materialism. Western Christians brought  aspirational lifestyles and conformity to consumeristic values. The young people were no longer discipled to carry their cross. Spiritual entertainment was, she felt, becoming endemic.

As I reflect on this story, I am reminded of a comment by Os Guinness, at a conference some time ago, to the effect that, wherever Western modernity takes hold, it undermines the integrity of the local church. How ironic it is that the non-western church, weak and marginalised, with few of the accoutrements of the western churches, knows little of the lassitude which besets us.

Next time: The rebel’s group that grew by accident!