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.

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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.