Spiritual Formation
This was written over 3 years ago and I am putting it here so I can remember where I put it.
I want to add a new term to the concept of discipleship/mentoring; spiritual formation. I feel like discipleship/mentoring have taken on a connotation in our western culture that is maybe isn’t correct. When I think about our western views of discipleship I think of a class/bible study. I think that in western church we have regulated spiritual formation to formal settings where there is someone who knows more and is teaching the one who knows less. That puts us in situations where we have to measure someone’s spiritual maturity against an arbitrary yard stick to determine if they have made it or not. That puts us in situations where we have in/out mentalities. Just like when it comes to salvation and we say someone is saved (in) or lost (out), we say if someone is more spiritually mature (in) than someone else (out). I think that it has been to our detriment to attempt to take relationships out of the spiritual formation process.
Pastors are taught to maintain a certain distance from church members and I think that church leaders as a whole are encouraged to have a façade of having it all together and not struggling with issues and that if there is a problem then it is only shared with leadership/Pastor. I think that it would be good for people to be aware and see leaders struggle and understand that there is never a time that you “Arrive” or have it all together and no longer have problems.
We have created an environment where we want people to believe that God is bigger than all problems and thus we have no problems, we have developed entire theologies and philosophies about problems and “why bad things happen to good people.” What I am saying with this rant is that we just need to be human and real and allow people to see an honest look at our lives, with all our crap, and say “I still have faith in God.”
I tend to feel that our classroom (by classroom I mean any setting such as small groups and one on one discipleship that is more formal) type “I know more than you, let me teach you what I know” mentality has worked for certain people who learn best in those situations. But I think that we have lost people who learn best through other ways. I think of different personality types and learning styles who just can’t relate to the formal way that western church has been doing things for the last 50 years. I personally learn really well in a classroom setting and have always done well in school yet I can only think of one bible study in my entire life (and there have been more than I could count) where I felt that I got something from it. Yet think of all the other people who don’t learn well in that setting (and I would contend that it is the majority of people,) what of them and their spiritual formation? Can we expect them to always conform to our expectations? Is it really appropriate to want people to meet a certain spiritual maturity level? Who decides what that is? Could it be that attempting reach spiritual maturity is really just an attempt at sin management and not Kingdom living? I think that the rediscovery of the gospel of the kingdom of God (i.e. "the kingdom of God is among you") as opposed to what Dallas Willard calls "the gospel of sin-management" (i.e. "believe in Jesus so you can be forgiven of your sins and go to heaven after you die") is a fundamental shift in emerging thinking. What would it look like to believe that the kingdom of God is among the people? Would that change our perception of spiritual maturity? I think that we so frequently associate spiritual maturity with head/academic knowledge of God/Bible. Is that really spiritual maturity? I can think of many people (especially those in the margins/minorities) who would not be spiritually mature by traditional church standards yet I can learn so much from them and their deep faith that is different than mine. My faith is not better or less than theirs; it is just a different kind of faith and is expressed differently.
I think that there is a lot to be said for spiritual formation that is relationship centered. I know that for me I learned the most from simply living with my Mom and watching her and how she interacted with people and situations. I was also able to listen to her conversations with her friends and what they talked about regarding God/church/spiritual life. As I became a teenager I had 2 women in their late 20’s who where married with young kids and I spent a lot of time with them. I cleaned, cooked and ran errands with these women and I was able to watch them in their conversations and how they interacted with people, husbands and kids; we just had relationships and talked. There was never a formal “these people will mentor you” type conversation and I was just their friend, they didn’t have an agenda or felt that they where teaching me. I have had 3 people approach me in the last year and have told me how much my mentoring them meant to them, but I never set out to mentor them, it was never (at least for me) anything more than a friendship. Perhaps what discipleship/mentoring/spiritual formation looks like in a eastern/emerging context that is relational based.
I want to add a new term to the concept of discipleship/mentoring; spiritual formation. I feel like discipleship/mentoring have taken on a connotation in our western culture that is maybe isn’t correct. When I think about our western views of discipleship I think of a class/bible study. I think that in western church we have regulated spiritual formation to formal settings where there is someone who knows more and is teaching the one who knows less. That puts us in situations where we have to measure someone’s spiritual maturity against an arbitrary yard stick to determine if they have made it or not. That puts us in situations where we have in/out mentalities. Just like when it comes to salvation and we say someone is saved (in) or lost (out), we say if someone is more spiritually mature (in) than someone else (out). I think that it has been to our detriment to attempt to take relationships out of the spiritual formation process.
Pastors are taught to maintain a certain distance from church members and I think that church leaders as a whole are encouraged to have a façade of having it all together and not struggling with issues and that if there is a problem then it is only shared with leadership/Pastor. I think that it would be good for people to be aware and see leaders struggle and understand that there is never a time that you “Arrive” or have it all together and no longer have problems.
We have created an environment where we want people to believe that God is bigger than all problems and thus we have no problems, we have developed entire theologies and philosophies about problems and “why bad things happen to good people.” What I am saying with this rant is that we just need to be human and real and allow people to see an honest look at our lives, with all our crap, and say “I still have faith in God.”
I tend to feel that our classroom (by classroom I mean any setting such as small groups and one on one discipleship that is more formal) type “I know more than you, let me teach you what I know” mentality has worked for certain people who learn best in those situations. But I think that we have lost people who learn best through other ways. I think of different personality types and learning styles who just can’t relate to the formal way that western church has been doing things for the last 50 years. I personally learn really well in a classroom setting and have always done well in school yet I can only think of one bible study in my entire life (and there have been more than I could count) where I felt that I got something from it. Yet think of all the other people who don’t learn well in that setting (and I would contend that it is the majority of people,) what of them and their spiritual formation? Can we expect them to always conform to our expectations? Is it really appropriate to want people to meet a certain spiritual maturity level? Who decides what that is? Could it be that attempting reach spiritual maturity is really just an attempt at sin management and not Kingdom living? I think that the rediscovery of the gospel of the kingdom of God (i.e. "the kingdom of God is among you") as opposed to what Dallas Willard calls "the gospel of sin-management" (i.e. "believe in Jesus so you can be forgiven of your sins and go to heaven after you die") is a fundamental shift in emerging thinking. What would it look like to believe that the kingdom of God is among the people? Would that change our perception of spiritual maturity? I think that we so frequently associate spiritual maturity with head/academic knowledge of God/Bible. Is that really spiritual maturity? I can think of many people (especially those in the margins/minorities) who would not be spiritually mature by traditional church standards yet I can learn so much from them and their deep faith that is different than mine. My faith is not better or less than theirs; it is just a different kind of faith and is expressed differently.
I think that there is a lot to be said for spiritual formation that is relationship centered. I know that for me I learned the most from simply living with my Mom and watching her and how she interacted with people and situations. I was also able to listen to her conversations with her friends and what they talked about regarding God/church/spiritual life. As I became a teenager I had 2 women in their late 20’s who where married with young kids and I spent a lot of time with them. I cleaned, cooked and ran errands with these women and I was able to watch them in their conversations and how they interacted with people, husbands and kids; we just had relationships and talked. There was never a formal “these people will mentor you” type conversation and I was just their friend, they didn’t have an agenda or felt that they where teaching me. I have had 3 people approach me in the last year and have told me how much my mentoring them meant to them, but I never set out to mentor them, it was never (at least for me) anything more than a friendship. Perhaps what discipleship/mentoring/spiritual formation looks like in a eastern/emerging context that is relational based.
posted by Tera Yakel | 10:00 AM
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