by Rowland Croucher (GRID, Winter 1991)

The law of the Lord is perfect... The commands of the Lord are trustworthy... The worship of the Lord is good... The judgments of the Lord are just... Your servant is formed by them...

May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer!

(Excerpts Psalm 19:7-14, GNB, JB).

Christian Spirituality is about the movements of God's Spirit in one's life, in the community of faith, and in the cosmos. It is concerned with how all realities relate, enlivened, enlightened, and empowered by the Spirit of Jesus.

Each of us is being 'formed' all the time. 'Formation' happens because we're human. Christians, too, are 'made not born' (Tertullian). The key question: is our spiritual formation intentional or haphazard? How do Christians mature in their faith, loving God with heart, mind, soul and strength and others as themselves? How do they learn to do justice, to love tenderly, and to walk humbly with their God (Micah 6:8)?

The two Emmaus disciples experienced a 'formational' experience one day which transformed them. The Word of God in Scripture was the touchstone, together with reflection, discussion and discernment about the meaning of the Word of God. To that we add the sense (not recognition) of the presence of the Lord on the journey. The Master questioned and taught them. There was a moment of recognition in the breaking of bread - a momentary and passing experience. So we have an interaction of Scripture and sacrament, preaching and celebration. From the perspective of spiritual formation, the notion of journey is the key. Then, finally, there is witness-bearing, sharing in the community what has happened to them.

Spiritual formation is the dynamic process whereby the Word of God is applied by the Spirit of God to the heart and mind of the child of God so that she or he becomes more and more like the Son of God.

A dynamic process. The human life is not fixed or finished, but rather dynamic and malleable. We are invited to change and grow. But if you want potatoes for dinner tomorrow it won't do much good to plant them today. Potatoes - like Christians - mature, after planting, through a long period of darkness, invisibility, and silence; cultivating, weeding and nurturing. Biblical images of formation include the parable of the cultivation of seeds and plants (Matthew 13); the metaphor of the potter, remaking a vessel when a first attempt failed, requiring in the clay submission and flexibility (Jeremiah 18); wrestling with God until we submit to his sovereign will (Genesis 32).

On our side, the process is one of discipline. A concert pianist practises for long hours so that the concerto can be played as if by second nature. Mature formation doesn't happen by chance: it is a matter of intentionality, obedience and discipline. But formation is more than a disciplined mastery of spiritual techniques: the Christian life is rooted not in a method but in a person. A person who is with us, even in the darkness, when we pray as Varady did in Elie Wiesel's novel The Town Beyond the Wall: 'Oh God, be with me when I have need of you, but above all do not leave me when I deny you.'

The Word of God. The New Testament writers cannot conceive of spiritual formation occurring without the Word of God. The Word of God is God's instrument to discern and judge our deepest thoughts and desires (Hebrews 4:12). We are born again through the living and eternal Word of God (1 Peter 1:23). The Word in all its richness is to live in our hearts (Colossians 3:16). We are to hold firmly to it (Titus 1:9). When we use the expression 'Word of God' we ought immediately to think of a Person, God's living, incarnate Word. 'God has already placed Jesus Christ as the one and only foundation; no other foundation can be laid' (1 Corinthians 3:11).

There are two ways, generally, we can approach the written Word of God in the Bible: 'scientifically', as a critic of the text; or 'devotionally', allowing the Scripture to be critical of us. Actually, these two ought not to be mutually exclusive: but the first method alone will lead to spiritual aridity; the second alone to subjective piety.

Prayer, as Wesley put it, is to be policed by reason and a meditation on the Scriptures. Wesley recommended that preachers put in six hours a day in prayer, Bible study and reading. Other Christians need only spend two hours! In one of his letters to a new convert, Margaret Lewen, he recommended one hundred specific books she should read.

But is 'reason' or 'mind' our only resource to apprehend God and his Word? Blaise Pascal reminds us that 'the heart has reasons of which reason knows not.' 'The one who loves God in the way reason argues or the intellect understands, does not love the true God', said Miguel Molinos. Catherine de Hueck Doherty invites us to 'fold the wings of the intellect and open the door of the heart' if we are to know and love God. Carlo Carretto made the most important discovery in his life of prayer: 'that prayer takes place in the heart, not in the head.' Both heart and mind (probably in that order) must be open: fideism is the subjective, anti-intellectual appeal to the authority of individual experience; but a cerebral rationalism is not a better alternative. Rather, we 'praise the Lord' with 'all our beings' (Psalm 103:1).

The Child of God. In the spiritual life we are always learning and growing. Karl Barth used to say he was suspicious of any effort to cultivate spiritual expertise. In our life in the Spirit, Barth wrote shortly before his death, we must all be 'beginners', amateurs.

And don't forget children grow to maturity in families. Growing Christians, too, need the community of faith, the church. Bonhoeffer spoke of the church as 'Christ-existing-as-community'. In families, children are loved into emotional maturity or scolded into neuroticism. In the church, people are loved into spiritual maturity, or, sadly, sometimes scolded into pharisaism. Our parents, and parents-in-the- faith, model maturity for us. Paul was quite open about this process (see, eg. 1 Thessalonians 2:8). Every Timothy needs a Paul, every Paul should have a couple of Timothys, and every Paul and Timothy need a Barnabas, to encourage them. Sociologists Peter Berger and Thomas Luckman (The Social Construction of Reality), have helped us understand how living and interacting with others helps us form concepts of 'reality' in every sphere of life.

Families - including the church, the family of God - are places in which, ideally, you can be 'who you are' and still be loved and accepted.

Our relationship with God is like every other relationship: it is nurtured (or it isn't) to the degree that we are honest and present in the relationship. As the popular devotional hymn puts it, 'Have thine own way, Lord'. As we surrender to his will, turbulence gives way to stillness, turmoil to serenity. He is the Lord of the tempest and of tranquility. As we allow him to steer our ship through troubled waters, and come to the harbour of protected peace - only then can we be 'yielded and still'. We are formed, spiritually, both when we experience times of dereliction and inklings of grace.

Kenneth Leach (1986:13) writes: 'To sum up, the New Testament letters offer us three major insights into Christian spiritual formation: it is a social act, rooted in the Christian community, the Body of Christ; it is a process involving growth and progress towards maturity; and it is a putting on and sharing of Christ's nature.'

The Image of God. In our Spiritual formation Jesus Christ becomes more and more the shaping power of our lives. He graciously and gradually restores the image of God to all levels of our being. Put simply, our goal is to become more like Jesus, who is 'the visible likeness of the invisible God' (Colossians 1:15). Thomas Merton writes somewhere, 'The identity or the person which is the subject of this transcendent consciousness is not the ego as isolated and contingent, but the person as "found" and "actualized" in union with Christ.'

As Jesus lived a life of radical freedom and service to others, so too our spiritual disciplines must carry us into, not away from, lived experience. Their primary purpose is not correct thinking or right beliefs, or even effective action, but rather with how all these spheres, including our relationships, are integrated into our total awareness (Thayer 1985:57). Our aim is to become liberated creatures committed to the freedom of humanity. Or, as Jurgen Moltmann has written, 'Christian freedom understands itself... as the beginning and foretaste of that all-encompassing freedom which will bless all [humanity] in all things.' We come, more and more, as Barth put it, under the command of one to whom we already belong, and who calls us to join him in his continuing ministry, actualizing the new life he continually gives...

The practice of spirituality is not merely reflecting on God, but an obedient living out in the world of a dynamic relationship with God. Spiritual formation is not just about 'how to seek God' but rather 'how not to resist God's gracious initiatives'. It is an inter-dependence of faith and works. Or, it is the interdependence of knowing, being and doing.

To sum up: Spiritual formation begins with receptive faith, is nurtured through reading and obeying the Scriptures, is renewed every week through the worship and fellowship of the church, and is given 'muscle' through commitment, discipline, and self-forgetful service.

Further reading:

Maxie Dunnam, The Workbook of Intercessory Prayer (1979), and The Workbook on Spiritual Disciplines (1984), The Upper Room. Don Postema, Space for God: The Study and Practice of Prayer and Spirituality, Bible Way, 1983. Tilden Edwards, Living Simply Through the Day: Spiritual Survival in a Complex Age, Paulist Press, 1977. (Four workbooks to help with prayer, meditation and other spiritual disciplines).

Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline: The path to spiritual growth, Hodder & Stoughton, 1980. (Still one of the best introductions to spiritual disciplines).

Mark Link, You: Prayer for Beginners and for Those Who Have Forgotten How (1976), and Breakaway: 28 Steps to a More Prayerful Life (1980), Allen, Argus Communications. (Written originally for high school students, they contain excellent ideas for contemplative prayer).

Maxie Dunnam, Alive in Christ: The Dynamic Process of Spiritual Formation, Abingdon, 1982. (A good introduction to the idea of Spiritual Formation being nothing more than 'Christ in you'...).

William A. Barry & William J. Connolly, The Practice of Spiritual Direction, Seabury Press, 1982. (Of the many books now available on the subject, this has the value of 'verbatims' describing what actually happens in spiritual direction).

Gordon Jeff, Spiritual Direction - for Every Christian, SPCK, 1987. (Suggests that in every congregation some possess a latent gift for spiritual direction).

Kenneth Leech, Spirituality and Pastoral Care, Sheldon Press, 1986. Nelson S. T. Thayer, Spirituality and Pastoral Care, Fortress Press, 1985.

John Carmody, Holistic Spirituality, Paulist, 1983. (Spirituality and everyday life).

James Whitehill, Enter the Quiet: Everyone's way to Meditation, Harper & Row, 1980. (Meditation and everyday life).

An Australian Prayer Book (1978) and A New Zealand Prayer Book (1989). (Try the Daily Devotions in the NZ book: beautiful!).