What comes to mind when you hear the word “spirituality”? Maybe isolated prayer or meditation, gemstones and other relics intended to connect you to “the Divine.” Perhaps, it's these conjured images that make some people uncomfortable with the term “spiritual formation.” 

Spirituality, Spiritual Formation, and Discipleship

But spiritual formation, what I would define as intentionally practicing spiritual disciplines to be formed into Christ-likeness, is not a way of privatizing and isolating our pursuit of God. The emphasis on and rise of that type of mystical spirituality is not the same thing as Christians pursuing deeper spiritual formation in their lives. Rather, as Eugene Peterson helpfully puts it, “the groundswell of interest in spirituality …does not seem to be producing any discernible outpouring of energetic justice and faithful love, two of the more obvious accompaniments of a healthy and holy Christian life” (Eat this Book, p. 16). Notice these two “obvious” aspects of a life formed in the image of Christ are both inherently relational. 

Spiritual formation is about walking with Jesus to become more like Him in thought, word, and deed. That requires internal formation (character) and external action (living in right relationships), both of which are only accomplished when the impetus is intimacy with our inherently relational triune God. 

Put another way, spiritual formation could conceivably just be called discipleship because it is the process of being a learning follower of Jesus: through intimate relationship with God, we are internally formed to produce the fruit of the Spirit and exhibit them through interactions with all people. 

The Self-Help Gospel

So why does it seem like some people’s version of spiritual formation is just “Christianized” self-help? 

Frankly, I think part of it is a result of bad contextualization in evangelism. Now, hear me when I say: I believe in contextualizing the gospel. Understanding our audience allows us to show them how God is what they’ve been seeking all along. There’s a great, short book on this called The 3D Gospel that breaks down three different types of societal values (guilt/innocence, fear/power, and shame/honor) and how to contextualize the gospel using what is already present and true in Scripture. But there are also generational values. And while for a long time, the western world has accurately been described in a guilt/innocence framework, there is legitimate analysis of younger generations falling more into the fear/power framework. They are not tripped up by material versus spiritual realities. With therapeutic language and mystic spirituality as increasing norms in Gen Z and Gen Alpha, the gospel presentation of “you’re guilty and in need of an innocent Savior to take your place” is not resonating. But people experiencing God’s tangible presence, power, and love? Now that’s compelling. 

The good news-- as found all throughout the book of Ephesians-- can proclaim hope to those in the fear/power framework because you can be freed from the bondage of the dark powers and twisted lies of this world that you gave yourself over to as you pursued your desires and cravings. Not just in surrendering to death, but in conquering death through His resurrection, Jesus displayed His power over all other spiritual powers. And He shows it through all of His miracle work that He passes onto His dozens of disciples. 

The problem then, in bad contextualization, is how the gospel's purpose is defined. In an attempt to make it more palatable and “desirable,” we try to make relationship with God the secondary or tertiary reason to repent and believe. Primarily, we say, you can finally have peace! Joy! Freedom from anxiety! 
"Meditate on this inspirational Bible verse to remember everything happens for a reason." 
"Memorize these promises of God for when you're feeling insecure."
"Practice Sabbath without technology so you're not so stressed."

In essence, we explain that you can use God to get what you really need and want. And so “spiritual formation” is warped into practicing contemplative disciplines in order to feel more zen. This is not Christian spiritual formation. Just like it’s not Christian discipleship. But it is therapeutic discipleship and formation. And you will experience some significant (though temporary) benefits from it.

The problem is that it’s not the actual Gospel. While you might learn how to calm your mind and be more present to your loved ones, you will not have a real relationship with God that way. You will still be estranged from your life source. Thus, you will still be slowly dying and wondering why. The worst part is, you’ll think you’ve tried the Christian thing! So when it doesn’t seem to ultimately work, you’ll go another way. And continue to find dead ends. 

Spiritual Formation for the Sake of Others

One popular spiritual formation organization is Practicing the Way. After studying the life of Jesus, they boiled His disciplines down to 9 practices– though they’re the first to agree, you can break them down in lots of different ways, leading to different numbers of practices. Regardless, I think these nine are a good depiction of the internal/external nature of true Christian spiritual formation:

• Sabbath
• Service
• Scripture
• Witness
• Solitude
• Community
• Prayer
• Generosity
• Fasting

One of the primary foundations to the way the good folks at Practicing the Way talk about their nine practices is that all nine of them are designed to form us into people of love (notice, an inherently relational word). The goal of this is that by being with Jesus, we become like Him and do what He did. By praying in solitude for a time, Jesus made Himself a better conduit of the Father’s love. (Because as a full human who was tempted in all the ways we are, you better believe that Jesus had to battle the flesh when He was exhausted and tempted to speak grumpily to His disciples!) Prayerful alone time is good. But whether these are disciplines primarily working on the internal formation or actively being the hands, feet, and mouthpiece of Jesus to a broken world, all spiritual formation (in the Christian sense) is about loving God and others better– not focusing on ourselves all the time and then wondering why we’re insecure, lonely, and miserable.

So What Is Spiritual Formation?

Is spiritual formation just code for Christianized self-help? No. Like everything, it can be watered down and misused. But spiritual formation is a Christian’s way of actively and practically pursuing formation instead of letting the world passively form us. It’s a way of getting our hands on who we are becoming, as Justin Whitmel Earley says. It’s intentionally pursuing spiritual disciplines so that we can know God as we are known by God, and love Him and our neighbor more sincerely and effectively. Spiritual formation is the process of learning how to surrender our internal and external lives to the purposes of God’s Kingdom, becoming people of love for the sake of others.