Sentences with phrase «spiritual formation»
Spiritual formation refers to the process of developing and nurturing our inner spirituality. It involves activities and practices that help us grow spiritually, deepen our connection with higher powers or our own beliefs, and become more like the person we aspire to be. It often involves practices like prayer, meditation, self-reflection, and learning from spiritual teachings and experiences. Full definition
They are searching for spiritual formation and communal belonging and finding them in places that church folks might consider unlikely.
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He spoke about spiritual formation, and specifically, how to overcome sin in our lives.
Neither can offer spiritual formation in this area unless they are aware of the way new sexual self - consciousness affects the lives of teens.
It does require an evaluation of the extent to which present activities contribute to positive spiritual formation for all age groups in the church.
Family - related growth groups engage adults in life - changing spiritual formation because this experience can change attitudes about family life.
A lot of what is today called spiritual formation happened there, though we didn't call it that.
This choice is not the result of intentional spiritual formation, but the effect is similar.
When all these demographics form a vital part of our worship community and leadership, spiritual formation takes on a richer texture.
Yet, maintaining some level of financial viability does get priority over spiritual formation when membership is declining.
The sexuality of pastors and people is not usually a consideration in Protestant spiritual formation.
They experience spiritual formation through regular participation in the life of a congregation over an extended period of time.
Christian women increasingly look to nationally known figures for spiritual formation and inspiration — especially when they don't see leaders who look like them stepping up in their own churches.
The way a congregation is organized can work against positive spiritual formation.
He will be concerned with these questions because he knows that spiritual formation happens each day.
But the very nature of the division of spiritual formation of Christians between lay leaders in the Sunday School and pastoral leaders in the church leaves people with the idea that Christian faith can be learned by attending classes.
The essential ingredients of Christian spiritual formation never change: They are the prayerful study of Scripture and learning to live the life of faith through the influence of other Christians.
Willard is well known to many Christians from his books on spiritual formation, including The Divine Conspiracy (which Christianity Today selected as Book of the Year in 1998), The Spirit of the Disciplines, Hearing God, and Renovation of the Heart.
In the past decade or so the ecumenical climate — especially the close contacts between Protestant and Catholic seminarians — has awakened and heightened concern for spiritual formation at Southern.
Florida About Blog Women of Grace ® seeks to transform the world one woman at a time by affirming women in their dignity and vocation as daughters of God and in their gift of authentic femininity ™ through ongoing spiritual formation.
On the other hand, if we just focus on doing good works without attending to our own spiritual formation, we'll burn out or turn into empty - headed liberals.
Others see it strictly as spiritual formation and discipleship, from which love, intimacy, and harmony in marriage flow.
Both Johnson and McKnight will be featured presenters at the upcoming Spiritual Formation Forum in June.
The Gospel can not be rightly understood when we begin our theological / spiritual formation with Original Sin rather than with the biblical narrative of Original Blessing, our being created in the Image of God with the potential to acquire godlikeness.
His family is dedicating a year to explore the role of food in Christian spiritual formation by eating their way through different food traditions, one month at a time.
That word reality peppers Willard's popular work, too, including the posthumously published The Divine Conspiracy Continued, which moves his focus from personal spiritual formation to what one might call «the real world» of work.
The purpose of traditional spiritual formation — the language used to describe faith formation before the time of Christian education — is to deepen awareness of what it means to claim and live through faith that is «the gift of God.»
Gabriel Salguero, senior pastor of the multicultural Lamb's Church in New York City, shared on how diversity informs spiritual formation.
The issue is how a congregation can provide significant spiritual formation over an extended period of time that will prepare young women and men to decide whether they are ready to make the commitment of a lifetime.
Ben: Right, but it's that unique blend of mixing charity into cultural understanding, community spiritual formation, attention to local geography and history, and transmission of our faith to others that makes the Benedict Option so important.
Growth groups to support parents in servant ministry at home might be considered essential spiritual formation for adults.
Written by Sharon Garlough Brown, the series tells the story of four women who attend the same spiritual formation group at a retreat centre.
Survey: African Americans value spiritual formation in community, while whites prefer the opposite.
For many priests and ordinary people, contact with deep spiritual formation and with the spiritual writings of the saints had been lost well before the Council.
Nouwen's profound and enduring perception of spiritual formation moves from loneliness to solitude, from hostility to hospitality and from illusion to prayer.
Optimal spiritual formation for the children of the church requires consistency in the attitudes and values communicated at church and at home.
Christian spiritual formation optimally involves lifelong participation in a Christian fellowship where members can learn and practice faithful response to God.
A couple years ago I wrote about my visit to Augustine College, a nano - institution with paltry resources that offers a one - year program of Christian liberal arts for kids who want serious intellectual and spiritual formation before entering college.
Renovation of the Heart by Dallas Willard [publisher: Navpress; non-fiction, spiritual formation] «When we open ourselves to the writings of the New Testament, when we absorb our minds and hearts...
Spiritual formation requires that the church reflect Christ not in my image, but Christ as he is in the world.
If a college or university can't coherently articulate the integrated nature of its core curriculum — if it can't explain how all the disciplines relate to one another, or what role is played by moral and spiritual formation alongside the free enterprise of inquiry — then we should think twice about working for, attending, or sending students there.
If intentional spiritual formation precedes commitment, it is only the ritual and not the nature of participation in the congregation that would change.
Protestants have practiced corporate spiritual formation, but there is no corporate equivalent to the attention given to sexuality as a part of Catholic spiritual direction.
So stepping into a major - required Evangelism and Spiritual Formation class was not at all what I wanted to do.
(3) The Baptist heritage, as well as size, will likely not allow Southern Seminary to structure spiritual formation or the integration of piety with learning, and pastoral care with theology, to a great extent.
If an anecdotal analysis of our social consciousness and spiritual formation leaves us with the realization that, as Brown says, «there are some selective lenses by means of which we read Scripture, and... those lenses need to be torn from our eyes,» (15) then how do we tear them away?
Christian thinker and philosopher Dallas Willard emphasized spiritual formation and discipleship in his books including The Spirit of the Discipline and The Divine Conspiracy, calling readers to grow more like Christ.
Discipleship is not so much about radical commitment as it is about radical love, and the disciplines are not so much about spiritual formation as about love formation.
At minimum, it points back toward the importance of the ancient and medieval emphases on spiritual formation, which is where evangelical scholarship about education has been pointing.