Spiritual Formation Discipleship - How It All Started for Us

Greetings from fridge Minnesota.  It is 17 degrees F or -8 degrees C when I started writing this post.  We have been having our first cold temperatures of the season.  I have no great desire to go outside, but that will pass, as we Minnesotans will soon adjust to the realities of winter. 

I am starting a series on discipleship -- specifically what I call "Spiritual Formation Discipleship," a discipleship model that has relational and transformational components.  This is something my friends Jim, Mary, and I worked to define in the 2004/2005 time-frame.  Sadly, it did not get adopted by the church.  Recently, I felt like I should "dust it off" and put it out here on the blog to give it some exposure.  Also, since there is a relational component, this might fit will into the discussions on rationality that some of my blogging friends and myself seem to be connecting with in the Spirit. In this post, I will tell the story of how we came to define "Spiritual Formation Discipleship."  I will provide a definition and elaborate in subsequent posts.
                                     _____________________________

It all started when a group of us started a spiritual retreat ministry at our church.  These were not the "conference" or "camp" events that often get called "retreats."  Instead, they were loosely structured one or two day events where we sought to create an environment for people to spend time with God, and they were done in the spirit of the contemplative tradition.  Some were group oriented, and others were individual silent retreats where the people would spend a couple days alone with God in a hermitage cabin in the woods. 

Each retreat had some theme that we followed, but the theme was not the point of the retreat.  The point was whatever God wanted it to be, which varied from individual to individual.  We had themes such as "Sabbath Rest" and "Abiding in God."  Our ministry had a mission and set of values that guided us, and the themes would relate to these. 

Our mission was:

"To assist believers in retreating from their busy lives for the purpose of encountering Jesus."

Our team values were "To assist people in..."

• Withdrawing from the world for spiritual reflection.
• Experiencing Sabbath-rest.
• Drawing near to Jesus.
• Practicing spiritual disciplines.
• Connecting with God's love.
• Being transformed into the likeness of Jesus Christ.
• Taking their experience of Jesus back into the world.

With this mission and these values in mind, our retreats were intended to create an environment where this could happen.  Again, what happened on the retreat was mostly up to God.  Sure, we chose retreat centers designed for contemplative retreats.  As a result, we avoided "camps."  Our two favorite local retreat centers were Villa Maria and Pacem in Terris.  The former was where we did our group retreats.  We liked it because of the many places people could get away to be alone, and the access to miles of walking trails.  Pacem in Terris is a hermitage retreat center which is ideal for individual retreats.  (There were many other reasons why we work with these to retreat centers, but that is not the point here.) 

Creating an environment for people to encounter God does not happen just by going to a nice place.  True, the prayer cover these retreat centers enjoy make a big difference!  Being close to God's creation is also helpful.  However, we also assisted by teaching some simple spiritual practices that promoted a quiet, attentive, attitude conducive to spending time with the Lord.  For our group retreats, on Friday night we might give some guidelines for journaling, and would do a short teaching focused on letting go of the things they brought in with them.  Often we had a nice fire to sit by in the evening.  Saturday morning we always did a group lectio divina, followed by a few hours of silent reflection.  This is often where people really started to connect with the Lord.  Saturday afternoon we would have a short teaching, and would allow another several hours of personal time.  Each of these times were punctuated with worship, and Saturday evening ending in worship and communion. 

We also did some of our teaching within a "small group" context, which allowed some relational time.  We allow time for prayer as a group and one on one, as needed.  We varied our activities to accommodate different learning styles -- visual, audio, and kinesthetic.  This provided a more holistic experience.  All events were optional, naps were encouraged, and in general people were free to use the time as they saw fit.  Some exercised, some spent times reading or exploring the library, and others walked the trails.  There were always some who sought fellowship with others, and some who wanted to be alone.  Most participated in the worship and short teaching times. 

Our desire was to assist people in practically applying spiritual disciplines that they could take back with them in their daily lives.  We had a lot of success.  God seemed to always show up.  People often pursued more study and practice.  Many started going on retreats of their own.  Many of the pastors and leaders that attended our retreats started sharing these things with their ministry teams.  Alas, we sort of worked ourselves out of a job.  As people started practicing these things on their own they often did not attend our retreats.  Also, "retreats" seem to become popular, and in the fall it seemed almost every ministry had a "retreat" though most were not of the contemplative style.  At some point we decided that it was time to re-evaluate our ministry and prayerfully seek what the Lord would have us do next. 

During this time of transition, Gale, our other team member -- she was the kinesthetic one -- started attending a different church, closer to her home.  This left Jim, Mary, and I to consider what we should do next, if anything.  Since the idea of spiritual formation in the likeness of Christ was behind our mission and values (as well as the Contemplative Tradition), we felt led to focus more directly on that aspect.  Our church lacked a good discipleship vision, and this certainly seemed to us to be a part of any discipleship vision they might define. (It is a long story why such a large church would lack an overall discipleship vision.  I think the excellent pulpit teaching and the many excellent ministries made up somewhat for the lack.)  So, after extensive times of prayer, we approached the executive pastoral team with the idea of refocusing our ministry on spiritual formation and discipleship and away from retreats.  They connected with the idea and gave us the blessing to pursue this.

The months to follow were challenging, yet productive.  The thing about the kind of discipleship we wanted to do is that one needs to practice it first.  We all had embraced the practicing of what we preached in the retreat ministry, though the three of us got there differently.  Jim and I approached it initially more academically and theologically.  I had first been exposed to spiritual formation and the contemplative tradition during the year I as studying at Bethel Seminary.  Jim, the pastor of the group,  was ahead of me in this, but still coupled study with practice like me.  Mary grew up in the Catholic Church, and had learned this from practice, as she was mentored by many devout followers of Jesus in the Catholic contemplative tradition.  Later she spent time with YWAM and as a missionary, which reinforced the many principles of a spiritual walk with Jesus that she learned earlier.  As Jim and I shared the theory of spiritual formation, she would often say, "So that's what you call it!"  Similarly, Jim and I benefited from her many years of deep spiritual walk with the Lord. 

In spite of the many years of experience and study that the three of us brought to the table, it was no easy task to define what discipleship is.  Much of what is called discipleship today is quite different than what the early church thought of as discipleship.  We tend to think academically today, and we look for discrete deliverables.  It is about what we know and what we do.  In the early church discipleship was more relational.  Yes we had to know and do things, but discipleship was viewed more as a life-long process than a series of discrete actions done during a twelve week bible study.  I will share more about some of the conclusions we came to later, but suffice to say that we had to work through some basic concepts.  To do this, we had to reflect on our own experience and understanding.  We sensed that our goal required a paradigm shift in thinking and approach. 

Eventually we got to the point where we had something we thought we could articulate and pass on.  Alas, by this time, the ministry team that had discipleship in our church was going through a pastoral change.  The executive team wanted us to wait for the new guy to come on board, and when he did, he was working through his own vision and did not connect with what we had done, so he disbanded our team.  Yes, it was disappointing, but he was entitled.  Often it is a manner of timing.  Perhaps later the door will open up.

Since then Jim has taken a job as interim senior pastor at another church.  Mary is continuing her work on the leadership team of a missions organization doing work in Asia, and I am writing this blog and planning a short-term mission trip to Mexico in January.  (Prayer is very much needed for that activity.)

This brings me to the present and sets the context for how we defined Spiritual Formation Discipleship, a relational discipleship model.  In Part 2 I will share our primary definition of Spiritual Formation Discipleship.   

Postscript:  It is December 17, 2010, and I am rereading this.  The thing that prompted me to do so was that our church is (finally) shaping their discipleship vision, which includes many of the concepts Jim, Mary, and I worked on.  I also reviewed our principles and practices of discipleship and they still seem worthy of sharing.  As a result, I am going to finish what I started by posting the core principles and practice of Spiritual Formation Discipleship. 

Comments

[M D Warren]

Very interesting stuff. I've just happened on your blog and the timing is, of course, interesting.

Marcell Warren