Form: Shaping Spirituality - In-form

Spiritual formation is something that seems to be something that comes up in conversation in popular Christianity each lent. For the next several posts, I wanted to share a study that I am doing here at the church called "Form: Shaping Spirituality". 


Each week the discussion takes on a different incarnation of the word "form". Since there are five weeks in the study, there are five "form" words - In-form, Pre-form, Con-form, Re-form, and Trans-form.


These are not random words but rather a set of words that describe a way of understanding spiritual formation that I have been pondering for a bit of time. 


Just like when we are born, when we start spiritual formation, we seek out a lot of information. This is a great thing as this is how we learn and build a understanding. The problem is that for many of us, this stage is seen not as the starting point but as the point of spiritual formation. It is as though we think spiritual formation is just a matter of gathering enough (or the right) information. And when we get enough information, then we are spiritual formed. 


This is almost like thinking that memorizing the instruction manual to the stove will make you a chef. Yes, we need to know how to use a stove to cook, but that is just the start. 

Clay Johnson’s book (which I am currently reading) is called the Information Diet (a promo video is here). The parallel he makes is that just as we have made food into something that is cheap and easy to consume, so too have we made information cheap and easy to consume. So when we eat junk food, we feel like we have eaten but really what we have eaten is not sustainable for the body.

As we unpack this metaphor a bit more, we can consume a lot of information about things spiritual and feel like we are getting deeper in our spirituality. So we engage in Bible studies and take sermon notes and listen to different teachers on all things Christian. We gain a lot of information but not all this information is sustainable to spiritual formation. 

Once we begin to identify and discover that information collection is only a starting point in spiritual formation, then we begin to move into "pre-form".

Peaches as a way forward

Last year I was told the peach season in Texas was deeply impacted by the drought. This meant that the peach crop in Texas was going to be small. But what I also learned that when the fruit trees are affected by drought, they will not only produce less fruit but the fruit that is produced is highly flavorful.

Drought for peaches means that a plethora gives way to potent.

The Church talks about being in a bit of a drought. The rise of the "nones" (as nicely articulated in the recent Time magazine) highlights that the Church is not going to get a plethora of members anytime soon.

What would it look like if the Church mimicked the peach trees? What if we gave up on getting a plethora of members and focused on creating potent disciples?

To be honest, the crop may have been small but last years peaches were the best I have had in years.

Worship is like meatloaf?

Have you ever heard, or perhaps you might have said, something about worship on Sunday morning that could be mistaken for a critique of a restaurant?

"Well, that was good."

"I really liked it today."

"I will be back next week."

All of these comments, and others like them, are built upon the idea that Sunday worship is very much like a dish that is served up for our consumption. And just like after a meal at a restaurant, we have a number of comments that "evaluate" what we just experienced.

"The service was slow." 

"After that, I feel full."

"I am not sure I would go back."

"I could not read the menu."

Worship "evaluation" is built on the idea that it is just another thing we consume. If we do not like the "head chef" then we will not go back to that restaurant. If we had a good experience we might attend again, but we really would tell someone about our dislike of the music (selection or volume). 

When we are hungry we have any number of food options at our disposal and it really does not matter which restaurant we go to because they all ultimately serve the same thing - calories - just in different styles. 

Worship is consumed like meatloaf.

Worship is not something to consume. We do not attend worship in order to, like a meal, "get something out of it". We are not looking for a "nugget" that we can "chew on" for later this week. We are not attempting to "fill ourselves up" with an experience with the Holy or Mystery. 

Worship is not something we just consume, but something we participate in.

It is the difference in going to a restaurant and ordering the meatloaf so that someone else makes it and serves it to you or going to a kitchen and learning to prepare meatloaf in a class.