| Spiritual formation or growth is not clearly understood or taught in most of our evangelical churches. Leaders and parishioners are left without clear reference points for assessing spiritual maturity or processes by which progress is made in one's spiritual journey. This absence seriously inhibits the spiritual growth of believers and the effectiveness of the church. My claim is that it is possible, through biblical, historical, and theological reflection to develop a Spiritual Formation Paradigm and Map for discerning a Christian's place in the spiritual journey so that one can better cooperate with God as He leads one forward in Christian maturity.; Chapter 1: Introduction. In this chapter, I look at an illustrative story that exemplifies the hunger for spiritual formation and direction by the leaders of Christian churches. The rest of the chapter establishes the parameters for an evangelical spiritual formation paradigm and outlines the research methods of the chapters below.; Chapter 2: The biblical and theological bases for spiritual formation . In this chapter, I show, through an analysis of four historical and biblical goals for spiritual formation, that there is a common foundational goal of “relationship with God in Christ”. I also show, through an overview of Trinitarian Theology, that the revealed nature of God informs a relational goal of spiritual formation.; Chapter 3: The Teresian Mansions—a paradigm that works. In this chapter, I show that Teresa's Seven Mansions form a useful example of the needed spiritual formation paradigm.; Chapter 4: Spiritual formation and the Christian community. In this chapter, I show that spiritual formation is largely done in the context of the church, which must revise programming to teach a full spiritual formation paradigm, and provide mentoring to help people at all stages to grow further. I also demonstrate how a clear spiritual formation paradigm is needed for effective use of the spiritual disciplines and develop a map to locate oneself in the paradigm.; Chapter 5: Conclusion. This chapter summarizes the claims, warrants, and evidence in the preceding chapters and encourages readers to be good stewards of their relationship with God to build the church and its leadership through intentional spiritual formation. |
