What is Spiritual Formation?

The term “spiritual formation” might be unfamiliar to many—especially those coming from different faith traditions. On the surface, “spiritual formation” refers to the various weekday and Sunday classes available for children, youth and adults. However, formation is so much more than that! In the letter below, Father Tyler explains what spiritual formation is and how it differs from the more traditional approach to “sunday school” and other religious instruction.

The purpose of the Christian life is nothing short of “putting on the Lord Jesus Christ,” as Paul says in his Letter to the Romans (13:14). As we learn to live more deeply from the love of God that has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, we know ourselves to be loved unconditionally and learn to be that love in the world. We are loved into loving and live this love out as a sent people who go toward the last, the least, the lost, and the left behind as water to wash, oil to heal, and bread to feed.

Spiritual Formation is different from simply accumulating information about God. The Christian journey is more than simply an exercise in fact-gathering and intellectual assent to propositional truths. Rather, formation is the process by which, consenting and surrendering to God’s loving presence and action in our lives, we gradually learn to become more and more like God, and more attuned to God’s will in the midst of our daily lives. We learn to say yes to God’s invocation, that it might flower in a unique vocation—God living God’s life in and through us. The goal of the spiritual formation offerings at the Cathedral Church of St. Mark is to facilitate our movement into Christ, so that we might become “partakers of divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4). Spiritual formation encompasses the whole of our lived experience—24 hours and day and 7 days a week—that we might learn to walk humbly with our Lord and taste of His infinite sweetness, love, and mercy. Whoever you are, wherever you come from, and wherever you are on your spiritual journey, St. Mark’s wants to help you discover the freedom that God gave to us in the gift of his only-begotten Son. Please join us for the journey—it is Christ himself who is calling, and Christ who meets you there.

Yours faithfully in Christ,

Tyler+