Digital Logos Edition
This textbook for introductory spiritual formation courses presents the fundamentals and practices of the discipline. This collection includes presentations by several well-known evangelical scholars including Gordon Johnston, Darrell Bock, Richard Averbeck, Klaus Issler, and others.
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“Spiritual formation is divinely enabled by God through three essential resources: God’s Word, God’s Spirit, and God’s people (the church).” (Page 45)
“God does not form us to turn us into being inwardly focused people. He forms us for fellowship and mission.” (Page 104)
“Music and singing are certainly important in the practice of worship, but they are not the essence of worship. At its base, worship is about the presence of God and our engaging with that presence. Spiritual formation, in turn, is about how to actually go about engaging with the presence of God, walking with him day by day, moment by moment, in worship, prayer, obedience, witness, spiritual disciplines, or whatever.” (Pages 63–64)
“Our human spirit is now dominated by these dynamics of corruption. A big part of spiritual formation is about transforming our human spirit from corruption to godliness—back to the image of God, having ‘put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator’ (Col. 3:10).” (Page 56)
“Thus, spiritual formation is what God does to and for us, along with all he makes available to make this transformation possible, a process that never ends until he brings us to himself.” (Page 105)