Spiritual Formation

 

 

The second half of the Great Commission calls us to make disciples by enabling people to bring their life into full obedience to “everything Christ commanded us.”   That is a big job.  It involves more than listening to interesting sermons and singing cute songs.  It involves Scripture, relationships, learning and transformation.  Down through the years various labels have been used to describe this process.  The newest one is “Spiritual Formation.”  But, before we talk about this new term, how about a short history of recent terms for this process of disciple-making?

 

Sunday School

Sunday School was the hot term in my denomination in the 1950’s and 1960’s.  It was the “right arm” of the church (morning worship being the left arm, Sunday evening service and prayer meeting being the legs and the whole body was dressed with two revival meetings and one camp meeting a year.  That pretty much summarized the “purpose-driven church” of my denomination of the 1950’s (and even 1960’s).  Sunday school was th