Elements of our Spiritual Formation

Center of our Spiritual Formation

B. Fisher

Aug 14

We are working our way through the Five Elements of Spiritual Formation: time, habits, community, intimacy, and instruction. We find these in any ecosystem designed to help one person become more like another, except modern Christianity, which is often disproportionately focused on instruction. We tend to value biblical teaching far more than biblical relationship and character.

One of the reasons The Great Omission exists is due to incorrect or incomplete definitions of a disciple. Most of Western Christianity functions from the assumption that a disciple is an educated convert. We find evidence of this idea baked into our church services, music, programs, studies, and worldviews. It seems far more essential to be right than to be in right relationship. They aren't mutually exclusive, to be sure, but we surely prioritize the former over the latter.

However, an educated convert and a disciple are two different people.

Another idea that contributes to a lack of genuine discipleship is the powerful assumption that the forgiveness of sins constitutes the entirety of the Christian experience. A few hundred years of American revivalism and reductionist evangelism have all but removed the Kingdom from our view, which has created (among other things) the conclusion that the Earth, body, and this age are inherently "bad, " and so we need to get as many people saved as possible, try to live a good life, and wait around until death or some other cataclysmic event.

As Willard noted:

"We have not only been saved by grace, we have been paralyzed by it. The view of salvation in the modern church has come to mean little more than the forgiveness of sins. It has no connection with transformation of character and little connection with our daily life. And that is why so many who profess Christ are not His disciples."

Here at Soil & Roots, we have adopted the definition of a disciple as "an apprentice of Jesus who is intentionally being formed more like Him from the inside out."

We have discovered that this process of "spiritual formation" is more wonderful, complex, relational, experiential, and inward than we might have imagined. The method of embracing and embodying more of Jesus' traits involves far more than worship services, Bible study, service, and rituals. And it doesn't start with doing and going, but with resting and receiving.*

*source: Brian Fisher Soil & Roots, Aug 2025