Today Georges Boujakly completes his series on “keys” to spiritual transformation. Earlier posts in the series can be found here: key #1a, key #1b, key #1c, key #2, key #3, key #4, key #5, key #6, key #7. 

Spiritual formation is plural.

The Bible is plural. It was born among a people, a community. Its truths and message were hammered out on the anvil of faithful community living. It is addressed to a people not to individuals. When it is addressed to individuals, (say Philemon, Timothy, or Titus) it is still for the spiritual formation of the community.

It is not often that Jesus is found one on one in the gospels. Even when he is, the community is close by and the work he does is in the context of community.

In his most recent work A Community Called Atonement Scot McKnight states:

Once again, we return to Mary, to Zechariah, to the inaugural sermon, and to the Beatitudes: Jesus’ mission, his vision of the kingdom, is about restoring the blind, giving limber legs to the lame, wiping the skin of the lepers clean, filling the ears of the deaf with music, and sounds, bringing back dead people from the grave, and making sure the poor are taken care of by restoring them to their proper social location.

The mission of Jesus is healing justice, the ending of disease, dislocation, and oppression. Beyond those conditions, Jesus announces the creation a covenanted community where the covenant, God’s will, is lived out for each and every person.

We cannot back down on this: if this is Jesus’ vision, and atonement is one way of speaking of what God’s redemptive work in this world is designed to accomplish, then the creation of a community where God’s will is done is inherent to the meaning of atonement.

The Gospel is inherently communal. Spiritual formation in the kingdom of God is inherently communal. It is necessarily individual but only in the sense of beginning there but never ending there. Everything about Christianity is communal in nature: The Trinity, the Gospel, Salvation, Sanctification, the Eschaton.

We go to great length in hiring the best preachers money can afford, develop the most fun programs we can muster, have the greatest music in the cosmos, house them in the best facilities money can buy, and not much of it has had a successful record in changing the character of the church or of society! While sitting in the chair next to us, in front and behind, is a community waiting to flourish and lead us to be conformed to the image of Christ.

How is plural spiritual formation happening in your community?

Where would you start in making spiritual formation a communal endeavor if this becomes a passion for your and your church?