Have you ever wondered why your church does this or that? Can they link it to scripture, or is it done because that is how it has always been done? If sola scriptura is the final authority, should not all church-based things be linked to that?[1] Herein lies the challenge that scripture does not elaborate on how a Sunday morning service should operate beyond a few verses. Acts 2:42 mentions gathering to break bread and pray together (Acts 2:42), and Colossians 3:16 mentions teaching and admonishing each other with songs, where much of the structure is developed for a service. So, if singing, teaching, breaking bread, and prayer are all instructed by God, how does spiritual formation fit into this? This is where Paul highlights the calling that some have to be apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers in Ephesians 4:11-13. These people that God raises are gifts to the church to equip others for the work of the ministry. They are often called the equipping gifts, but it is not the actions that are the gifts, but the people themselves that God has provided.[2] The working of the equippers (those listed above) is a significant part of structuring a church for spiritual formation. It is a training ground for believers to gather and be equipped.
Worship and Spiritual Formation
We must remind ourselves that the objective of spiritual formation is to abide in Christ, which brings forth formation through the spirit. There is no more excellent defining verse than John 4:23–24 when understanding worship and spiritual formation. John wrote, “Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” Richard Averbeck noted the significant need for the Holy Spirit for worship through developing an understanding of the wickedness of mankind without the Spirit.[3] The beautiful thing is that today, the Holy Spirit can always be with us and empower us to worship in spirit and truth. He brings forth transformation through worship, which is spiritual formation.[4] The church must set aside time for worship, not because it is just a good idea or because Christ commands it, but because it indicates a true believer, as John 4 demonstrated. Worship is a byproduct of life transformation.
Teaching and Spiritual Formation
Teaching an all-encompassing curriculum on a Sunday morning might be impossible. Having the time to teach exegetical sermons, practical applications, and the disciplines of spiritual formation might be beyond a Sunday morning’s scope. While researching this matter, I interviewed a series of successful ministry leaders to learn how their churches structured spiritual formation to see if any thought it might be possible. It was no surprise that not one interviewee thought so. Each ministry had its mechanism for equipping the saints. Whether in small groups, Sunday school, weeknight teachings, or other means, the successful leaders that were interviewed all understood that something as important as spiritual formation needed further means (sometimes multiple) to equip their congregation correctly.
Outside of how to enact spiritual formation in the church, the better question is how to develop a successful plan to teach spiritual formation without compromising something else. Herein lies the beautiful part of creating a structure. Everything can be thought out and planned before any introduction to the church. Take small groups as an example because they provide the variability that a weeknight collection or Sunday school does not allow. We know that spiritual formation can be broken up into two categories: core practices and development practices, which total 14 practices. Prayer and scripture are the core practices, and journaling, learning, forgiveness, community, service, obedience, solitude, generosity, evangelism, sabbath, fasting, and sanctification are the development practices. An easy and practical approach to creating a structure of spiritual formation in your church is forming small groups to teach each practice. Before that, though, there must be a new believer/members class that can function as a spiritual formation overview. This class would teach the basics of the faith and then give an overview of spiritual formation practices, why they are essential, and how to continue one’s formation through groups at the church.
In conclusion, there need to be six steps to setting up a church structure for teaching spiritual formation: salvation, baptism, new believers’ class, core practices, development practices, and evaluation assessments. Create small groups for the new believers’ class, core practices, and development practices, ensuring that there are evaluation assessments at the end of each group. Check out the flowchart on the structure of spiritual formation on the page for more references to structure, the steps for each practice, and how to do independent evaluations of spiritual formation.
[1] Ben Witherington, III. Sola Scriptura: Scripture’s Final Authority in the Modern World (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2023), 144.
[2] Thomas Yoder Neufeld, Ephesians: Believers Church Bible Commentary, (Waterloo, Ont: Herald Press, 2002), 179.
[3] Richard Averbeck, “Worship and Spiritual Formation,” in Foundations of Spiritual Formation, ed. Paul Pettit (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2008), 52.
[4] Averbeck, “Worship and Spiritual Formation,” 62.