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I accepted Christ as my Savior. I go to church and read my Bible. Isn't that enough?

Your approach to spiritual formation seems self-centered. Shouldn't Christians be more focused on knowing God and serving Him?

What is the relationship between spiritual formation and discipleship?

Does our spiritual growth involve God or the Holy Spirit prompting or leading us? How do you discern if a prompting has come from the Holy Spirit?

What is the role of the spiritual disciplines in spiritual formation?

What is Spiritual Direction?


I accepted Christ as my Savior. I go to church and read my Bible. Isn't that enough?

We believe that this is an excellent question for you to ask yourself. At ECSW we are not interested in judging where a person is in their walk with Jesus but rather in journeying with those who are sensing a desire for something deeper in their relationship with God. Many of us have struggled with honestly answering some hard questions in our own souls.

Questions like:

• Am I satisfied right now with my life in Christ?


• Am I experiencing the "rivers of living water" that Christ said would flow out of my heart (John 7:38)?


• Am I comprehending the breadth and length and height and depth, and knowing the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that I may be filled with the fullness of God (Ephesians 3:14-21)?


• Am I progressively growing into Christlikeness, showing forth the fruit of the Spirit, not only in my actions, but in the motivations of my heart (Galatians 5:22)?


• Am I experiencing a deepening love for God and others?


• Am I resting under the easy yoke of Christ's humble leadership (Matthew 11:29-30)?

If you desire something more in any of these areas, perhaps the principles of ECSW's relational theology are worth a closer look.

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Your approach to spiritual formation seems self-centered. Shouldn't Christians be more focused on knowing God and serving Him?

The goal of spiritual growth is the opposite of self-centeredness. God's goal for us as Christians is to fulfill the two greatest commandments as stated by Jesus: to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. His aim for us is a life of love - the kind of life that Jesus lived, focused on God and following His leading in loving obedience, joy and freedom.

It may seem counterintuitive, but the path to becoming truly self-sacrificing often involves self-awareness. Some of the greatest obstacles to our growth in Christlikeness lie within ourselves, but often are hidden to us. Self-knowledge is an essential aspect of one's growth in Christ. In the Psalms, David invited the God Who knew every aspect of his being to search his heart and try his thoughts to see if there is anything grievous within him, in order for God to lead him in the righteous way (Psalm 139:23-24). Scripture itself speaks of the power of the Word of God to pierce the soul and reveal one's deeper thoughts and intentions (Hebrews 4:12). Many of the greatest names in the Christian faith – Augustine, Luther, Calvin, among others – have written how healthy self-discovery is necessary for one's continuing spiritual growth. When we initially receive Christ as Lord, it is often through an awareness of our need for His grace and mercy; we grow spiritually in the same fashion.

Some of the greatest and most difficult gifts of relationship – whether with God or others – are the opportunities relationship provides for self-discovery. Relating to another not only reveals to you who the other is, but often who you are as well. All of us have blinds spots – aspects of our characters that we cannot see or prefer to choose not to (Matthew 7:1-5, 1 John 1:5-10). Every relationship we are in provides a kind of mirror to reveal to us these "hidden" aspects of ourselves. If this is true amongst human relationships, how much more so does one's relationship with the God of the Universe mirror the truth of oneself? He knows us completely (John 2:24-25, Hebrews 4:13), and He invites us to discover both the good and the bad of who we truly are, within our relationship with Him (Hebrews 4:15-16). It is through an honest relationship with Him that God forgives our sins and we are healed (1 John 1:9).

Conversely, when we learn more about ourselves in relationship, we also learn more about the
"other." Again, this is true whether the relationship is with people or with God. Running headlong into our own limitations, vices and sins, and bringing them to God in relationship only highlights the vast differences between us and our God. He is so many things that we are not. How can this not lead us to worship Him?

Perhaps what is hindering our churches from becoming the fullness of the Body of Christ is not merely the external pressures of the world, nor the schemes of Satan, but also our own inability to see how our sin and our being sinned against affects our lives. What would it change in our lives personally and in the Church if we were more honest with God and each other about who we find ourselves truly to be?


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What is the relationship between spiritual formation and discipleship?

Both discipleship and spiritual formation are terms that relate to a Christian's growth into Christlikeness. The term discipleship comes from the language of the Gospels texts and the book of Acts. It is derived from the term disciple (talmid in Hebrew, mathetes in Greek) meaning one who follows and desires to become like one's teacher. Christians may often think of particular church programs when they consider the word "discipleship;" such programs often help Christians learn the basic activities of their faith, such as, reading one's Bible, Scripture memorization, witnessing, serving and the like. But the fuller biblical concept of discipleship entails the full reality of what it means for a believer to follow Jesus and desire to become like Him.

The language of spiritual formation is derived from the Pauline Epistles and emphasizes the role of the Holy Spirit in our formation into Christlikeness (e.g. Romans 8, 2 Corinthians 3:18, Galatians 3:3 and 4:19). Scripture tells us much about what the Spirit is actively doing on our behalf and how we can participate in His work. He is the one actually producing the change in our hearts and lives.

Discipleship, in its fuller understanding, and spiritual formation, therefore, speak of the same process – our progressively becoming like Christ – but with differing emphases and from distinct perspectives.

At ECSW, we focus on how we discern the Holy Spirit's specific work toward our growth and how we can cooperate with Him. We do this by attending primarily to the reality of our relationships with God, others and ourselves.

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Does our spiritual growth involve God or the Holy Spirit prompting or leading us? How do you discern if a prompting has come from the Holy Spirit?

Scripture points to various arenas where the Holy Spirit is active for our spiritual growth: through the Word of God itself (Hebrews 4:12), life circumstances (Romans 8:28-29), trials and difficulties (2 Corinthians 12:7-10) and relationships with fellow believers (Ephesians 4:15). It is helpful to one's growth to intentionally look at these aspects of our lives and consider what the Holy Spirit's activity may be trying to accomplish, according to God's character and His desire for us.

Likewise, believers are indwelt with the Holy Spirit (John 14:17) and are in an active relationship with Him. Just as God uses many things to accomplish His work, He also communicates to us in many different ways: through His Word, through the counsel of others, through our circumstances, and through the direction of our hearts and minds (1 Corinthians 2:12-15).

A challenge can come in discerning where God is actually leading us from what we hope He is prompting or wanting Him to communicate! Learning to discern the Holy Spirit's "voice" from one's own desires is a process of learning to recognize God's voice (John 10:27) through familiarity with His Word, His people and through prayer. The need for discernment is consistent with what we need when we seek to understand what God is communicating to us through His Word.

Discernment involves learning to recognize the texture and quality of God's heart versus the other "voices" one can hear: the world, our own flesh, misguided friends and family members (remember Job's friends?), and the devil. The centrality of Scripture is key to this process, for the Bible is God's clear revelation to us of His character, His intentions and His Word. Additionally, discernment is always a process to be done communally within the Body of Christ (e.g. Acts 1:12-26).

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What is the role of the spiritual disciplines in spiritual formation?

Spiritual disciplines, such as prayer, fasting, solitude, silence, etc., in and of themselves do not create spiritual growth in a person. Only the work of the Holy Spirit can transform a person so wholly and radically to become like Christ, internally and externally. One who depends solely on spiritual activities to generate one's spiritual growth is in danger of becoming like the Pharisees – "clean" on the outside in terms of behavior, but dead, dirty and twisted on the inside in terms of truth in motive (Matthew 23). External actions alone – "works" – are completely insufficient to merit one's salvation. Likewise, they are insufficient to generate one's spiritual growth.

However, if spiritual disciplines are executed in a posture of honesty and openness before the Lord God in relationship, they can be wonderful opportunities to expose sinful incongruities of the heart, thereby creating a present recognition of one's need for deeper dependence on God and greater understanding of self in humility.

By exposing the truth of oneself, spiritual disciplines create an opportunity for a believer to "put off the old self" (Ephesians 4:22, Colossians 3:9). Simultaneously, if exercised in this same openness and humility with perseverance, spiritual disciplines can help create and strengthen holy external habits (such as Bible study, worship, service, etc.), through which the Holy Spirit can create new dispositions of the heart. In this way, spiritual disciplines do help one to "put on the new self" in Christ (Ephesians 4:23-24, Colossians 3:10).

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What is Spiritual Direction?

Spiritual direction is a ministry of the Church in discernment. The focus of spiritual direction is on how one can further develop and cultivate one's personal relationship with God. It is one of the ministries through which we can fulfill the command of Hebrews 10:24 – how to stir up one another to love and good works.

Christian spiritual direction is primarily a ministry in which one Christian (the director) helps another (the directee) to discern God's presence and activity in the directee's life and also the directee's reactions and responses to God's activity. It is often said that the real director in spiritual direction is God, while the human spiritual director is more of a witness, one that points to God's activity on behalf of the directee. Spiritual direction can also be done in a group context, in which a group of Christians together prayerfully seek to discern God's activity in the life of a fellow believer.

It is common for believers to seek out spiritual direction when there is a change in their spiritual life. Sometimes it is a change in how one experiences God's presence; sometimes it is pending change in one's life circumstances or vocational call. Other times, believers seek direction simply through a desire to grow more deeply in their prayer life or ministry.

Spiritual direction is similar to biblical and pastoral counseling in that it is biblically grounded and involves Christians helping one another to live the Christian life. Psychological counseling is intended to help people solve personal and interpersonal issues.

Spiritual direction differs from all three primarily in its focus: the intention in spiritual direction is not to help solve the person's problem, but rather to look for God's activity within the problem and within the rest of the person's life experience. This invites us into deeper relationship with God in the midst of whatever we are experiencing.

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