Articles:
Spiritual Growth, Devotional
Spiritual Formation by Means of the Spiritual Disciplines
by Jeff Kimble

Faith today is treated as something that only should make us different, not that actually does or can make us different. "Seventeen years of ministerial efforts in a wide range of denominational settings had made it clear to me that what Christians were normally told to do, the standard advice to churchgoers, was not advancing them spiritually." [Dallas Willard, The Spirit of the Disciplines (San Francisco, Harper San Francisco, 1988) p. x, 18]

A careful review of the advice given to me as a young believer bears a frightfully similar evaluation: I did not advance spiritually. (I lay no blame for my spiritual stagnation at the feet of my early Christian exemplars; they directed me as well as they could.) Nevertheless, outside of "confession" and "forgiveness," the advice I received about spiritual formation offered little help with my besetting sins, and so I lived through many years wrestling with the same problems. Every repeat offense only forged another link in a chain of thoughts and acts that soon became habitual.  I went through many cycles of "confession" and "forgiveness" during that time but seemed lost in a downward spiral of personal depravity.  I carried those habits for a long time never thinking that new habits forged by means of the spiritual disciplines played a role in countering old ones. Old habits die bard.

It is part of the misguided and whimsical condition of humankind that we so devoutly believe in the power of effort-at-the-moment-of-action alone to accomplish what we want and completely ignore the need for character change in our lives as a whole. The general failing is to want what is right and important but at the same time not to commit to the kind of life that will produce the action we know to be right and the condition we want to enjoy. "We intend what is right, but avoid the life that would make it a reality." [The Spirit of the Disciplines, p. 6]

I misunderstood the nature of the disciplines. Rather than seeing them as a means for exposing heart and mind to the light of God's word and His presence, I saw them as duties to perform. I thought spiritual formation meant praying, meditating on scripture, fasting, confessing sin and so forth. I mistook the means of spiritual growth for the goal: Christ-likeness. The disciplines, as I later came to understand, provided an actual way to put myself in a place where God could shape my character. The disciplines are shaping tools. God uses them to chisel away at old thoughts and habits and fashion new ones. We, however, must willingly expose ourselves to the tools. We must adopt a lifestyle that allows regular exposure to the shaping process, which means embracing the regular practice of the spiritual disciplines.

If we are to succeed in "putting off the old person and putting on the new," then, or in having the mind or inner character of our Lord, we must follow an order of life as a whole that is appropriately modeled after his.  This should be, and has been, something that is practiced by his people and taught by them to those who enter their ranks. It would be a plan that incorporates whatever is necessary to enable us to have a character and then do the deeds indicated in the teachings of Jesus and his immediate followers. "Our plan for a life of the kingdom of God must be structured around disciplines for the spiritual life." [Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy (San Francisco, Harper San Francisco. 1998) p. 352]

Jeff Kimble is the Business Data Specialist at Schenectady Christian School in New York. He also teaches a senior-level philosophy of religion class and leads a high school apologetics mentoring program.