Episode 073: Discipleship and Spiritual Formation

In this episode we sit down with Sarah and Jason Jackson to talk about discipleship and spiritual formation and what we can do in our churches to encourage it.

Spiritual formation language can be helpful because it helps direct our attention to the holistic aspect of discipleship…

In my mind, I see discipleship as the process which you avail yourself to that helps to you know God more fully and make him known… spiritual formation is the lifelong journey of surrendering to the love and will of God, which includes the practices that help us conform to the image of Christ… 

One of the things that hurts the cause is that we tend to see this [only] as a mechanical process… that if we just do the right things or tick the right boxes, we are producing real Christians…  

I think what I wish for in the church is a better integration of spiritual and emotional maturity, emotional health and physical health…

The paradox of all of this is that it feels like hard work… it would be easier to silo our lives… but to really be sold out to the love of God, that’s harder…  

I picked through the Emotionally Healthy Discipleship (EHD) material with a fine-toothed comb, and couldn’t find anything I’d want to remove… they really do a good job boiling down discipleship and spiritual formation… what I love about it is that it helps us with integration…  

The whole idea behind the EHD material is that we cannot be spiritually mature but emotionally immature… this is a revolutionary idea for many… this material helps us to attend to our emotions in an integrative way… this isn’t just information, it’s about practices, too…  

The big recognition for our people has been that there is a space in their personal lives where Jesus wants to come to meet with them and speak to them… when people have opened up those spaces to Jesus, something has happened…  

Find out more about EHD at https://www.emotionallyhealthy.org

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