The past few weeks I have written about the corporate gathering as being primarily about the spiritual formation of God’s people. The corporate gathering is counter-formational for the individual, but we are also being formed as a people. But how does spiritual formation (discipleship) actually occur in our corporate gatherings?
Ultimately, the true formation of God’s people cannot happen apart from the empowering and illuminating work of the Holy Spirit. We may be able to inspire, uplift, encourage, and exhort people - but we possess no power to change people. This is why before we seek to lead, we must be led. Any attempt at trying to form people in our own strength will inevitably lead to malformation at least, and manipulating of people into our own image at worst. The goal of spiritual formation is to see people become more and more like Jesus.
Formation happens when Christ is glorious. We become what we behold, so again and again, over and over we must look to Christ, treasure Christ, celebrate, worship, and behold Christ. We lift up His heart, His completed work, His character in our songs, in our transitions, in our sermons, and in the movement of our gatherings.
Formation happens with a long view. Cultivating any new habit or disciple happens over time, never in an instant. This is how we have to view our gatherings they are habit-forming over the long haul.
Formation happens in community. We have not been saved to be an individual, we have been saved into a family, into a body, saved to be a part of the community of God, His Church local and global. Iron sharpens iron. We are being formed as we die to ourselves (our preferences and our comforts) and count others as more significant than ourselves.
Formation happens with intention. We are being formed passively by our culture, as followers of Jesus we must be counter-formed as we gather as the people of God. As leaders, we must be intentional in our approach to the corporate gathering. To do this we must acknowledge the cultural currents that are shaping our people, and continually call them back to the beauty of the Gospel.
Our people are being formed, and we are forming our people. Do not resign the responsibility of formation to the culture, or abdicate your role by being unwilling to put in the hard, deep, slow, often unseen work of spiritually forming the people of God in the corporate gathering.