Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Dallas Notes: Planning for Spiritual Formation in the local church (Rolling Hills Covenant Church, January 2012?)

Planning for Spiritual Formation in the local church


The Bible is a book of spiritual formation. You won’t find that phrase, but you do find the process.
Great Commission is about world revolution
Jesus did spiritual formation with His disciples
Jesus knew only successful revolution is in character of human beings.
A result of that kind of revolution is going to all kinds of people and not just one group.
Baptize them into (eis) the name. Immerse them in Trinitarian reality.
Teach them not what they should do but to do the things Jesus said.
Disciples are apprentices of Jesus learning to live int he KoG like He did

[FWIW, I don’t agree with Dallas’ translation of ‘oligopistoi’ here at all. I think Eugene Petersen captures it much better: ‘You little-faiths’. It can even be a term of endearment]

The big thing about the community of disciples is what inhabits them.
If you’d like to go to heaven, go now
[And if you don’t want to go now, do you really want to go at all? Will you like it? It’s not your dream for yourself. It’s God’s dream for you.]
D’ship is a status. Spiritual formation happens to people in that status.

We teach people to do what Jesus taught
[Maybe it would be a little better to talk about being: We teach people to become the kinds of people Jesus taught us to be.]
Spiritual formation is not behavior modification. [It’s character development in partnership with God.]
If you teach people to do what Jesus said and word gets out, you won’t have a problem with outreach.
Without the example of changed lives and the ability to replicate it, you might get some people into heaven, but you won’t get heaven into many people.

Why don’t we do it? We pay too much attention to things that don’t matter.
Leith Anderson quote fro RotH
[If you’re trying to be an NT church, shoot for the same emphases as the NT. What is major there? What do Jesus and Paul spend their time doing? At least shoot for a better balance than what we have today. We get so consumed with the business and busy-ness of church.]
If your church is centered around d’ship, everything else will take care of itself.

Spiritual formation is actually spiritual transformation b/c everyone is already spiritually formed.
The phrase isn’t Biblical, but cp. taking on the character of X:
Rom 5.1-5
Col 3.1-17
2 Pet 1.5-10
We can’t do it on our own, but we have work to do. It’s an interactive process in which the Trinity acts with us as we step out toward the transformation of our lives.
If we don’t do something, nothing will happen. If God doesn’t work with us, nothing will happen.
Willpower won’t get you far. Will has to be integrated with learning and training.
The Great Omission from the Great Commission is not having a plan to train disciples in a way that they naturally obey.
If you only try without learning and training, you’ll either become a Pharisee or a ‘miserable sinner’ (it’s hopeless; I can’t change).
Transforming the Whole Person [RotH diagram]
In a fallen world, most of us live in the dominance of social relations and the body.
We’re not talking about perfection, but doing better.
‘Sinners aren’t perfect, just forgiven.’
There’s a long distance between forgiven and perfect
1 Cor 13: Since love does not envy, if you don’t want to envy, fill yourself with love.

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