I
In Eastern traditions, spiritual formation (lingxiu 灵修)[1] is often seen as a kind of “otherworldly,” “sage-like” pursuit of a complete and fulfilled spiritual life.
The Chinese church, influenced by these traditions, often views spiritual formation as a private experience separate from community life. Leaders like Watchman Nee and Jia Yuming describe it as being “alone in the Garden [of Eden],” thus viewing it through the lens of Eastern mysticism.
In the Western church, spiritual formation has been marked by these same characteristics over the past 50 years–it is private, Eastern, and mystical.
I, of course, do not deny the private and mystical aspects of spiritual formation. It is, by nature, personal and spiritual. And because it involves a relationship with the one true God, it must have an element of mystery or the supernatural.
However, I would like to point out that the church’s current view of spiritual formation has become overly influenced by Eastern and modern ideas that focus on privacy and mysticism. This has led to a disconnect between personal spirituality and covenant community, creating a gap—or even a conflict—between personal spiritual life and life within the church.
As a result, the way in which spiritual formation is commonly viewed in the church today has changed significantly. It has seemingly become unrelated to pastoral care, the Lord’s Supper, church discipline, public worship, and even acts of justice and mercy.
But how can we talk about being renewed daily through spiritual disciplines without a mature understanding of the church and without a genuine pastoral context in which a flock is being shepherded?
II
The church is a kingdom and a community that has been growing across time and space for thousands of years. It is a historical process that, once started, will never stop. No ruler or power can ever halt this process. In contrast, every political regime and power outside the church is temporary, destined to fall or fade away.
Spiritual formation exists only within the historical development of the church and relies heavily upon the entire spiritual heritage it has accumulated along the way. We cannot speak of individual spiritual formation apart from this development. There is, in fact, no spiritual formation outside the church.
All private, spiritual, and mystical experiences outside the unfolding history of the church–no matter how extraordinary, unique, or profound they might be–will eventually be relegated to a brief episode of history, an episode which, simply put, will one day be described as witchcraft.
Spiritual formation is not only personal but also communal. One of its primary impetuses, purposes, and applications is to properly integrate personal experiences into the shared beliefs and heritage of a covenant community. Fellowship is a key source of spiritual formation and the means through which it is expressed.
In other words, spiritual disciplines help a Christian to live more diligently, comprehensively, and devoutly within the church, becoming part of the church’s historical community and traditions. As the medieval mystic Saint Teresa of Ávila says, spiritual disciplines are a way of life by which we “learn selfless devotion amidst the daily frictions of communal life.” In this sense, a Christian who does not practice spiritual disciplines does not fully meet the criteria of being a Christian. They struggle, or have not yet learned, to integrate their personal experience into the shared life of a covenant community. Surprisingly, it is today’s church, not the medieval mystics, that has moved further away from and downplayed spiritual formation within the context of fellowship.
The only kind of faith that is able to confront all of the weighty contradictions, conflicts, and confusions of life is one which encompasses the entirety of a believer’s experience, thereby compelling him to embrace the gospel of Christ as a daily necessity.
This demonstrates the primacy of the gospel, a primacy that can only be fully and genuinely displayed within the life of the church. When every aspect of church life expresses and demands such gospel focus, church life itself becomes enriched with spiritual significance.
The cross is the pinnacle of Christ’s incarnate human experience on earth, and it is inevitably the pinnacle of certain personal experiences for believers. Therefore, the cross must be–and certainly is–the center and means of spiritual formation.
The cross signifies that the Messiah comes to us through sharp conflict, marked by suffering and defeat. The Holy Spirit’s presence in the believer’s heart is evidence of a new world that, while seemingly unchanged, has in fact been completely transformed. And the only way for the world to see this evidence is through faith.
Spiritual formation is the act of participating in this transformation within a world that appears unchanged As we do so, we continually gain assurance of faith through personal experience and spiritual growth. Spiritual formation is living in the life of Jesus, who was crucified and resurrected. It is an attempt to embody an unprecedented mode of human existence, and it is the very power by which we do so. The resurrected Christ is no longer confined by the historical details of Jesus of Nazareth. He is now exalted above all rule and authority, even beyond time and space. The Father has given him the name that is above all names. Spiritual formation ushers a person, through the particularities of his limited experiences, into a human experience that transcends all individual particularities, one that is lived out among all believers in Christ, in a way that is shared, public, and fully human.
The law is good, but it can only serve as a standard for behavior, not as a foundation for spiritual formation. This is because adherence to the law often leads to reliance on oneself. If the law were sufficient for a person’s justification and sanctification, spiritual formation would cease to exist. Or rather, it would become a moralistic practice of self-affirmation and self-admiration.
When believers try to earn God’s grace and love by following the law or measuring themselves against it, spiritual formation turns into a form of self-deception. The modern church is filled with this kind of deceptive spirituality. It has become a false and moralistic pursuit of spiritual life that bases our sense of security and our relationship with God on visible, personal spiritual experiences and achievements. As the early church father John of the Cross said, spiritual formation can become just another way to escape Christ.
In other words, spiritual formation can only come through the gospel. Under any incorrect, moralistic view of salvation, there can be no true spiritual formation. When spiritual disciplines are governed by doctrines that deny God’s sovereign grace and justification by faith, such as those found in the Catholic church, the more pious they appear, the more likely they are to stand in opposition to the grace of Christ.
Apart from the gospel, there is no spiritual formation. This does not exclude certain Catholic monks who, in their personal experience, have essentially embraced or come very close to evangelical beliefs. However, such monastics are either inevitably regarded as heretics and rejected by the Catholic Church—like the Jansenists to whom Pascal belonged–or, for various reasons, their Christian identity becomes deeply split as their personal experience contradicts the shared beliefs of their community.
This has led to a widespread phenomenon within the Catholic Church: a persistent state of conflict, division, and tension between a multitude of unofficial, personal, spiritual experiences and the doctrines upheld by the covenant community. This inevitably results in hypocrisy within Catholic spiritual practice, which becomes saturated with idolatrous mysticism and individualism. To escape the tension between their personal experiences and official doctrines, Catholic spiritual writers inevitably diminish the communal dimension of spiritual formation, gravitating toward the Oriental, private, and mystical.
True spiritual formation, however, lies in the integration and continuous interplay between personal experience and communal doctrine. Such formation can only occur through long-term commitment to the church and fellowship, along with active participation in the church’s corporate worship, prayer, service, and discipline. To remove the communal dimension of spiritual formation is to sever it from doctrine (the Word), inevitably leading to falsehood and self-deception.
III
This book is not, however, a theological treatise on the “communal nature of spiritual formation,” but rather a compilation of spiritual letters written from 2010 to 2017, to a congregation living within the pastoral context of China’s house churches (a context more akin to a construction site), by a pastor and church planter who deeply believes that “the church is the means of grace.” Each letter seeks to offer meditations, applications, and reflections on the gospel within the context of real church situations, agendas, and challenges. This book aims to present a picture of spiritual formation within the concrete reality of church life, illustrating the “communal nature of spiritual formation” through the lived realities of a specific church community. At the same time, it invites readers to reflect on and question any form of “spiritual formation” that is divorced from church life and thus prone to self-deception.
In Christ,
June 1, 2018
(Editor’s note: This preface was written by Pastor Wang Yi for his collection of pastoral letters titled Soul Awakening: Letters on Spiritual Formation from the Front Lines of Pastoral Ministry (灵魂总动员——牧会现场的灵修书信), published in Hong Kong in August 2018.)
[1] Lingxiu (灵修; “spiritual cultivation,” “spiritual practice”) has deep roots in traditional Chinese philosophy and religion, especially in Daoism and Buddhism. It traditionally referred to the cultivation of one’s spirit through various practices, from meditation, breathing exercises, and chanting to scripture reading, ethical training, and religious rites. Chinese Christians have naturally adapted the term to refer to Christian spiritual disciplines, such as fasting, Bible reading, and prayer.
