Spiritual Formation FAQ
As faculty in a seminary of the church, we are especially conscious of the importance of intentional spiritual formation for pastoral ministry, the diaconate, and other forms of church leadership. Seminary students must receive the encouragement, urging, and instruction they need in order to find a stable and enlivening pattern of spiritual practice capable of sustaining them over the long haul in life and ministry.
-The LTSS Faculty, "Spirituality and Spiritual Formation"
How will you be spiritually sustained during your years in seminary and over the long haul in public ministry? Answer
What is the spiritual life? Answer
Why does Southern Seminary emphasize intentional spiritual formation? Answer
Where do you begin? Answer
How will you be spiritually sustained during your years in seminary and over the long haul in public ministry?
Each academic year, the Pastor to the Seminary Community invites all of us (including spouses) into a variety of special offerings that is intended to acquaint us with the church's rich tradition of spiritual practices. These offerings are designed to engage us, individually and corporately, in some foundational disciplines and prayer-forms. Rooted in the remembrance of our baptism and in eucharistic worship, these "holy habits" become means through which the Holy Spirit draws us into deeper intimacy with the Triune God.
Time-honored Christian practices such as lectio divina (praying with scripture), "making a retreat," contemplative prayer, "practicing the presence of God," pilgrimage, and "soul friendship" can ground us in God and facilitate our journey into the spiritual life. Therein we are "equipped" (Heb. 13:21) by God for service to God's people. Indeed, through our intentional spiritual formation at seminary, we discover that our own intimacy with God in a prayerful life is the very beginning, source, and core of our ministry.
The special offerings presented on the seminary community's Spiritual Formation Calendar can help us to find for ourselves the indispensable connection between the prayerful life and ministry. Back to top
What is the spiritual life?
Scripturally speaking, it is simply the increasing vitality and sway of God's Spirit in us. As Marjorie Thompson explains so beautifully in Soul Feast (Chapter One), it is a magnificent choreography of the Holy Spirit in the human spirit, moving us toward communion with both Creator and creation. The spiritual life is thus grounded in relationship. It has to do with God's way of relating to us, and our way of responding to God.
In Christian experience, the work of the Holy Spirit is to conform us to the image of Christ:
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:17-18).
The human creature was made in the image and likeness of God (Gen. 1:26-27), yet we obscured and distorted that likeness in the Fall. Christ is "the image of the invisible God" (Col. 1:15) in all its original purity. When we are "clothed with Christ," the truth of our humanity is restored to us and the image of our Creator begins to emerge with clarity. In Christ we are reshaped according to the pattern we were created to bear. This interior reshaping is the basic meaning of spiritual formation.
Christian spirituality involves conscious awareness of, and assent to, the work of the Spirit in us. Spirituality points to a path—to choices of belief, value commitments, patterns of life, and practices of faith that allow Christ to be formed in us. It invites a process of transformation in the life of a believer. It is a process of growing in gratitude, trust, obedience, humility, compassion, service, and joy.
Let us be clear that Christian spirituality begins with God, depends on God, and ends in God. As Martin Luther reminds us in his Small Catechism,
I believe that by my own understanding or strength I cannot believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to him, but instead the Holy Spirit has called me through the gospel, enlightened me with his gifts, made me holy, and kept me in the true faith, just as he calls, gathers, enlightens, and makes holy the whole Christian church on earth….
We cannot achieve spiritual growth through sheer grit and will power. The spiritual life is not a task of self-reformation. Spiritual growth is essentially a work of divine grace with which we are called to cooperate. Free and active cooperation is our share of the labor. But experience teaches that we don't cooperate with God's intentions for us easily. Opening ourselves to the work of the indwelling Spirit requires trust, discipline, self-awareness, and time.
The church's ancient "spiritual disciplines" are practices which can help us consciously to develop the interior dimension of our lives. There is nothing externally imposed about spiritual disciplines. In adopting them, we are responding to a deep inner desire for the One who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The disciplines keep us open to the mysterious work of grace in our heart and our world. They enable us not only to receive but to respond to God's love, which in turn yields the fruit of the Spirit in our lives (Gal. 5:22-23). Back to top
Why does Southern Seminary emphasize intentional spiritual formation?
We are people being prepared for ministry. It is Christ's ministry, not our own, in which we are engaged. For the minister, therefore, there is a necessary relationship between active ministry and daily prayer. Wilhelm Lohe, a 19th century German Lutheran pastor, in describing this relationship, wrote,
Whoever must always give must always have; and since he (sic) cannot draw out of himself what he must give, he must ever keep near the living fountain in order to draw…. The fullness and concentration of life is a praying heart.
Daily adoration and receptivity in our love relationship with God are essential or of the essence for those of us involved in theological studies and public ministry. As Henri Nouwen cautioned in The Living Reminder,
Prayer cannot be considered external to the process of ministry. If we heal by reminding each other of God in Christ, then we must have the mind of Christ himself to do so. For that, prayer is indispensable.
And further,
Prayer can never be considered a private affair. Rather, it belongs to the core of ministry and, therefore, is also subject to education and formation.
Because our own intimacy with God in a prayerful life is the very beginning, source and core of our ministry, therefore we are called to become persons of prayer. Back to top
Where do you begin?
The good news is that your spiritual formation was begun for you by God in baptism. The Spirit is already busy in you, whispering your name and drawing you more and more into the life of the Triune One. Your calling now is to touch into that prayer which is already begun and going on inside you.
Southern Seminary's spiritual formation programming seeks to establish in our life a healthy balance of community and solitude, of work and rest, of study and play, of contemplation and action. It supports the growth of a Christian spirituality that will equip and sustain us over the long haul in public ministry. Back to top
Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary is grateful for contributions to its Wohltmann Spiritual Formation Endowment. Earnings from this endowment make possible much of our programming. Donation checks should be made payable to "LTSS." Back to top
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