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A Journey Towards a Culturally-Inclusive Spiritual Formation Model

This article is a rationale for a project in its beginning stages but what we see as a necessary step to begin the journey. We invite you to be a part of the larger project towards a culturally-inclusive Christian spiritual formation model.

The benefits of diversity enrich an academic setting. Through the process of learning from each other’s cultural heritage and perspectives, we gain a broader worldview perspective and an opportunity to mature in our educational process. It is with regret that we realize from a variety of voices that often Christian groups and institutions are the most segregated settings in our society. As a result, we realize the need for the formational process to be culturally inclusive and reflect the diversity described in the Kingdom of God. We think of a culturally-inclusive model of spiritual formation as a beginning of a necessary journey.

Our Common Journey

God speaks to and through different cultures in different ways. If we are attempting to be culturally inclusive, we must each release our prejudices and come to the table as learners. We will experience Christ as the holy sacrament in the process, in the stirring of the stew, in the conversation around the preparations, in the breaking of the bread and the dialogue around the table. In that context our souls will be formed and our spirits shaped to be more Christ-like.

We begin to move toward culturally-inclusive spiritual formation as we let go of our cultural hegemony which serves as blinders and stop judging other spiritual formation practices by our own measuring stick. We need to understand the meaning of divergent practices from the perspective of the culture itself. Each culture has something to teach us about God, about itself and about ourselves as we come together as learners in a mutually respectful dialogue. Culturally-Inclusive formation will not “just happen;” we must be intentional about making space and creating/shaping a learning environment where it is likely to happen.

Our Community Journey

There are some changes in our learning communities that appear to be culturally-inclusive practices but simply take an old paradigm of one culture and change the racial ethnic make-up of the players. Culturally-inclusive practices cannot be simply Euro-American paradigms of spiritual formation and worship with “flavors” of other cultures. The dominant culture must seek first to understand and respect practices of Christian formation which are different from its own. The dominant culture must be open to radically changing existing paradigms. We cannot assume formation should continue to be an extension of adapted ancient practices from only European traditions.

We need to start with a genuine desire to understand and embrace Christian formational practices and outcomes that may be different than our own. Culturally inclusive formation requires hard work, time, effort, relationship building, intentional learning and it may mean sharing power or even giving it up. But, the possibilities for meaningful culturally inclusive formation make such sacrifices and the journey worthwhile.

Draft: August 3, 2007

Key Words or Concepts in Issues of Diversity & Spiritual Formation

These key words or concepts in issues of diversity and spiritual formation emerge from an extraction of core values from the key components of spiritual formation and diversity. The core values are the essence of what it means to have culturally-inclusive spiritual formation programming. Without these core values permeating the programs of spiritual formation they will not be culturally-inclusive.

Relationship Interconnected Enrich

Transcendent Synergism of sacred and secular

1. God takes initiative and seeks out a relationship with us—God initiates the process of Spiritual Formation.
2. Spirituality is always relational; it never takes place within a vacuum.
3. Spirituality is integrated into all areas of our lives.
4. Our culture, ethnicity and gender are not coincidental; they are intentional expressions of God’s self.
5. Culture is one of the vehicles through which we connect with God; gain greater insight into God’s character and way of being in the world.
6. “Religion” has been used to oppress people and sustain positions of power of the dominant group.
7. God is particularly concerned about the oppressed and marginalized people of the world.

Written by Naima Quarles-Burnley, College Ministries Intern 2007

Definitions
 “Culture” :
The accumulated values, traditions norms, customs, arts, history, folklore, belief systems, languages, social relationships, institutions, communication patterns, cuisine and clothing of a group of people that define for them their general behavior and way of life. Culture is learned behavior.

 “Race” :
Race is a social construction often used as a tool of oppression. A race of people are a portion of the human population distinguished from others by a range of genetic characteristics such as hair texture, skin and eye color, facial features, body build, blood group, and ancestry. Conceptions of race and racial groupings have not been regarded as technically precise because of the highly politicized ways in which they have been used.

 “Ethnicity” :
A sense of being different than other groups because of cultural tradition, ancestry, national origin, history, or religion.

Naima Quarles-Burnley, College Ministries Intern 2007

What are some of the experiences that have shaped how you approach reconciliation? Do we have to wait until Heaven to experience reconciliation? Post your thoughts after reading this article by pastor and author Brian Jones.

Hearing Words That Shouldn’t Exist

by Brian Jones

When I entered junior high, I quickly established two goals for my seventh-grade year: get Kacey Gire to kiss me and keep my friend Eric Green and me out of the hospital. Every morning as Eric and I walked to Rosemore Junior High School, we had to pass a gang of guys that called themselves “The Cornered Rats.” They were big and scary, did drugs, and most mornings they outnumbered us fifteen to two.

I had the misfortune of being an athlete who lived in a nice house. Eric had the unfortunate problem of being an athlete and black. Some days we ran. Some days we fought. Most days we came home terrified. Not a single day went by in all of seventh grade when my friend Eric wasn’t called a “nigger.” At the end of the school year, Eric and his mom moved to Cincinnati so he could attend a more racially mixed school.

Revelation 5:9 gives us a glimpse into what Heaven looks like. Speaking to Jesus inside the throne room of Heaven, the angels cry out:

You are worthy to take the scroll
and to open its seals,
because you were slain,
and with your blood you purchased men for God
from every tribe and language and people and nation.

What a beautiful image. Because of Jesus’ death on the cross, Native Americans in Heaven stand next to whites, Hispanics next to Koreans, and Italians next to blacks. People are no longer divided by customs or language as they are here on earth, but joined together as one family, the people of God. In Heaven best friends never move because their mothers are scared they’ll end up in the hospital because of the color of their skin.

Seventh-grade boys never run home with dislocated jaws, bleeding knees, torn clothes, and the nickname “nigger lover.” Racial slurs don’t enter anyone’s mind in Heaven. No one wanders onto a showroom floor, receives bad service, and later wonders if it was due to her ethnicity. Fear is gone. Hatred never enters our minds. Reconciliation and forgiveness flow like spring-fed streams. In Heaven everyone is treated the same, at all times, in all places, by all people.

Have events or people had a special signficant impact on your life? Please post your thoughts. It will help the rest of us!
Thanks! Eldon

Recently after dinner with females who had particiapted for one year in an intentional community in a Spiritual Formation house off campus, sharing a wonderful evening with international students at a delightful banquet and program and then celebrating with graduating seniors and families at a sports banquet as their coaches and administrators honored and spoke eloquently about their many achievements, I wondered what do all these wonderful young people have in common besides attending Messiah College.

I really do not have the answer to that multifaceted question but I would like to reflect on some common threads I saw in those events. The story of each student involved the risk to try a challenge. At some level all of us need to be challenged to break out of ourselves and the familiar patterns of our lives. That always involves change and change is often a source of fear but for these young people there seemed to be the common confidence that fear could be looked in the eye and challenged.
They admitted they did not always win but they learned in winning and losing. Confidence seemed to rise from risk. From risk came achievements.

On a night where many of the Messiah community will remember the Virginia Tech massacre in a candlelight vigil, it could be a moment of fear and refusal to risk. In fact, it is tempting to insulate our lives from risk, if possible. But, somehow for us to achieve, we have to engage fear realistically and accept the challenge to live life fully. When the candles are lit tonight, I will think about the bravery involved in moving ahead with opportunities of life in spite of the risks.

Somehow deep within me there is a reflective smile in my spirit as I see young adults look risk in the eye and dare to achieve their God given potential. That to me is formation. There are many building blocks in that process. There are supportive people, people who serve in the background, those who encourage, people who teach, coach, lead or pastor and so many others so willing to reach out and invest. There are lonely moments testing the will of the commitment and community times that challenge our process or encourage us to keep going. There are faithful practices that help build toward our goals. There are grace moments that lift us up to try again.

But always it is a process. Graduation is just a mile marker on a longer journey but it is a reminder of how dynamically our God works in the process of formation. I am amazed at what God can accomplish in four short years. I look and listen to God’s handiwork and smile. God does amazing work.

Formational Lens for Student Affairs

THE QUEST FOR GOD

We are on a quest that is much more than seeking a destination. Jesus is clear, “Follow me.” That invitation is to a journey much more than a specific location. There is a long tradition of seeking within Christian history. The tragedy is when we become so busy with very good things that we become uncertain of Christ’s voice or it is drowned out by the noisy-ness of our lives.

Intimacy with Christ nourishes our vocation. When intimacy is lost, our lives tend to become shallow, the emotional and spiritual gauges of our life indicate a serious warning to us as we become increasingly perplexed, strained, fearful or perfunctory. Our physical response seems to relay what is happening spiritually, mentally and emotionally. Physicians and medical researchers tell us that nearing burnout leaves us with physical depletion that may be revealed through a variety of physical ailments. Even the mental sharpness we once enjoyed becomes routine and spiritual gamesmanship replaces our authentic passionate ministry. Like a boxer who has taken too many punches, we go through the motions but our systems are shutting down.

Protestantism like a transition through adolescence contemptuously discarded many of the forms that shaped our context. In the eagerness to embrace our new freedom, we labeled the habits of the past as dangerous or even threatening. We distanced ourselves from them. Five hundred years later, we realize amidst the ruins of a tragedy of our own making that our souls ache for something familiar. We have an uneasy sense of loss. It is an ancient calling not unlike the desire for roots by grandchildren of slaves. We realize we cannot return home for home has changed. But there is a deeply embedded desire from within our starved souls that inextricably draws us back to revisit ancient practices that nourished the souls of past generations. The legacy of our adolescent denial has slowly starved our souls and left us needing something to guide us into the future. What are these ancient practices that might help us face the challenges of our future? As we work with today’s youth, we need leaders who can carefully reconnect with the practices of the past that sustained Christ followers as well as helping this generation find new contextually appropriate forms that will provide vitality and direction into a very uncertain future.

While Protestants experienced an adolescent developmental history, an increasing number of Catholic and Orthodox adherents were seeking for something more life-giving than form. Sometimes this has led to a radical discarding of traditions; but often it has led to a renewed appreciation and a revitalized contextualization of these ancient practices. All the history of these great streams of the church seems to intersect at a crossroads in a search for God. The genius of the postmodern experience is that the road of exhausted Protestants wearied in a search for something ancient and the renewed embracing of the rich meaning found in ancient practices by Catholics and Orthodox believers provides an opportunity to meet at the crossroads of our faith and dialogue at a level that can be life-giving.

Our inward voices are calling us back to something significant and formative. Intuitively, we understand it is not found in another self-help effort focused on instantaneous gratification. We long for something of more significance and lasting value. We have lived through the spiritual cycle of enthusiasm, obligation, guilt, repentance and then a return to wandering! Will that wandering lead into the slough of despair or to a pilgrimage similar to the ancient travels of Abraham and Sarah? This mystical, mysterious journey seems to have few guarantees except that cryptic promise of God that there is a land “I will show to you.” (Genesis 12:1) The liberation experienced in an exploration with an uncertain destination seems odd in a world of goals, purposes, objectives that honors instant achievement. But there is a genuine freedom that comes from such passionate journeys that is difficult to articulate, let alone understand.

Early New Testament writers such as Paul use athletic imagery in the text. As we study the metaphor of preparing for and running the race, we realize that merely knowing more about the athletic event is not completely helpful because knowledge; however it is acquired, does not place us in the game. We will need to practice, get in shape, understand the nuances of the game/event and practice those skills that will serve us well in life.

I am writing this during the Winter Olympics. The athletes are fascinating. They have put in long hours of preparation, studied tapes, watched other competitors, but also practiced, practiced and practiced beyond other athletes. Ultimately, they must become champions in their own right to even be invited to the Olympics. Then they must enter the race, qualify once again and finally, put all of that preparation to action to celebrate victory. I believe that this spiritual race requires three levels of skills that will help us enjoy the celebration of victory. I believe those skills involve knowing, doing and being. All of those skills are dependent upon the presence of the living God in our lives and are keys to our spiritual formation. None of them guarantee the work of the Lord. But all of them provide and prepare a place for God to be known in a deeper more intimate way in our lives.

The call for intimacy echoes through the empty hallways of our souls looking for a relationship with our God. This very relational, Trinitarian God created us in an image that calls for relationship. This longing needs to be satisfied or seekers from this generation like stories of old will find other gods to serve. As Christian educators, we are challenged to follow in the footsteps of leaders like Moses and journey with our students back to the sacred place of God. We are called to initiate contextually appropriate new forms while restoring the ancient practices in a way that serves God today and prepares students for the future.

Millennials and Transformation

If the language of transformation ever would crop up among my peers and me, we likely wouldn’t think of it in the same religious terms as the literature on the topic. Having read a cross-section of that literature, I have learned that transformation, in essence, speaks to a relationship; as with any relationship, this is characterized by two active agents. In other words, God works in us for transformation, but we also “work out” our own transformation through spiritual disciplines.

Therein lies the problem for many people in my generation: where have all the spiritual disciplines gone? Although many disciplines seem more prevalent at Messiah—fasting, prayer, worship, Scripture reading, service—they hardly have a strong hold on my generation as a whole. And even if people at Messiah participate in these disciplines, I wonder how much heart they put into it.

Our lack of a transformation perspective does not entirely blot a stain on our own records as Christians. Dallas Willard points out that churches have tended to focus so much on preaching and developing the knowledge that can allow for transformation, that the actual cultivation of a transformed heart slips to the curb. Willard says, “The result is that we have multitudes of professing Christians who well may be ready to die, but obviously are not ready to live, and can hardly get along with themselves, much less with others.” But I wonder how much my generation would see this as an impediment to transformation—this individualism. According to Ivyjungle.org, most Christians define spiritual transformation as a “born again” experience, which is very individualistic. At Messiah especially, our relationship with God centers on God’s will for our lives, and discerning that will. We have relationships with “others” while thinking of them as “others.” Far from bringing them into our own sphere, we go to them, serve them, and then leave. But the “other” distinction always seems to stay. It seems like true spiritual transformation would compel us to eradicate that distinction, just as God did when God became, or transformed Godself, into human.

On the subject of Jesus, he spent thirty years as a human before starting his ministry. If Jesus truly was fully human, then he, himself, needed transformation. He learned his identity, his mission. Dallas Willard says that we shouldn’t think of transformation as a “lightning strike” event, though it can be; instead, we should think of it in terms of process, something that doesn’t aim to control our actions but to transform our mind and will toward obedience to God. Part of obeying God is concern for social justice. Kathleen Dugan says, “Within the context of the current views of the religious self as member of an ecumenical, world-connected community, the ideal of religious transformation will be seen as not only profoundly personal, but as necessarily social. Thus the narrow path to fullness of life will be seen to lead not away from the world, but into the heart of its action.”

Millennials, as a whole, have a better grasp on social justice than do my peers at Messiah. I suppose postmodernism and pluralism has furthered the disconnect between personal spirituality and social action. With more perspectives being considered for truth, we all have this need to know where we stand, what we believe, and, quite frankly, that takes a tremendous amount of time because our postmodern sensibilities can lead us into greater dissatisfaction with easy answers. I say this for myself; I can’t say that for everyone at Messiah. It actually seems that most of my college peers feel pretty secure in their beliefs. They may have grown up to have a distaste for postmodernism, pluralism, relativism—whatever “ism” you want to use. They need a faith crisis, which is central to transformation. My faith crisis came in a class that examined science and religion, with particular emphasis placed on origins and evolution. No faith crisis feels good in the moment, but I count myself lucky that I had such an experience because it forced me to more desperately seek out a relationship with God. It pushed me to ask more questions and truly attempt to understand God. In some sense, it made God more personal for me, disconnecting God from the rules of a church (which isn’t necessarily a good thing).

In the end, it seems like a chicken-egg proposition: do my spiritual disciplines invite my transformation, or does my budding transformation inspire me to the disciplines? For people who lack in spiritual discipline, it would seem that transformation still exists. In fact, in my own story, my faith crisis ushered in a mature transformational process that inspired me to take on more disciplines, that made me long for some liturgy and tradition. Millennials, from what I can see, don’t lack in spiritual interest, but the traditional church environment, it seems, has grown stale for us. Perhaps that speaks more to the need for spiritual transformation than it does to the need for abandoning the practices of the ancients.

The concerns of my generation are as diverse as the number of my peers. I can only write of the concerns that cause my friends and me to stumble. I’ve heard that today’s teenagers show a resurgence in spiritual belief, but I suspect it means just that: spiritual belief, rather than religious belief. I think it that many in my generation see this as an easier path to follow. It seems we don’t know what to believe anymore.

The answers my Sunday School teachers had given me stopped satisfying me. If this pluralistic postmodern world did anything, it showed me that nothing has ever been as black and white as my church wanted me to believe. It taught me that God doesn’t live in a theological (or even religious) box. But what do I do with that? What does it mean that I’ve started to think that God can speak to and through a Muslim? What does it mean that I think Jesus can take on different names and shapes in cultures that never heard of Christianity, that a native of Remoteland can worship some God named Oobo who leads this native to live just as Christ lived? For me, Christ has started to separate from Christianity; I no longer equate the two. Evolution takes on more credibility everyday, but that causes problems, too. So many answers to life come out of the Creation stories in Genesis; I was taught to think of them as factual accounts. What does it mean when I stop believing in them that way, when I start to think that God can work through evolution, and that it affirms God’s incarnational interaction with the universe?

Spirituality, over religion, helps ease the discomfort because I can simply follow my vision of Christ and can leave behind the constructs of a religious system. Christianity has become a burden much of the time. A friend told me the other day that she struggles to know whether she does enough for God. In culture at large, and especially at this Christian college, we have outcries for our time, our money, our prayers—they come from all sides and after awhile it sounds more like a manic orchestra than a still small voice. One of the drawbacks, it seems, of being globally minded is that we’re so much more aware of the sheer expanse of suffering in this world. And what do we do about it? I feel like I only have so much time, energy, and funds, but it never adds up to enough. Now it’s not just about volunteering at my local soup kitchen, but it’s about concern for AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa, genocide in Sudan, starving children in Ethiopia, geographical boundaries in Israel/Palestine, and even nuclear weapons in North Korea or Iran. Letter writing campaigns, service trips, donations, prayer requests, overseas missions, on and on and on. It’s enough to make a modern-day Christian collapse with exhaustion.

When is it enough for God? Why should I feel guilty for devoting my energy to befriending people around me, helping them through their struggles, and quietly spending time with God? I don’t have the energy to be a globetrotting Christian. People ask me where I go to church, and when I say that I don’t go, they quietly say, “Oh,” as if that makes me a heathen. But I think, “Wait a minute. I spend much of my waking moments thinking about God, thinking about how I can help people and speak truth into situations. I have centered my life on trying to know God and follow God’s lead. Does all of that go away just because I don’t enjoy spending my Sunday mornings in a church service?” Everything I would get from church, I get in my daily life. And yet, it still feels wrong. Sometimes I wonder if we really have advanced in our faith, because it seems like much of our ideas still have the patina of the Middle Ages: God as a demanding tyrant who is just looking for us to mess up. I can’t worship a God like that anymore. It exhausts me. And considering how many of my friends have started to feel agnostic or atheistic, I think it’s exhausting more of us than we realize.

We hear about a God of grace, but we experience a god of rules in our religions. It turns me off, and it looks like it turns off my peers as well. We need a God that is more than our nitpicking of the Bible; we need a God who transcends our Scriptures, that the Bible points to, but doesn’t contain. This global society is anxiety-inducing enough; we don’t need a God who makes it worse. “He leads me beside quiet waters, he restores my soul.” Now that’s a God I’ll die for, a God who doesn’t just shake my hand and “pass the peace,” but who actually cares for my well-being.

The Spiritual Life of College Students
A national study of student values and beliefs
Messiah College student responses

From 1991-2001, about 50 CCCU schools collaborated on a study that assessed levels of spirituality among college students. This study joined the research of Florida State University’s Institute for the Study of College Student Values. Beginning around 2000, a two-page survey was developed and improved so that, by the fall of 2004, it was distributed to more than 100,000 students entering some 236 different colleges. The survey will go out to the same students in 2007, their junior year. Messiah’s contribution amounted to more than 600 students.

The data collected show that college students, in general, have a strong commitment to spirituality and religion, and Messiah students possess an even stronger commitment. In other words, students are open to spiritual/religious language and practices. Messiah students, in particular, are akin to Weber’s “religious virtuosi”—people who have a stronger faith commitment than the average person. At the same time, two-thirds of Messiah students labeled themselves as “secure” in their beliefs, which would make the “faith crisis” often necessary for transformation very difficult.

Students at Messiah already engage in spiritual disciplines and have a stronger sense of defining their faith on the principles of knowing God and knowing God’s “plan” for their lives. Prayer, worship, and Scripture reading rank very high among Messiah students, with more than 80% of respondents listing each one as an activity they perform at least once a week. Moreover, Messiah students identify more with religion than “spirituality,” which is often seen as “New Age.” All of this suggests that Messiah students would welcome the spiritual disciplines that many scholars have aligned so intimately with transformation.

Summary of Ron Burwell, February 2006

I hope you will post your ideas after reading what we have already posted.
What motivates you to be involved in the process of spiritual formation?
What have been some of the positive and negative experiences you have had that impacted your formation so far?

Pastor E