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Four issues of Catalyst are mailed each academic year to some 5,000 UM theological students in more than 100 seminaries in the U.S.A.

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SPIRITUAL FORMATION IN THE SEMINARY

The importance of spiritual formation in seminary training has been underlined in a number of recent writings. Edward Farley’s Theologia (Fortress, 1983) argued that theology, traditionally understood, contained a strong formational component that has been largely lost in the reigning professionalized academic model. Parker Palmer’s To Know As We Are Known (Harper & Row, 1983) insisted that education, properly understood, possesses an intrinsically spiritual dimension that is generally obscured in overly cognitive models. While these works have not yet produced a new consensus, they have brought the issue into public debate. At the grassroots level, the influence of the charismatic movement and the emphasis upon experience among baby-boomers has produced a group of students who look for more than theological stimulation and ministry skills.

What, however, is spiritual formation? Let me attempt a definition. Spiritual formation refers to the work of the Holy Spirit who transforms us into the image of Christ through deepening our relationship with God and others in and through our daily lives. Spiritual formation has personal and corporate dimensions and is nurtured formally through the spiritual disciplines and corporate worship, and more in formally through families, work, civic, and interpersonal experiences. Spiritual formation in an individual is evidenced by a maturing of Christian character which effectively shows the reality of Christ’s presence and love in the world.

Building on this definition I would like to make the following three assertions about spiritual formation.

1. Spiritual formation must be given greater prominence.
There are various reasons why this is so. During the last few decades, academic excellence has become—if it was not already—the main concern of seminaries. While most seminaries promise to give significant attention to the spiritual formation of students, their use of institutional resources, definition of faculty priorities, and provision of student awards point in another direction. Spiritual formation almost always comes a poor third after intellectual achievement and ministry development. Yet it would not be difficult to argue from the Bible that it is fundamental. Jesus’ training of the twelve gives ample evidence of this.

The current wave in churches and Christian organizations of sexual, financial, and other improprieties suggests an eroding sense of character and quality of relationships. Meanwhile surveys indicate that past students in seminaries are less satisfied with what they gained spiritually and communally and potential students rank these among their top three or four expectations of seminaries.

Spiritual formation can gain greater prominence in today’s seminary if there is (1) an institution will, backed up by some financial commitment to and clearing of time for this aspect of training;  (2) faculty recognition of its importance and openness to a more holistic approach to theological education; and (3) student availability to enter into activities, groups, and courses encouraging it. Even so, due to the changing character of seminaries and society, the difficulties are formidable. Because of this, traditional approaches to spiritual formation are no longer fully or even significantly adequate.

2. Spiritual formation can never be what it was.
I trained for ministry in the early 1960s in a relatively small, denominational seminary. Most students were single with little experience in ministry. Almost everyone lived near or on the campus. No classes were taught in the evening or on weekends. There were only one or two international students and no women. Because of the seminary’s size, common schedule, and homogeneity, we were all able— indeed required—to be present in chapel twice a day and to belong to small groups meeting weekly for prayer support.

All that has changed. Many seminaries are relatively large. Some are interdenominational, many others are attracting students from outside their own tradition. Ethnic minorities, women, and other nationalities are more strongly in evidence. Most students have obligations to families and increasingly have ministry experience. Seminaries are increasingly becoming commuter campuses, with extension programs in other places. Due to differing off-campus work-patterns, courses take place at night and on weekends as well as during the day. Only a proportion, often a minority, of students regularly attend chapels, and involvement in communal groups is voluntary.

As a result of these changes we can no longer approach spiritual formation on the residential model. Elements of that model are still operational and some aspects of it are capable of renovation. But increasingly we have to develop a pluralistic model of spiritual formation, one flexible enough to accommodate different religious traditions, cultural styles, attendance patterns; off-campus obligations, ministry experience, and maturity.
This is no easy task.

3. Spiritual formation must be approached on a variety of levels and from a variety of angles.
One level at which spiritual formation may be enhanced is through courses in spiritual disciplines, biblical spirituality, theology of prayer, spirituality and ministry, lay spirituality, and on community. They should include opportunity to process, meditate on, journal about, pray into the subject matter in small groups. They may be developed into a spiritual formation program which involves belonging to a covenant, support,. or house church group and include a one-on-one mentoring component with a faculty member or mature layperson.

Spiritual formation may also be encouraged within and around all classes in the curriculum. Devotional introductions or components, small groups for various purposes, giving room to experiential as well as academic issues, the use of mealtimes before and even during class to develop faculty-student relationships and discussion, the holding of some courses in a live-in or hands-on situation—these are some possibilities.

A further level at which spiritual formation can be promoted is through required involvement in spiritually vital corporate worship reflecting the different traditions, cultures, and experiences of students and involving them in preparation and leading. One might also think in terms of small groups in the seminary, containing faculty, staff, and students, which might remain stable through a student’s whole seminary experience. We also need to encourage communal living arrangements where-as with my wife and me— faculty and students can dwell together in one house and co-work where possible in churches outside it.

Conclusion
Much more could be said. Some of what needs to be done still has to be invented. Closer collaboration between seminaries and churches or para-churches will help broaden and improve the formational base upon which both can operate. Moving more seminary training into the church or out into the community will also give a more practical edge to what happens in this area. Helping students to see their family life and secular work as spiritual disciplines, as spiritually formative experiences, would also make a difference. Above all, we must recognize the central need for faculty to model the mature spiritual life both to and among students. This is best done in the context of close ongoing contact and regular team ministry with one another. Jesus and his disciples, or Paul and his colleagues, again provide us with the basic model, however much it may need to be adapted to contemporary circumstances. For that to become more central, however, we must move to a more holistic approach to theological education then we have at present.

By Robert J. Banks, Professor of the Ministry of the Laity, School of Theology, Fuller Theological Seminary; author of All the Business of Life: Bringing Theology Down-to-Earth (Albatross, 1987).