What is Spiritual Formation?

"Spirituality — the life of the Spirit — has enjoyed a renaissance in our day. My parents, of the World War II generation, never talked about it — for them, church and religion existed to take care of spiritual needs. But now, more and more people have begun to understand spirituality as something entirely distinct from religion. This can be a subtle form of judgment against religion. The thinking goes like this: “Religion is communal, organizational, institutional; spirituality is personal, private, individualistic.” Choosing spirituality over religion thus becomes a way of choosing personal expression over communal conformity.

Since America is a society that insists the individual is more important than the community, no wonder so many people feel like spirituality is better than religion! But I think it’s actually more healthy to see spirituality and religion as complementary, rather than adversarial. Religion involves form and structure, while spirituality involves consciousness and relationship. In terms of cultivating a God-infused life, religion concerns the skeleton and the muscle, while spirituality concerns the heart and the mind. Here in the world of form, we need both. Taken together, healthy religion, in partnership with a vibrant spirituality, can help us to incarnate the presence of God in our lives".