Formed for ministry: A program in spiritual formation

Christian Century, Feb 2, 2000 by L. Gregory Jones, Willie James Jennings

I WANT MY seminary experience to form me as a person of prayer." We had never heard a student state this desire so eloquently and succinctly. We sensed in this comment something much more than a first-year student's desire for greater piety in the school environment. This student had done extremely well at a college with a strong undergraduate program. She was mature, intellectually able, and eager to study. Yet she perceived a need in her soul that she wanted addressed in her seminary education.

About this same time Duke Divinity School was focusing on the theme "The Love of Learning and the Desire for God," a phrase borrowed from Jean Leclercq's classic study of monastic education in the Middle Ages. We were convinced that the knowledge and the love of God is, or at least should be, central to theological education. Therefore, effective theological formation of women and men for ministries in the church and world, and for doctoral education in the university, should involve deepening their lives as lives of prayer.

Theological education ought to be about forming people for ministry, not simply conveying information. Information is important, but theological education must shape ministerial identity. Forming ministerial identity requires attention to the care and nurture of souls beyond the classroom as well as in it. Education and formation in prayer requires time and focus.

Even though we believed in the close connection between a love of learning and a desire for God, we had not fully understood or anticipated how much students felt the need to be formed through an intentional program of spiritual nurture. We saw that the one student had beautifully articulated a longing that many students inchoately shared. As a result of her passion and commitment, and with strong support from the administration, a number of students organized voluntary spiritual formation groups.

Without such student initiative, we might have been hesitant to develop, much less require, a new program for students, especially one that demands more from their already busy lives. The students convinced us that more explicit attention to spiritual formation was crucial.

From this humble beginning, Duke Divinity School has developed a program of spiritual formation that addresses three pressing needs. First, students need more intentional reflection on the practices of the Christian faith. Among philosophers and theologians there is a growing awareness of the inseparability of identity and social-cultural practices. This helpful development provides an opportunity for theological education to move beyond placing students in the worn-out categories of theological liberals and conservatives. Such categorization often results in intellectual stereotyping that disrupts the process of equipping students for ministry.

Rather than being preoccupied with whether students are theologically liberal or conservative, we believe it is better to have students consider this question: What are the practices and convictions that form, nurture and strengthen Christian identity and life? This question compels students to learn to nurture themselves and others by a life of prayer that joins together the knowledge and love of God. Our spiritual formation program has the goal of deepening and widening the prayer vocabulary of students as well as building their confidence in providing spiritual direction to others. We want students to be excited about rendering spiritual and intellectual leadership in ministry.

Second, students need to nurture the interrelation of prayer, study and service. Theological education in this country, especially among Protestants, has not consistently held these activities together. However, we have found at Duke that theological education as a whole must be a consistent explication of the statement, "We are Christians." We must illumine beliefs and practices in such a way that one does not exist intelligibly without the other.

A seminary's success or failure ought to be measured by how well the interrelation of beliefs and practices is articulated, forming students to see their study, prayer and service as a complex, integrated whole. Much of North American church life and seminary life presses a wedge between Christian beliefs and practices. Our spiritual formation program aims to make students more intentional about living out the deep connections between Christian beliefs and practices. Hence, we have asked our students to reflect in their spiritual formation groups about the impact of their service (in local congregations, social ministries or mission teams) on their study and their prayer.

The third need is to grasp the significance of "life together" (to borrow a term from Bonhoeffer) as the fundamental shape of the spiritual journey. We are keenly aware of the persistent individualism in popular Christian piety. Many students arrive at divinity school convinced that spirituality is an individualistic endeavor that may be pursued in commodified, consumerist terms. They need to discover that, while prayer and the spiritual life are profoundly personal, involving a person's relationship with God, any personal relationship is also determinatively communal.