Formation Prioritized

To be clear, there isn't much commentary in this blog. The focus is aimed at my experience being in a 9-month cohort called, "School of Formation". Keep reading! You may learn something you didn't know about me, spiritual formation, or a guy named Rich Villodas!

In August of 2023, I began my experience with a 9-month cohort called, "School of Formation". School of Formation is a ministry born out of New Life Fellowship Church in Queens, New York. You may be familiar with the "Emotionally Healthy" discipleship, spirituality, leadership, relationships, and church work of Pete Scazzero. Pete founded New Life and served as the Lead Pastor there for many years until Rich Villodas was slowly transitioned into the position in 2013.

Rich Villodas has written, "Deeply Formed Life", "Good, Beautiful, and Kind", and is releasing his third book, "The Narrow Path" in July. Rich is passionate about the Kingdom of God, participating in the life of the diverse family of God, incorporating a balance of slowed down rhythms and mission, seeing our daily lives as ministry, and embodying the good news of God's inbreaking Kingdom through justice (just to name a few).

Through collaboration, Rich and his friend, Andres, brought School of Formation to life as a way to invite ministry leaders from around the world to journey through 9 months of intentional, vulnerable, and communal "heart work". The goal of School of Formation is to train leaders to live and lead deeply formed lives through the understanding and practice of 5 values laid out in Rich's book, "The Deeply Formed Life".

The work of Pete Scazzero, Rich Villodas, and New Life Fellowship have spoken to my soul and brought fresh understandings to leadership, ministry, and spiritual formation since 2020. The combination of unrest, frustration in my soul toward the American Church, and a couple gentle nudges from friends, led me to apply for School of Formation. I was more than willing to continue to learn and uncover some unknown/hidden parts of me before God through this new community of 75+ people! I was anticipating the 9 months to be difficult, but my goodness was it DIFFICULT.

For the sake of clarity and sparing you ALL the details (though if you know me well, my "short" version of these kinds of things can still be long), I'll outline my 9 month experience in categories below:

What were the values that we explored?

1. Contemplative Rhythms

Slowing down our lives through intentional practices found in the life and rhythms of Jesus. The goal of this is to simply BE before we DO, to learn to enjoy the daily presence of God, and to be formed over time into people of love in Christ. Contemplative rhythms are a form of resistance in our culture of busyness, hurriedness, distraction, and productivity. Through a mysterious process of the Spirit's work to transform our hearts, and our own efforts to create space for the Spirit to work through contemplative rhythms, we will become more and more like Jesus and operate out of a place of love and embrace.

2. Interior Examination

Inviting God into the deeper parts of who we are and what lies under the surface of who we are. This is essentially an echo of Psalm 139:23-24 "Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." The goal of this is freedom! Freedom from destructive thought patterns, inner messages, and the ways we wrongly perceive things. We focused on examining our family of origin and the patterns, trauma, and scripts that we carry as a result of. We also examined our anxiety, feelings, and reactions. In a way, interior examination is a form of self-awareness. However, this kind of self-awareness is focused on increasing your ability to love others better and to receive love better.

3. Sexual Wholeness

Moving toward integration of our spirituality and sexuality by naming the sexual messages that have deformed us, the practice of sobriety (honesty), reframing addiction, the practice of confession to God and people (yes, even as pastors), rooting out shame, the practice of social bonding, the practice of touch, and the practice of love-making (for those in marriage relationships). We operated out of the sexual ethics we see in the teachings and life of Jesus and Debra Hirsch's definitions of spirituality and sexuality:

Spirituality- the desire to know and be known by God

Sexuality- the desire to know and be known by people

4. Racial Reconciliation

Seeing racism as a Gospel issue, reframing "white supremacy" as theft of power, wealth, and history, and recognizing that the primary fruit of the Gospel is a new humanity/family where the cross has broken down all walls of hostility. We can embody racial reconciliation through the practice of remembering, incarnational listening, lament (individual and communal), reconciling prayer, racial self-examination, renouncement of whiteness, and confession-repentance-forgiveness.

5. Missional Presence

Expanding the tool-box of evangelism and reclaiming the power of an "everyday mission" that moves beyond transactional/aggressive ways of relating to the world. Missional presence is focused first on who we are becoming before what we do. Missional presence acknowledges that God is already at work in the world and in every human we encounter, and we simply get to pay attention and join Him in that work. Missional presence is a posture that sees God FOR all people in the world. "In God, for the world" as Rich Villodas says. We "creatively withdraw" from destructive paths in our world, but live out of a posture that is FOR all people. We practice missional presence through hospitality (creating space for the Gospel), through justice work ("love in public" for the desire to preserve what is good and restore what is broken), through seeing our daily work as ministry, and announcing the Gospel through flexible and contextualized ways (there is no "one size fits all" gospel presentation).

Oofta! I just unpacked a condensed version of the "what" I've been learning over 9 months and you've made it this far. Congrats! I guess that means you're kind of interested? Now for the METHOD, or the HOW we engaged these topics:

How did I engage with these topics? Below was the monthly rhythm I gave myself to:

First week of the month: 3 hour Teaching/Lecture with breakout times to process with our mentor group

Second week of the month: Engaging with reading assignments and reflective writing assignments

Third week of the month: 2 hours with our Mentor Groups consisting of a few people that we committed to sharing life with

Fourth week of the month: Engaging with reading assignments and reflective writing assignments

The most powerful element of my School of Formation experience was my time in my mentor group each month. It was there that God did most of His healing work in my life, primarily through means of rooting out shame, developing a value of honesty/openness in the family of God, and affirmation of my leadership and deep desires to know and be known by others. Shout out to Afrika, Sandhya, Mandy, and Mel for committing to me, loving me, challenging me, and being family to me. Much love to you all!

How did we wrap up this 9-month experience?

We concluded our experience with an in person only weekend retreat in Long Island, New York. 75+ of us enjoyed one another's presence, being with Rich and Andres in person, and celebrating all God had done together. Below is all the "stuff" we engaged in on the retreat:

-Practice of silent prayer in community

-Lectures

-Practice of prophetic prayer in community

-"Playing" together (games, laughter, and just being silly)

-Practice of lectio divina, silent prayer, and listening prayer over a 3 hour period of time alone

-Worship through song

-Practice of interior examination and confession with one another

-Participating in communion together

-Processing the work of God in our lives in our mentor groups

-Enjoying meals together

-Late night basketball

-So much more...you'll just have to experience it for yourself ;)

Shortly after this experience, our "personal formation plans" were due where we got to lay out a plan for our continual formation in Christ and the 5 values above within our contexts. With one final goodbye, we all joined in for our last zoom call where Rich and our personal mentors sent us out with final encouragements and commissioned us to be IN Christ FOR the world.

I have ZERO regrets with committing to this 9-month School of Formation experience, and I highly recommend any ministry leader to look into applying. Of course this isn't the ONLY way to prioritize your own formation, but I wonder what God could do in your life if you opened yourself up to Him in the presence of other people from all over the world as you slowly journey through contemplative rhythms, interior examination, sexual wholeness, racial reconciliation, and missional presence.

I walked away with many gifts from God:

1. naming and dealing with some serious shame in my life

2. learned language and frameworks that help with my understanding, teaching, and practice of the Gospel

3. identifying trauma within my family of origin

4. a more beautiful understanding of sexuality

5. a bigger picture of God's family and gaining new friends

6. the experience of feeling seen to my core and receiving love from others

7. continued understanding and passion for spiritual formation and practices

8. my cynicism continuing to be chipped away

9. new hope for what "evangelism" is and can be

10. more willingness to open myself up to the Spirit's power

Friends, make your own formation a priority! There are many gifts waiting in the journey. May we all become increasingly more like Jesus as we spend time being with Him. The outcome? A human being that is at rest, in Christ, for the world, more loving, and offering a non-anxious presence to those around us. That's the life I want. What about you?

Peace,

Ryan