Articles


Alister McGrath
Encountering Biblical Spirituality

More and more evangelicals are discovering the importance of spirituality. This can be seen from the large number of conferences and books devoted to these themes, often featuring such leading evangelical writers in this field as Eugene... Read More


David Benner
The Heart's Desire

The human journey—particularly our spiritual journey—is profoundly shaped by our deepest desires. More often than we expect, we get what we most desire. This is why it is so crucial that our basic heart direction be solidly grounded in God... Read More


Dallas Willard
Spiritual Disciplines, Spiritual Formation, and the Restoration of the Soul

After clarifying background assumptions, I proceed to a description of the soul as the source and coordinating principle of the individual life, referring to classical and biblical sources. The soul is presented as distinct from the person,... Read More


Steve Porter
Sanctification in a New Key: Relieving Evangelical Anxieties Over Spiritual Formation

Introduction
I will begin by asserting that the topic of spiritual formation within evangelicalism is simply the Protestant doctrine of sanctification in a new key.  The Protestant theological category of... Read More


Jan Johnson
Spiritual Meditation: Welcoming God Each Time

For years I’ve been practicing and teaching the familiar styles of Scripture meditation, but it seems that only recently I’ve begun to grasp this basic point: each time I approach the Scripture, I need to deliberately and submissively give... Read More


Bruce Demarest
Reclaiming Wisdom: A Gracious Reversal

As my wife frowned, my mind drifted back to my youth, when I was a high school student in the New York City borough of Queens. The public school I attended was located half a mile from a large Catholic high school. Relations between the two... Read More


Dallas Willard
Why Bother With Discipleship

If we are Christians simply by believing that Jesus died for  our sins, then that is all it takes to have sins forgiven and go to heaven when we die.  Why, then, do some people keep insisting that something more than this is desirable? ... Read More


Richard Averbeck
The Human Spirit in Spiritual Formation

Spiritual formation is increasingly becoming a term used in the academy and in the church here and around the world for a kind of ministry that focuses on going deeper and farther with Christ in the life of the individual Christian and the... Read More


David Benner
Will and Desire

I recently had an interesting conversation with a friend who just finished reading my book Surrender to Love. He didn’t like it. He told me the title had put him off because it suggested a spirituality of passivity and weakness. Having broken... Read More


Gordon T. Smith
Spiritual Direction, Pastoral Care and Friendship

We are all called to the task of discernment. Each of us can hear the voice of Jesus. Yet we are able to listen only if we are women and men who live in dynamic community with others who challenge and encourage us. We do not walk this road... Read More


Adele Ahlberg Calhoun
Discovering Your Desire

WEEK AFTER WEEK good church people come to me with their R-rated lives and a question: “Does God’s presence in me really change anything?” A woman who reads the Bible every day asks, “Why don't I get something out of all that reading? Isn’t... Read More


Greg Peters
The Holy Spirit in Spiritual Theology

Introduction
In his Institutes, the fifth century monk and ascetical theologian John Cassian relates some words of wisdom that he and his friend Germanus... Read More


John Coe
Resisting the Temptation of Moral Formation: Opening to Spiritual Formation in the Cross and the Spirit

Abstract

There are many dedicated Christians who are in the grips of a great moral temptation, which attempts to deal with spiritual failure, guilt and shame by means of spiritual effort and disciplines... Read More


Larry Crabb
Spiritual Direction: Entering the Battle That's Already Been Won

In December 1985, 7,000 therapists gathered in Phoenix, Arizona, to hear more than twenty of the leading theorists and practitioners of psychotherapy in the world come together in a serious attempt at dialogue, clarity, and... Read More


Larry Warner
A Word About Retreats

It seems like today more and more Christians are going away for a “retreat“. They are taking a day or even a weekend to get away, sometimes in groups and other times individually. Now if you are not familiar with the concept of retreats you... Read More


Michael Wilkins
Disciple-Making for Changing Times and Changing Churches

As I stand on a bluff overlooking the blue Pacific Ocean near our home in Southern California, I watch lines of waves forming far out on the horizon.  The waves that finally break near shore are much larger today than... Read More


Tom Ashbrook
The Right Discplines at the Right Time: Understanding the Journey with Teresa of Avila

I was sitting at Holy Trinity Abbey in Huntsville, Utah, staring off toward the craggy snow-capped mountains, wondering what this turn of events in my life might mean.  A year earlier, a Trappist Monastery would have been the last place I... Read More


Bruce Demarest
Mysticism: Peril or Promise?

What Do We Mean?
Satiated with consumerism, technological gizmos, and frenetic activity, people of all stripes are exploring the mystical realm. We all resonate with moments of elevated wonder triggered by a beautiful... Read More


David Benner
Love and Fear

Einstein stated that one of the most important questions facing every individual is whether or not the universe is friendly. It would appear that for the majority of human history most people have not believed that it is. The gods seem to be... Read More