118 Beyond Discipleship: The Future of Spiritual Formation (with Kyle Strobel)

What exactly is spiritual formation? Is it similar or different than discipleship? And who is having this conversation about spiritual formation anyway?

In this episode of the Attaching to God podcast, hosted by Geoff Holsclaw and produced by Embodied Faith, the focus is on spiritual formation—what it is, how it compares to discipleship, and its future. Dr. Strobel shares his journey into this field, discusses the historical background of spiritual formation within evangelicalism, and explains the importance of integrating theological depth into spiritual practices. Concerns about the potential pitfalls of spiritual formation becoming a mere self-help concept and the need for ecclesial context and communal life are highlighted.

Dr. Kyle Strobel is the director of the Institute for Spiritual Formation and is associate professor of spiritual theology at Talbot School of Theology, Biola University, who writes and teaches in the area of spiritual formation. He is most recently the co-author of the book, Where Prayer Becomes Real: How Honesty with God Transforms Your Soul.

Be sure to follow his writing on his Substack. 

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Transcript

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Geoff Holsclaw: What is spiritual formation? What is it exactly? Is it similar or different than discipleship? And who is having this conversation about spiritual formation? Anyways, this is what we're talking about today. On the Attaching to God podcast, does spiritual formation have a future As always. We are produced by Embodied Faith.

I'm your host, Geoff Holsclaw, and we are exploring a neuroscience informed spiritual information. I got my Cubs hat on for those of you who are watching on YouTube because baseball season is almost here where Hope Springs Eternal for all of you Cubs fan and other fans. And I just found out that Kyle, our guest, uh, Dr.

Kyle Strobel is also, well, I don't know if you are a Cups fan, but you recognize my hat, so that's great. Our guest today is Dr. Kyle Strobel, [00:01:00] who is the director of the Institute for Spiritual Formation and is also an associate professor of spiritual theology at Talbot School of Theology, which is based within Biola University down in lovely southern California.

He writes books and teaches in the area of spiritual formation, and most recently is co-authored a book called, where Prayer Becomes Real Subtitled How Honesty With God Transforms Your Soul. Dr. Strobel, thank you so much for being on with us today.

Kyle Strobel: Hey Geoff. Good to be with you, man. I'm happy to do it.

Geoff Holsclaw: Yeah, well I reached out to you 'cause you had this post, uh, I don't know, a couple weeks or a couple months ago called The Future of Spiritual Information. I was like, ah, I gotta talk to him about that. Uh, so we're gonna, you kind of proposed a couple things for moving the conversation forward, but I kind of wanna backfill for some of our listeners, uh, who don't know who you are or don't even know that.

There's a thing called the spiritual formation Movement, which had like recently a summit, a secret summit, you know that. And so, so you [00:02:00] could fill that in. But you're, you and I, I think are both, uh, we were trained as systematic Theo theologians. Uh, but now we're kind of in different fields. Uh, people probably know my history a little bit, but how did you get into what you're doing?

You started teaching something, maybe that was off topic, maybe from what you thought, but, uh, you kind of see it as being really helpful for you, at least I think.

Kyle Strobel: Yeah, no, no. This has been one of the great gifts God has given me is, is teaching in this area and, and not just slotting me into a kind of traditional systematic theology track. Um, I have a really eclectic background, so, um, originally Bible, so I was undergrad bible major and I did a master's in New Testament, and the plan was, I'm gonna go on to do a, a PhD in either New Testament or biblical theology.

I had done a philosophy degree along the way. I, my first master's was in philosophy, so I, I, I was interested, maybe I gonna go in that route and I, it was right around this time that at, when I was a student at Talbot, our Institute for Spiritual Transformation began to start [00:03:00] and I had just, I had never seen anything like it and I kind of had begun to realize simultaneously that whatever guild I was trying to situate myself in, I just had different questions and I was.

I was struck by kind of existential questions. I, I wanted to understand growth. I wanted to understand life of God. Um, I had been mentored by people Willard mentored. And so Dallas Willard both directly and then indirectly through them, had had a huge impact on my life. And I, I began to study in our institute, which brought together, um, some psychologists, some philosophers, and some theologians.

All to wrestle together around the question of human formation and growth in in the Lord. And when I did that, I was just like, I've never, I didn't even know you could do this. Like this is what I wanna do. And so I left there to do a PhD in theology because it was my conviction then, and it remains to be now that the biggest problem that the spiritual formation conversation [00:04:00] has is it tends to be theologically illiterate.

Geoff Holsclaw: Hmm.

Kyle Strobel: there is a kind of gap in spiritual theology with, and it is the theology. And we often just insert other things in that instead of doing theology. And so I went off and I, I ended up doing my PhD in Jonathan Edwards. Um, so those, you don't, Joe, Jonathan Edwards, he was an 18th century. We tend to call him American, although.

Technically he was British. Um, the war hadn't happened yet. Um, it feels a little bit more American just to kind of own him.

Geoff Holsclaw: Jonathan Edwards away from us.

Kyle Strobel: we gotta own him, but it's even.

Geoff Holsclaw: He's the great American theologian that, I mean, some people do not like him, but at least he's like, oh man, I have to rethink my whole church history in America now. All right. All right.

Kyle Strobel: So I studied Edwards and you know, in part it was because I wanted to study someone who, and Edwards is really the last wave of people where theology and spirituality were one thing, not two. I. And before the [00:05:00] enlightenment, I kind of eradicated the experiential dynamics of, of, of theology. And so, um, I studied there was that, my plan was to kind of, you know, just teach theology that was experientially kind of infused.

And then I got hired by Talbot to do spiritual theology. And so at Talbot, every seminary student in general has to do a year and a half of spiritual theology. But then at the institute we have our own programs, um, and. We don't let other seminary students take our programs actually, because they're, um, they're cohort based, highly kind of vulnerable and experiential, so we kind of protect that.

But we have a version of that that every seminary student does take. And so I, I primarily teach 'em both of these contexts and I get to integrate the questions of what does it mean to live before the face of God? So it's been pretty great.

Geoff Holsclaw: And how do you see that as having been, um, a providential move of God in your life that you didn't get

Kyle Strobel: Yeah. Oh man. No,

Geoff Holsclaw: get siloed with the nerdy systematic theologians?

Kyle Strobel: totally, you know, it, it [00:06:00] forced me, you know, coming out of a PhD, I think the temptation is to teach students into a guild. I. Because you inevitably come to take on the kind of virtues of the guild. And so a lot of my friends that have done that, the kind of goal of their teaching is to make students good readers of ancient texts.

And I wanna be like, that's, that's a good thing. I suppose that's not, that's not a good ultimate end though, like. You could be a terrible reader of ancient text and a wonderful theologian. And so I want, I, I was forced to kind of get into these classes that were, were asking questions about what does it mean to love my neighbor as myself, or why do I fall asleep when I pray?

Or why does my mind wander when I pray? And now I had to use all of my theological resources. To kind of land the plane in the lived reality of life with God. And that's just been a gift. I, I, I wouldn't, there's so many important [00:07:00] questions that are actually the questions people are asking that I could have just outsourced to someone else because I don't have to deal with that in here.

We're talking about nyia or something, whereas I wanna integrate it all together and really land the plane with the questions of, of people's lives. And so that, that has been a great gift to kind of force me to do that because unfortunately. In the academy, if we're not forced into some of these questions, we just won't ask them.

Geoff Holsclaw: Yeah, for sure. Well, the, uh, you talked about being gilded. I, I, the language I've heard sometimes is siloed is that we have all these disciplines that are in their own little silos and they don't talk to each other. Uh, and is that really good for. Uh, forming pastors or forming spiritual directors or, or even therapists and others where everything has its own kind of world.

So yeah, this, this whole podcast is kind of conceived as an interdisciplinary, if you wanna use a fancy kind of language, um, endeavor where we get out of our silos. Uh. We want to be really practical. So to be practical, the, uh, a famous definition if we're gonna go into [00:08:00] spiritual formation. We're gonna shift gears now enough about you.

Uh, but, uh, you know, Robert Muhan, he has his famous definition of spiritual formation as the process of being formed in, into the image of Christ for the sake of others, which is great. Um, but what is, you know, when you're starting a conversation or teaching about spiritual formation, uh, how do you define it?

Where, what's, how do you start that?

Kyle Strobel: I actually love his definition. Um, I usually use a little bit of a shorter definition, which is just the spirit's work to form us into the likeness of Jesus and I. I assume that is going to include for the sake of others because it is in the likeness of Jesus. I, I use likeness language rather than image language because of how I understand the image of God.

But that's kind of gets into kind of nerdy things and I, I, I wouldn't overly worry about that. Um, so I wouldn't be against his definition by any stretch, but that's how I normally do it.

Geoff Holsclaw: All the listeners of this podcast who have any kind of inkling with Eastern Orthodox, you're like, oh, I know what he's talking about. But [00:09:00] for the rest of you, don't worry about it. We'll continue on. Okay. So, uh, could you say that one more time? The spirits work.

Kyle Strobel: The spirit's work to form us into the likeness of Jesus.

Geoff Holsclaw: Okay. I like that likeness of Jesus, not of Christ, but I like that too. It's so. Could you give, especially for those who maybe have no idea, like there is kind of a history of the spiritual formation movement, especially among evangelicals. Like there's kind of a, a different history among Catholics and blah.

But if you could kind of fill that out a little bit as a way of setting the stage for a conversation about, well, what is the future for spiritual formation? So can you give us that history a

Kyle Strobel: Sure. Yeah. Yeah. So typically the, the current iteration, um, and I, you know, part of my expertise is actually in the history of evangelical spirituality. So this is a conversation we've always had, but there's always these moments of ebb and flowing. And the newest conversation tends to be seen as starting around 1978, and that's when Richard Foster published celebration of discipline. And so Foster who started [00:10:00] rere,

Geoff Holsclaw: That's also when I was born. I mean, that's kind

Kyle Strobel: that's what I was born. I just

Geoff Holsclaw: there we

Kyle Strobel: it was really more about our

Geoff Holsclaw: passed over? Yes, I know. That's what I'm talking about. I think we're fitting into the, the, the meanness of, uh, maybe contemporary spiritual information. It all comes back to me, but, okay. Sorry about that.

So, okay, so 1978, we were both born, but Richard Foster also

Kyle Strobel: He also did something, you know, so he publishes this book and, you know, for Richard the, the problem was he's looking at the church and he's seeing a church that is becoming increasingly worldly and they've just kind of accepted a very superficial vision of life with God. And no one was talking about things that we used to always talk about.

So Richard was one that saying, we used to talk about this. We used to talk about silence and solitude. We used to talk about contemplation. We're like, why aren't we talking about these things anymore? I. And so Richard publishes his book and there's a lot of folks now think in terms of three waves of [00:11:00] these things.

And so the first wave of these kind of initial folks that come out and really they're just saying there's a problem. We need to kind of come up with answers about what does formation actually look like? I. And then you have a wave of these kind of, um, you know, of publishing mostly. And you, you begin to see kind of, um, institutions and really that became more ministry start forming.

And then you see this wave of the kind of institutionalization within the academy. And so, you know, about 22, 23 years ago, the Institute for Spiritual Nation here was formed, like we're a part of that kind of wave. We're now, this is where we're, we're assuming the question's a good one. We need to, we need to know what, what does it look like to be formed into the likeness of Jesus?

Right? What is the nature of the Christian life? What are the processes of developmental maturation? What are the directives of these things? Like, these are the kind of questions we have to wrestle through. And now these begin to be kind of institutionalized [00:12:00] and encoded in the institution. And so we now are asking the question, a lot of us that are the next generation, like, well, in light of that, well, what's next?

You know, what is? And that's when we had our secret society meeting, uh, to figure all these things out.

Geoff Holsclaw: Nice. Alright. Well, so I think a question that I have and that some people have is, well what, how is spiritual formation different than discipleship? Did people stop talking about discipleship if you were raised in the evangelical church? Certainly if you're over to the age of 40, you know, in your fifties or sixties, you're like, everyone I know we always talk about discipleship.

So is how does the spiritual formation movement and this thing called discipleship and I still, are they the same? Are they different?

Kyle Strobel: Yeah, no, it's, it's hard to answer that question 'cause I, I actually don't love the language of discipleship because it's become a kind of wax nose that you can form in whatever way you want. So when people use it has no content to it. So it's, you know, for some people it means doing apologetics. For some churches it means, you know, [00:13:00] studying, you know, Westminster.

For some churches it means doing spiritual practices like it. It just, and there's a lot of other, because mentoring or something like that, um, there's, you know, there's a lot of hard questions that we don't ask actually about disciple and discipleship language. Um, and so on my substack, I've been recently trying to, to wrestle with these things.

Like, for instance, the word disciple is never used in the Bible after the book of Acts.

Geoff Holsclaw: Mm-hmm.

Kyle Strobel: That's not an insignificant reality that we have to grapple with. Like, why does Paul never use the word disciple? And how, what do we need to think about that? Um, why is it replaced with holiness language? We are saints, but more significantly brother and sister, familial language and so.

Why do we grow up into Christ who is our head with a growth that is from God? As Paul says in Colossians two 19, and in the parallel passage in Ephesians four, it's growing up in love as every part is working properly. So it's a very [00:14:00] communal, very familial dynamic. I think discipleship, I mean, I, I, I wouldn't wanna get rid of the language.

I, I, I don't think we need, I don't think we need to go that far, but I, I do think most of the time when we use disciple categories and discipleship language, they tend to have nothing to do with what scripture says.

Geoff Holsclaw: Mm-hmm.

Kyle Strobel: And in my mind, they are far too often what I would call pre Pentecostal modes of spiritual formation.

And by that I mean

Geoff Holsclaw: I love it.

Kyle Strobel: it's, it, it ends up being, let's follow Jesus around Galilee as if he's our rabbi. Whereas I wanna say one, Jesus isn't your rabbi. Jesus is the ascended Lord of glory, who's reigning at the right hand of God in whose life you now live. And so whatever it looks like to follow Jesus. That has to be totally reimagined based on the ascension of Jesus, back to the right hand of God.

And so those, those categories shifted now to be post Pentecostal categories of life in the [00:15:00] spirit. And so I wanna, I wanna shift things that way a little more deeply.

Geoff Holsclaw: Yeah, I love that. The pre Pentecostal, I know the idea of like, well, we need to do the things Jesus did as a, um, a follower of Rabbi Jesus. And the irony sometimes is that, especially when you look at like the gospel of Mark, the disciples were called to be with him and then to be sent from him to do two things, which was to preach the gospel, which everybody loves, and to heal the sick and cast out the demons, which is like.

People often don't add when we talk about like the typical evangelical discipleship, that's why I'm a part of the vineyard. So I had to sneak that in there because it's like, if you're gonna do what, what, what Jesus did, he, he kinda cast out the demons and healed the sick. Um, I, I really like that too. You know, these, these words mean I.

Something different to so many different people. I do feel like the newer use of discipleship amongst people is more, um, it's just kind of interchangeable with spiritual information oftentimes. 'cause then they point back to the spiritual practices. But I, I do agree. I [00:16:00] I like what you said, like Jesus isn't just our rabbi, he's the risen, glorified savior who.

Died and conquered death, you know, and it's coming again. Right? And so that's different than, you know, he gave us a couple practices and wouldn't it be nice if we tried a little harder to follow him? He's like the, I actually, uh, I get in trouble because I changed Robert Al's, uh, language from formation to.

Con formation, like we're being conformed to Christ. And you know, Paul does speak that way too. I, I, I slipped that in there because I kind of like, I wanna tweak people a little bit because it's a very non-Western, like, oh, it's okay to be formed. Like, no, you're being conformed. Like, and that's usually a negative thing, but that's, that's out sight.

So thank you for that brief history. Um, what do you. What do you then see as like the future? Like what do you feel, you kind of laid out these three movements of kind of the initial kind of like, Hey, there's a problem here, let's rediscover these things. And then I think you said, maybe I got this wrong too.

Uh, wave two was like books and ministries and kind of getting the word [00:17:00] out. And then phase three is maybe the institutionalization was that Right? So then what is, like, what are your kind of hopes or there may be fears about the future of the spiritual permission conversation?

Kyle Strobel: yeah. I, I do have worries. I mean, I, I worry that it's being taken over by the Evangelical industrial complex.

Geoff Holsclaw: Uh

Kyle Strobel: I. That we're always just republishing the same book over and over and over again, which is do a bunch of spiritual practices to grow.

Geoff Holsclaw: mm-hmm.

Kyle Strobel: I, I worry that it is still a theological. Um, and you know, one of the questions I always ask if you're reading or listening to someone is, what is doing the work here?

Geoff Holsclaw: Uh.

Kyle Strobel: And I hear far too many people who just replace theology, which is gonna be fixated on God and God's action with pop psychology and sociology, I. And it just becomes this very thin, sort of self helpy kind of thing actually, um, that gravitates away from [00:18:00] fi being fixated on God to like fixing my life. And so I really worry about those sorts of things.

I, I do think to become more theological is going to lead us into being a little bit more, um. Ecclesial, like one of the downsides of the current discussion is it really hasn't been able to speak meaningfully about life in the church. It's been a little too fixated on individuals. Um, it's, I would say often a little too interested in periphery issues like silent solitude.

Great. We need to talk about that, but we also need to talk about listening to a sermon. Um, as one of the primal practices of a believer, like the church service in my mind is not an arbitrary or insignificant reality, and yet, because it was obvious to the people that started writing in this area, I. We often don't talk about the things we take as obvious, but then of course as generations come [00:19:00] along, they suddenly have taken on a vision that has absolutely nothing to do with the church and really can't answer why.

And I think some of that stems from what the movement has tried to do, which I think is good for a movement to begin this way, is to do a kind of mere Christian vision of these things.

Geoff Holsclaw: Mm-hmm.

Kyle Strobel: The problem with being a mere Christian is you actually can't really minister to people deeply from that frame. Like at some point you're gonna have to address concrete issues that are gonna require deeply theological and practical realities.

And so if we stay in this very generic mode, we actually won't end up doing something deep and rich. And so we need to, what I would say is we need to re tradition. Without losing the unity we have, like that's the worry about traditioning is now we can begin to fight. Whereas I wanna say, no, let's re tradition, but let's continue moving forward with what the goods have [00:20:00] been, which is one of the few places in the church today where we're highly invested in a, in a integrative account of life with Jesus.

And so we need to keep doing philosophical work, philis, um, psychological work, biblical work. We need to do more theological work. Let's do that and then let's help each other. Like, I wanna help you think, well, what does it mean to do this in the vineyard?

Geoff Holsclaw: Mm-hmm.

Kyle Strobel: That's gonna be different than my church. That's gonna be different for the Anglican.

That's like. We, let's help each other do those things well, but let's, let's push into the harder questions and let's push into the way the places where we, we actually are kind of rubbing up against each other going, wow, you think it's like that? That's interesting because I don't, um, we could bless each other while, while disagreeing with each other in these things.

Geoff Holsclaw: Yeah, so I was hearing a little bit that, uh, these are kind of the detriments, I think, rather than where we're going, which I want, uh. But it's, it, the communal life is kind of being forgotten. And I, I find that all the time where, [00:21:00] um, you know, we had someone leave our church, uh, several years ago, not because of COVID or the elections or anything right, but their, their conviction was like, well, you don't preach the word enough, which is not true actually.

Right. But. But the, the conviction, the, the feedback that this person got, which I thought, you know, one of our associate pastors, she was great. She said, well, no, we're calling you to do the word in your life and you don't like that. And it was like this real, like, we, you know, her, she was like, we've called you to, to move forward in these areas of your life and in the way you interacted with these people in these ministries that you're a part of and you don't like, you know, she's just like, I think that's why you're leaving.

You should stay and work out your sanctification, basically. But instead it was like, oh, no, like I don't wanna work out my salvation, uh, with one another. I want to just kind of pick and choose this kind of consumer kinda idea. I, I think I, so I run into another end, which is people who love the spiritual formation language.

Kind of because it's [00:22:00] detached from the church. Uh, and, you know, and, and Sarah Coley, she talks about armchair mystics and how people, you know, are now talking about the spiritual practice of contemplation, silence, and solitude. Um, and it, it's intentionally divorced from the church, which. And I'm sure you know this, when you read the life of all these mystics that people are excited about, you're like, they didn't divorce themselves from the church or orthodoxy.

Like that was their center on which all this other stuff was built. But too often I think we kind of grab bag, uh, these traditions and kind of just individualize them

Kyle Strobel: totally, yeah. You know, Bernard McGinn, when he, when he talks about this, I love a line he has where he says, in the Christian tradition, you'll never find a mystic who sought out to be a mystic. You'll find mystics. That became mystics because they wanted to be deeply Christian. it's not until the 20th century that we find mystics wanting to be mystics, and he highlights the shift that has occurred where you have these people, you know, divorcing themselves from the church, divorcing themselves from [00:23:00] orthodoxy in order to enter into something they call mysticism.

And he's saying, you will just not find this anywhere in the Christian tradition.

Geoff Holsclaw: right. Well, that'd be another podcast is, uh. Is mysticism and how it's, uh, kind of talked about, uh, these days. So what, can we talk a little bit more about that traditioning? Like what, um, 'cause you also talk about we don't need a mere spiritual formation. Like, um, and I, and I, I kind of run into this sometimes.

I'm always kind of, when I read spiritual formation books, I kind of wonder, do they have a theory of spirituality first before it's. Christian, I'm always a little concerned when it's like, well, let's talk about human spirituality. Although I think we can do that, um, to some extent. But then, you know, that feels kind of like then spiritual formation is just, just this general container that then we put a couple Christian things into it.

Kyle Strobel: That's right. Yeah. And that's what worries me is I, I I, I do think we can have a, we can talk about a lot actually in, in the mere category, the mere spirit formation. But I mean, as an obvious example, you know, I, I lean, [00:24:00] reformed in my theology, um, a reformed theology as a certain view of sin and a certain view of grace that's gonna lead us to talk about spiritual practices as means of grace. Wesleyans are gonna have a slightly different view of sin, slightly different views of grace, and it's all slight. It's all under the same umbrella. We're all brothers and sisters here, but that's gonna lead to a slightly different way to think about means of grace and how they function. Um, the, a pneumatology, for instance, right?

You're gonna have a theology of the spirit in these different traditions that's gonna lead you to talk about different things. Some people, you know, some traditions are gonna push into power language more, others are gonna push into the spirit. As love more. I mean, you brought up Sarah Coley. Sarah is gonna gonna have a particular interest in the apathetic into kind of dark contemplation and this, this ancient tradition about God's holy otherness that leads us [00:25:00] to be kind of really gonna, leads us into a kind of purgation because we need to be negated in order to kind of give ourselves to God.

Well, all those things like that makes a lot of sense in an Anglican tradition.

Geoff Holsclaw: Mm-hmm.

Kyle Strobel: The reform don't do as much with that now. Maybe it could be, well, we need to, so, so that's, that's an interesting conversation to have. Um, but a lot of these traditions, they're gonna give us a theology of these things That's leads us particularly to think about spiritual practices in certain ways, as well as give us certain kind of, um, expectations about what are the, what is the kind of phenomenological texture of growth.

Geoff Holsclaw: Mm-hmm.

Kyle Strobel: is growth like and what are, what should I anticipate and therefore, what does it mean to kind of care for souls in light of that reality? Like those, there's, and I don't, I, I shouldn't expect these are gonna be massively different. I. But if you look at a Catholic, compared to a Protestant, there's gonna be some huge differences there, right?

When you have a certain view of mortal and venial sin and what that does to infuse [00:26:00] grace and all these things that obviously on a, on a lay level, we're not even thinking about, but that's gonna have massive ramifications for how you kind of guide a soul. And so I wanna pay more attention to those things.

'cause if we don't actually get really deep into our theology on this stuff. What'll happen is spiritual formation will be become just natural formation.

Geoff Holsclaw: Mm-hmm.

Kyle Strobel: Um, the spirit will just become the kind of psychological equivalent of Red Bull or something. And we're gonna try to awaken our wills, infuse passion into our persons to just do things.

And at the end of the day, I'm gonna say, this is just. The world baptizing a kind of self-help strategy and naming a Christian when it isn't distinctively so.

Geoff Holsclaw: Well, so let's, let's dive into that. Uh, I was talking to a friend, he's Anglican, uh, JR. Rosco. We were, uh, together in DC just last week. And, you know, he, [00:27:00] he talks about spiritual formation and he was leading this group, uh, through these practices. And at one point he said, yeah, I made this comment that I thought was kinda like, no duh, but people really tripped over it, which is these practices are not like a life hack.

Silence and solitude is not an opt, a life optimization path, although some of the research says it is. Right. So this is where it gets confusing. Uh, but that's just natural formation though. So could you, 'cause I talk about this tension between, you know, um, I. Like spiritual formation and like our therapeutic culture.

Like they're not totally opposed, but they're not also totally aligned. Uh, and so how do you kind of see that trouble that maybe some of these practices or this way of thinking just ends up becoming a new kind of self-help, uh, pathway?

Kyle Strobel: Totally. Yeah. And, and it's hard because these are, they're, you're totally right about that. They're not totally contradictory and yet there's contradictions within them that we have to kind of name. And I think the mistake that people make, I think in this is that we, and there's a whole long story here in the 20th [00:28:00] century, um, but we tend to reduce things down to natural formation very quickly.

Yeah. And so we think that the Christian life is just becoming good and having a certain kind of life in certain sorts of ways. And so these practices end up just the, the kind of end of them, the goal of them becomes me having a certain kind of life rather than, and this goes back to the older language of means of grace.

Like if grace is God's self gift. So we just talk about grace is to talk about that God has given himself to you. The means of grace are first and foremost means of receiving from God, and to borrow Romans 12, one of presenting my body. As a living sacrifice to the Lord. Now, the sacrificial language there is important because the verb for sacrifice means to bring near.

So what you're doing in a sacrifice is you are bringing yourself near spiritual practices that [00:29:00] tell us isn't my life. It's me handing myself to God in light of what he has done for me. And so we can get either end of that wrong, like we can miss the foundation that God has given me and think that spiritual practices are somehow achieving that.

Like, I need to be good so God will receive me, or we can get the end wrong. And rather than giving myself to God, the goal could be fixing my life. But to your point, the reality is it kind of will fix your life. But you can fix your life and lose it, or you can lose your life for Christ's sake and find it right.

And that's where you're gonna get the tensions in here. And the lang, you know, the tradition has a lot of language for this to talk about these things. Well, um, I'm actually working on a book with Lucy Pep. I don't know if you know Lucy. Um, yeah. So Lucy's a dear friend of mine, and she and I are, are working on an edited volume on, in.

Infusion in the Christian [00:30:00] tradition, the Protestant tradition specifically, and infusion is the word we would use to differentiate natural growth, which is acquired. It's the things that we develop habits for versus infused growth, which is based on God giving himself to us in infused grace. And so that, that distinction is gonna be really important to kind of separate out the two ways we grow.

Geoff Holsclaw: Mm hmm. That's so good. I think the, the rub that, uh, and you named it, you know, with Romans 12 one, there, I. Is to offer your body as a living sacrifice. That, that in certain circles, that's the rub, which is the therapeutic culture. Well, sacrificial language is, is bad. That's detrimental to, uh, building a positive self-image or self-esteem or self-acceptance, self-compassion.

Um, at. And yet that's like very essential to the Christian kind of formation language as you are formed through dying. Uh, that in certain circles that becomes a big tension, um, in kind of our, our self kind [00:31:00] of self-actualization still is technically the right word is nobody uses it anymore. Well, so to, so to keep it, uh, kind of practical, like, uh, what is going back to your definition, so is the spirit's work to form us?

Um. I, I didn't quite get the end of it. The form is to be like Jesus. So what would be, uh, how can we kind of sum up this for, uh, listeners? Like what should spiritual formation be like when they're, if they're thinking about spiritual formation, their own spiritual information, or these practices, like what is like the one thing you'd want to be sure to keep before them?

Kyle Strobel: Yeah, the language I love that I keep going back to is the language of Hebrews. Therefore, draw near

Geoff Holsclaw: Hmm.

Kyle Strobel: You have been given access to the father.

Geoff Holsclaw: the

Kyle Strobel: Boldly. Yeah, boldly. Ascend of the throne of grace, right? So there's, because of the work, and of course the author of Hebrews is reflecting on Exodus where the call is, don't draw near lest you die.

Geoff Holsclaw: Yeah.

Kyle Strobel: So Jesus has done something so that now it's bold, [00:32:00] boldly come near and, and so these spiritual practices aren't there to fix your life. They're there to. To, to draw near to your Lord and to trust that it is true, that your life is hidden with Christ in God as Paul tells us in Colossians three. And so if you want to, if you wanna find your life, you have to come to Jesus and to use one of my favorite expressions of modern, um, um, the 20th Century Spirits formation coming from Von Bazar.

Geoff Holsclaw: love him.

Kyle Strobel: At, at, if Von Ball says he's, I mean, he's like Chesterton in terms of when he, he, when he gets a line, it just, it, it just hits hard. And he says, at no, at no amount of soul searching would Simon, the fisherman have ever discovered Peter.

Geoff Holsclaw: Mm.

Kyle Strobel: The Lord had to speak that over him.

Geoff Holsclaw: Right.

Kyle Strobel: And, and so I would instant.

Geoff Holsclaw: a new vocation. It's, yeah, it's brand new. Yep.

Kyle Strobel: It's brand new and I, and so come to Jesus to find yourself [00:33:00] and, and, and then to borrow a bit of Luther. If you look at yourself apart from Christ, you're done for. So stop trying to look at yourself apart from Christ. Instead look to Christ and find your life hidden with Christ in God. That is the invitation I think.

Geoff Holsclaw: Yeah. Amen. Well, to wrap it up to, uh, the themes of this podcast specifically at, in our focus, like on, uh, at attachments attachment theory attached to God, like the idea of boldly approaching the throne of grace comes from, um, the sense that we're a part of God's family. And so like little kids can barge into their dad's study, uh, because they're welcome at any time even, you know, even though I'm trying to get stuff done right.

But, but they, they. Barge in, you know, and so we, you know, if our primary attachment is to God, uh, rather than the status or achievements or, you know, possessions or other things, then, you know, as a family member, I, I, that's what, so just for all of you listeners, it really stood out to be that. Shift from discipleship language, which you get, especially in the gospels [00:34:00] to saints language, but then also to people language, but then especially family language.

And it is who is your primary family? Who is your primary attachment? And that's what the formation is doing. I never forget my, my spiritual director was like, Hey Geoff, it's great if you're gonna try to be better at fasting, but remember you're supposed to love God and others. That's the goal. The goal isn't to be better at fasting.

The goal is to love God and love others, and that these are just kind of different me, well tested centuries, centuries, millennial, long tested, uh, mechanisms to try to get at that love. As John Cassian said, you know, it's the purity of heart that we're seeking so we can love God and receive God's love better.

Well, any last thought before I let you go?

Kyle Strobel: No, I, I just think that's one. I think that's exactly right. It's, it's, we have to constantly keep before our, our view, um, and to, to borrow Cassian's language. Um, since you turned to him, you know, discretion is discern your calling and discern your vocation. Most of you aren't monks. My would be my guess. [00:35:00] Um, don't feel overburdened.

If you're a mom with three kids and you can't find silence and solitude and contemplation makes no sense for you. Um, be where the Lord has called you and draw near to him in everything he's given himself to you and that, that that is the call. It's not a call to be somewhere else, but it's a call to be with him where he has you.

Geoff Holsclaw: Amen. We are seeking to attach to God who is already attached to us. We love God because God first loved us. We don't have to earn all that well. So where could people keep track of you or what are some of the work that, uh, you're up to?

Kyle Strobel: Yeah, best place is, um, Substack, which is just kyle strobel.substack.com. Um, and you could subscribe for free. I, I do a lot of free stuff on there. I do some paid stuff on there. Um, I am, you know, all around on all the general social media stuff, although I'm terrible at it and I'm kind of semi-pro of the fact that I'm terrible at it, so you won't find me on there all that much.

I am busy working on all sorts of book projects right now, so I, I've got, I've got much coming down the, the chain, but it's, um, [00:36:00] I'm, I'm, I'm in the midst of the, the crazy of that season, so.

Geoff Holsclaw: Nice. Very good. Well, I already, uh, we already talked before we started recording that, um, you got some new things in the works and so I'm gonna, where did I put my note? Here we go. Uh, philosophy, theology, and Psychology. That's gonna be our next time, uh, when we have Dr. Strobel on. Well, thank you so much for your time and, um, we just love and appreciate everything you're doing.

Kyle Strobel: Thanks, Geoff. Good to be with you brother.