In the book, Invitation to a Journey: A Road Map for Spiritual Formation, M. Robert Mulholland Jr. talks about the comparisons of spiritual and physical formation. This formation involves taking steps to be similar to the likeness of Christ for the purpose of others. He talks about how spirituality is a journey. This Christian journey, of forming our spirituality, takes us on the path of accepting God’s rule of our life. This is a gradual process and does not happen quickly.
In the prologue, Mulholland makes it clear that spiritual formation is an urgent need in today’s culture. He explains in the book that this is a journey, by saying that Christians view their spiritual life as a possession instead of growing to be like Christ. The prologue goes on to talk briefly about the four parts in the book: “The Road Map, The Vehicle, The Journey, and Companions on the Way.”
Part One of the book is “The Road Map: The Nature of Spiritual Formation.” Mulholland begins this part by saying that today’s people think viewing spiritual formation as a journey is wrong and against our society. He wants us to view our spiritual journey has a process and when we do this, we begin to become closer to Christ. “The Road Map” is broken up into four parts. In Chapter 1, “The Process”, he describes this growth process as “Spiritual growth is, in large measure, patterned on the nature of physical growth”. (25) He continues with “We expect that infant to grow into maturity according to the processes that God has ordained for physical growth to wholeness. The same thing is true of our spiritual life”. (25) He is telling us that this process is similar to our physical growth and is also a process that each human gets thrown into. All of life decisions are related to the growth in our self. He calls this universal process of spiritual growth a “primal reality of human existence” (27). This is a process of being led to Christ’s image.
The process of being led to Christ prevents us from being led to our self and to others. The big issue here is that we have to control our self by contributing our time to all. Our contribution will be led by Christ’s process and he will allow us to transform grace and to hold our love for him with others. Mulholland helps get this point across by saying: “from acting to bring about the desired results in our lives to being acted upon by God and responding in ways that allow God to bring about God’s purposes” (37). Our spiritual journey is to give our life to God, follow him, and wait to see where he leads us to.
This process of the image of Christ takes place at where we stand with Christ, as the first dynamics in formation, is a confrontation. This process helps us find our cross or go out and find a place to spread the news of Christ’s image. To make this happen, we first need a consecration. In consecration, the people must clean up the cross point and accept the work of Christ. When you find your cross and spread the news and allow the work of Christ, the process of Christ image will be transformed. This is key to forming a journey and is part of the author’s definition of spiritual formation.
Finally, invitation is a significant factor in how our spiritual formation can affect people around us. God wants us to be in relationships with him and other people. God gets disappointed when people start having relationships with people who do not follow him and his words. Christ wants us to become like him and spread the news he made and to become more like him. God also tests our faith with him through temptations. This world is full of temptations and is hard to follow God and to be like him. He knows these temptations are real and he helps us to find ways to make up for them like reading scripture or daily devotionals. Christ sacrificed himself for us so that we all would be called into the transforming process of spiritual formation.
The first lecture we had was about what we will get out of this class and how to grow in our faith with Christ. The chapters talked about the road map on how to grow in our faith and not to run laps. The book and lectures both gave me a map on how to grow in my faith and to become more like Christ. Going to church and prayer is just part of being a Christian. We have to go out and help and serve other people. By doing this we will start to spread the good news of Christ. The second lecture we talked about three stages in our Christian life. The stages in the lectures reminded myself of the road map. Stage one is God laying the foundation for us and helping us find friends, interests, talents and our abilities. Stage two was growing as a Christian and becoming more with Christ. Stage three was growing with others and becoming more of a spiritual leader. All of these stages have test and challenges just like our road map with Christ will have. The author’s purpose of writing this book is to get Christians to become more like Christ. He wants us to follow these steps to deepen our relationship with Christ. The way he sets it out for us, like a road map, is the best way. As a reader, it is easy to follow a map and understand what is happening. If you get lost in the map. it is just like being lost with God and have to find your way back to him.
I grew up in a Catholic Church all my life, attended church every weekend and went to a catholic school from kindergarten through eighth grade. I moved over to the public school for my freshman year of high school. After I settled in at the high school, I started to realize that not all people are Christians in my class. I live in a small town and I thought most people believed in God. I was wrong. I continued my religion education by attending classes every Wednesday night to keep my faith going. During my junior and senior year of high school, I attended the same classes, was playing sports, and had a girlfriend. Sports and a girlfriend were taking a lot of my time and I started to fade away from God. I would go to religious classes and not really get anything out of it because I did not want to be there. I thought I had better things to do. Now looking back on it, I was fading away from God and my relationship with him was becoming weaker. Temptations entered my life and I fell into the instant gratification stage. Life was all about me and getting what I wanted now. While this was happening, I was looking into colleges. The only thing I knew was that I wanted to play golf in college. Crown College popped up as a place where I could have the opportunity to do that. I was not so sure about a private Christian College. I just wanted to golf. I went to chapel on one of my visits and the talk was about keeping your family and friends close and how to live a Christian life. I started to listen and was eager to hear more. This was my turning point. I started to make changes in my life, broke up with my girlfriend and started to live life more Christ like. I began to love and serve the Lord. While being at Crown my relationship with God has become much better and is still growing. I strongly believe that God was guiding me to come here. He is still guiding me in this journey. I am currently struggling to pin down a major and after reading the assigned text, I feel like He will lead me to my career destination. This Christian minor is helping me regain my faith and to have a deeper life in Christ. Mulholland’s book has opened my eyes when it comes to my spiritual life and how it truly is a journey. I came here feeling that I was in control of my spiritual life. I felt like I determined my faith by my actions or methods. I was in the driver’s seat. I was so wrong. God is working behind the scenes to move me to a closer relationship with him. God is driving, He is in control and I cannot wait to see where the destination will be.
