I recently attended a workshop around Christian Spiritual Formation. The following was my submission after reflecting on the relational dimension of spiritual formation – enjoy and feel free to comment.

I chose relationships as the aspect that speaks to me within the seven Christian Spiritual Formation dimensions.

There are so many different aspects and challenges, as well as opportunities for Spiritual formation found in relationships.

First, crucial conversations are foundational to building lasting and honoring relationships. The ability to reach out and initiate a crucial conversation is one sign of a person that is willing and able to discuss issues with a potentially high emotional risk. Being able to communicate in this way is a gift.

Also, learning how to communicate to be understood rather than to be right is a vital skill in building true, intentional relationships with others.

There are also three specific roles in the arena of relationships. Looking at them from relationships in the bible is a great tool to understand these.

I’ve heard it said we all need a Paul, a Timothy, and a Barnabas in our lives. Let’s look at each of these relationship types.

First Paul, we all need a Paul in our lives, a more mature Christian that will pour into us, and encourage our growth in walking out the grace of God. A person that has been walking with the Lord for a while, that has a strong prayer life, that has devotional time, and that is willing to have those crucial conversations with us. I think this type of person is a combination, mentor, older brother or sister, and friend. Finding someone willing to build this intentional type of relationship is a wonderful thing.

Next is the Timothy type of relationship. We all need to look for and find a younger person that is learning and growing in their faith. We need to be there for them, as they have questions or struggles and help them understand the best options for them. To foster a mindset of looking for what God wants to say, or have them do in dealing with the challenges inherent in growing in the faith.

The third type of relationship we need to build, is the Barnabas relationship. This is a person that is in the same stage of life as we are. Someone that can understand and walk alongside us as we deal with the daily challenges.

All of these intentional relationships are a vital part of our Christian Spiritual Formation. All three of them help us in our ability to dig into spiritual truths, and strengthen our faith. As well as our relationship with God.

It’s also important that we build space in our faith journey to build a closer relationship with God. We see this modeled in the life of Jesus, he often took time away from the crowds to spend time with His Father. We also need to incorporate that practice and attitude into our walk.