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Formation

Joshua HeavinFeaturedFormation

Christmas "Time" is Here

“Quid est enim tempus?” “So what is time?”[1] Pangs of nostalgia for innocence lost, discontent with reality present, and some combination of fear, uncertainty, or despair about the future can combine to make Christmas an especially difficult time. Recently, two […]

Ian Harber and Patrick MillerFeaturedChurchFormation

My AI Spiritual Director

After years working as a doctor in a hospital, a friend shared the most frustrating part of her job: patients whose online, amateur medical research weighs more heavily in their decision making than her professional opinion. She ended with a […]

Andrew BarberFeaturedFormation

Dante Was Right: Suffering and Our Journey Toward God

“Midway on our life’s journey, I found myself/ In a dark wood, the right road lost.” These are the famous opening lines of Dante’s Divine Comedy and, even if you hate what follows, their brevity and archetypal power are hard […]

R. Lucas StampsFeaturedFormation

Pursue Obscurity

Craig Bartholomew, who has been a friend and mentor to many of us younger Christian scholars, often repeats the admonition: “pursue obscurity.” It is not enough simply to accept obscurity, if it happens to be our lot. Rather, there is […]

Kirsten SandersFeaturedChurchEvangelicalismFormation

Kites

I taught my sons to fly a kite the other day. It was a beautiful Sunday morning and the wind was just right for it. They are old enough to know how a kite should fly but not old enough […]

Kirsten SandersFeaturedChurchEvangelicalismFormation

Can I Get a Witness?: A Response to Tim Keller

In his recent essay, Tim Keller has entered his bit in a persistent dialogue regarding how Christians should speak in public. The players in this dialogue, including James Wood, Aaron Renn, and Simon Kennedy, are working to sort out how […]

Cort GatliffFeaturedFormation

Mocking Death

A few weeks ago, my two-year-old daughter and I were out enjoying one of the first crisp afternoons of autumn with a walk around our neighborhood. We turned a corner, and suddenly she stopped and pointed to a house down […]

Chris KrychoFeaturedEconomics and BusinessFormationJournalJournal 3

The Great Unmooring

Richard Sennett. The Corrosion of Character: The Personal Consequences of Work in the New Capitalism. New York: WW Norton, 2000. 176pp, $15.99. Anne Helen Petersen and Charlie Warzel. Out of Office: The Big Problem and Bigger Promise of Working from […]

Rory GrovesFamilyFeaturedFormationJournalJournal 3

The Discipleship of Work

When we moved to our farm several years ago with a toddler and newborn in tow, we mainly had it in mind to experience a bit of the country life: to plant a large garden and perhaps raise a few […]

Andrew ArndtFeaturedFormation

The Cross in Our Calling: A Reflection on Mary's Magnificat

Mary is chosen for the sacred work of bearing the Incarnate Son of God, and the unforgettable words we know as The Magnificat come tumbling out: And Mary said: “My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God […]

Andrew ArndtFeaturedFormation

What Can Contemporary Christians Learn from the Desert Fathers and Mothers?

I am a working pastor. That means that I have joined the company of those for whom the care of souls is the sum and substance of the job description. It is our life’s preoccupation, our central work.

Cameron ShafferFeaturedChurchEvangelicalismFormation

Our Spiritual Malaise

“There are some people [that] tell us that they are tremendously interested in the gospel as a point of view, as a Christian philosophy…Christianity is to them a matter of tremendous interest and they believe and proclaim that if only […]