Sword of The Spirit Leaders Manual 2015

The Leaders Manual
Pastoral Approach Document
To them [the saints] God chose to make known how great among the Gen-
tiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the
hope of glory. Him we proclaim, admonishing everyone and teaching eve-
ryone in all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. (Col
1:27-28)
2015
The Leaders Manual Interim 2015
Contents
Contents .................................................................................................................................... 2
The Leaders Manual: Introduction...................................................................................... 5
1. Leaders Formation in General ........................................................................................ 6
1.1 Leaders Formation: Overall .......................................................................................... 7
1.11 Elements of Leaders Formation ........................................................................................ 8
1.12 The Leaders Formation Macroschema ............................................................................ 11
1.13 Our Call / Our Purpose ................................................................................................... 12
1.2 What is Community .................................................................................................... 15
1.21 What is Christian Community ........................................................................................ 16
Christian Relationship ...................................................................................................... 16
A Common Way of Life ................................................................................................... 21
Covenant Community....................................................................................................... 26
1.22 Community and Kinds of Community ............................................................................ 32
Defining Community ........................................................................................................ 32
Kinds of Christian Communities ...................................................................................... 38
The Kinds of Communities We Work With ..................................................................... 40
1.3 The Personal Care We Give ........................................................................................ 44
1.31 The Pastoral System........................................................................................................ 45
1.32 Kinds of Personal Care ................................................................................................... 47
Kinds of Pastoral Care ...................................................................................................... 47
Evangelistic Personal Care ............................................................................................... 50
Men and Women in Personal Care ................................................................................... 53
2. Guide for Pastoral Workers in the Formation Process.................................................. 56
Introduction to Part Two .................................................................................................. 58
2.01 The Basic Principle ......................................................................................................... 58
Subsidiary Principle ......................................................................................................... 58
2.02 Reference: Terms for the Formation Process .................................................................. 60
2.1 Formation: Our Overall Approach .............................................................................. 62
2.11 Overall Principles............................................................................................................ 63
A Goal-Oriented, Process-Oriented Approach ................................................................. 63
An Environmental Pastoral Approach .............................................................................. 66
2.12 Goals of the Formation and Initiations Process .............................................................. 73
The Three Goals ............................................................................................................... 73
Full Conversion and Christian Maturity ........................................................................... 76
A Discipleship Commitment ............................................................................................ 78
Commitment to Our Community and Mission ................................................................. 82
2.2 The Elements of the Formation Process ..................................................................... 86
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A System of Elements ...................................................................................................... 87

Meetings Needed .............................................................................................................. 88
Other Key Elements ......................................................................................................... 91
Putting the Elements Together ......................................................................................... 94
2.3 The Process: Structure and Important Features .......................................................... 97
2.31 The Process: The Key Principles .................................................................................... 98
Key Principle: Working by Stages ................................................................................... 98
Key Principle: Goals and Criteria................................................................................... 101
The Overview: A “Map” ................................................................................................ 105
Integrating the Process of Pastoral Care ......................................................................... 109
2.32 The Process: Some Important Features ......................................................................... 113
Formation ....................................................................................................................... 113
Instruction in the Formation Process .............................................................................. 124
3. Special: Guide for Pastoral Workers With Young Singles ......................................... 135
Introduction to Part Three .............................................................................................. 136
3.1 The Pastoral Worker ................................................................................................. 137
The Responsibility of the Pastoral Workers in Initiations .............................................. 138
Formation Meetings: Formats ........................................................................................ 141
Application to Men and Women Pastoral Workers ........................................................ 154
3.2 Before Formation ...................................................................................................... 156
Goals Before Formation ................................................................................................. 157
Key Principle: Readiness to Move On ........................................................................... 158
Readiness to Enter Formation ........................................................................................ 159
3.3 Initial Formation ....................................................................................................... 165
Goals of Initial Formation .............................................................................................. 166
The Initial Commitment ................................................................................................. 168
Year 1 ............................................................................................................................. 172
Year 2 ............................................................................................................................. 186
Year 3 ............................................................................................................................. 191
Criteria to Go Underway ................................................................................................ 193
3.4 Underway Formation ................................................................................................ 196
Goals of the Underway Stage ......................................................................................... 198
The Underway Commitment .......................................................................................... 204
Underway A ................................................................................................................... 206
Underway B.................................................................................................................... 209
Criteria for Public Commitment ..................................................................................... 212
3.5 Covenant Membership .............................................................................................. 215
Public commitment......................................................................................................... 216
The Real Goal................................................................................................................. 217
4. Special: Guide for Pastoral Workers With Married People in Formation .................. 218
5. Guide for Pastoral Workers With Covenanted Members ........................................... 219
Reference: Common Materials ....................................................................................... 220
The Wheel ...................................................................................................................... 221
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Our Spirituality (Ecumenical) ........................................................................................ 222

Our Spirituality (Catholic).............................................................................................. 224
The Formation Commitment .......................................................................................... 226
The Formation Commitment (Affiliate) ......................................................................... 227
The Christian Use of Media ........................................................................................... 228
© 2015 by The Sword of the Spirit
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any

form for use outside Sword of the Spirit communities without written
permission from The Sword of the Spirit, 4828 S. Hagadorn, E. Lansing,
MI 48823, USA.
4
The Leaders Manual:

Introduction
In 2005 during a special development meeting that involved leaders throughout the
whole Sword of the Spirit, we decided that we wanted to have a leaders manual that
would enable leaders to understand the basics of what they needed to do. To be sure, they
learn by a process that is described below in the section entitled “Leaders Formation in
General” and they are also instructed in leadership formation courses, but a manual is
very useful to have.
First, discussing a section of a manual can sometimes be a substitute for a talk or
course. More important, a manual, if we know how to use it, can be an ongoing resource
that allows us to review what we should be trying to do. It can also be a help if we come
across and new challenge or problem, because it often has the advice we need.
This Leaders Manual is being developed piecemeal. Most of it is the distillation of
development discussions that have been brought together to meet a need. So far we have
two parts of the Leaders Manual and a third planned:
• The first part is the general section, which is intended to give an overview of our
leaders formation.
• The second part is the leaders manual for workers in the formation process. This
provides an understanding of our approach to formation and also a guide for
working with the formation of young singles. At the moment, it lacks a guide for
working with older people, especially married people.
• The third part will be the leaders manual for workers with covenanted members.
We have a great deal of material to help leaders to do their service effectively. Much
of it can be found on the Leaders Formation Materials website:
http://files.swordofthespirit.net/LeadersFormationMaterials/Leaders_Formation_M
aterials/
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1. Leaders Formation in
General
This general section of the Leaders Manual at the moment has three main parts. There
will be other materials placed here in the future.
• The initial part provides an overview of our approach to leaders formation.
• The second part provides an introduction to what we mean by building communi-
ty.
• The third part provides an overview of the personal care we give.
The part below that gives an overview of the personal care we gives is by no means
all that is needed to give personal care. It is, however, placed in this general section of the
Leaders Manual, because this is where we will include material that is needed for all the
types of pastoral leadership.
At the end of the manual, there is a reference section of materials commonly used
during the formation process.
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1.1 Leaders Formation:

Overall
This section provides help to gain an overall understanding of how we approach lead-
ers formation.
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1.11 Elements of Leaders

Formation
Who is responsible to have the members of our communities live the life of the com-
munity and the covenant? The members themselves are, of course. Since they have vol-
untarily committed themselves to it, they are responsible for fulfilling their commitment.
Why do we need leaders, then? We need them for many reasons. We need some to
work with new people to help them to understand our life and equip them to live it. These
are pastoral workers in initiations. We need some to maintain the framework of our life
so that the covenanted members can live and serve and to try to find ways to help the
covenanted members when they are facing challenges. These are pastoral workers for
covenanted members. We need some to lead services like music, administration, child-
care etc. that make our life together thrive. These are community service leaders. We
need some to lead the outreaches like evangelism, works of mercy, etc. that come out of
our life together and help people who do not belong to us. These are outreach leaders.
Pastoral workers in initiations, pastoral workers with covenanted members, communi-
ty service leaders and outreach leaders all need to be effective in their service. Some of
the things they need to know and be able to do are special to their own areas of service.
Some are the same for all. In this manual, we will seek to provide help for all the leaders,
but we will also have material for each area.
How do people become effective leaders? Some seem to be born that way. We occa-
sionally come across people who just seem to know how to lead without any training. But
most good leaders have developed into being good leaders over time.
The most common method of leadership formation seems to be the sink or swim
method. Many of our leaders can tell stories of how they took a Life in the Spirit Seminar
and then found themselves a leader on the next one given. They learned what to do by
doing it. Of course, some people in that situation were not able to learn. But some did.
And probably no one has learned to be a leader without some experience (including the
experience of some mistakes) any more than we can learn how to swim before we ever go
into the water.
We do not have to make the same mistakes everyone else has made, though. We can
actually learn from other people’s experience. We can skip some of the pain ourselves
and avoid inflicting unnecessary pain on those we are trying to help. Even more, we can
learn how to be effective more quickly than we could by the trial-and-error method.
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Moreover, we can develop a clearer and surer understanding of what we are supposed to
be doing and how to do it if we can draw on the wealth of experience of those who have
gone before us than if we have to come up with it all on our own.
The goal for us as a group of communities, then, is to have leaders formation pro-
grams that will enable new leaders who have the needed natural and spiritual gifts to
learn how to serve effectively as quickly as they can. The goal is also to give them the
help they need to avoid causing unnecessary problems for those they are trying to serve.
The goal is also to upgrade the rest of us so that we serve as effectively as we can.
What, then, does such a leadership formation program need to have? The following is
a list of the seven basic elements that should be part of our leadership formation.
1. Positions with “job descriptions”: when someone is asked to be a leader of

any sort, they should know what they are expected to do, and they should
know it clearly enough that they can tell whether they have fulfilled the re-
sponsibility or not.
2. Personal requirements: they should know what it takes to do the job well —
what abilities they need to have, what skills they need to have, what
knowledge they need to have, and what kind of character they need to have.
3. Practical instruction: they should be instructed in what they are supposed to
do, how they are supposed to do it, and why they are supposed to do it and do
it that way.
4. In-service training: they should be given some training while they are trying
to learn now to perform their service. They should, to use the now popular
word, have a mentor who is in enough touch with what they are doing to give
them some coaching and feedback as they are learning, and who can tell them
when they have learned to do the job adequately.
All these things are common sense. They are the kind of things secular people who oper-
ate effectively would do for practical formation. Christian leaders, especially Christian
leaders in covenant communities, need more.
5. Teaching: they should know enough about Christian truth (doctrine and mo-
rality, faith and morals) to have a vision for what we are trying to accomplish
and what kind of a person a Christian leader should be. They should also
know what a covenant community is and how we relate to the church and
ecumenical realities we work in.
Being a Christian leader, however, is not just knowing certain things and being able to do
certain things. It is also being a certain kind of person. Christian leaders need to have a
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good relationship with God and with their brothers and sisters (love of God and neigh-
bor), and they need to be men and women of good character. Therefore they need more.
6. Personal formation: they need to have a basic formation as a Christian and as

a covenant member. They also need formation in being a Christian leader, in-
cluding the character of a good Christian leader. Most of this comes from their
own personal growth in the Christian life. Much comes from the on-going
help and input of brothers and sisters, especially those in their own men or
women’s groups and on their service teams. Some comes from pastoral care
and service formation.
Being a Christian leader is not just an individualistic affair. We belong to a community

and serve as a community. Therefore, leaders in covenant community should be charac-
terized by the ability to find their place in the whole.
7. Teamwork: They need to know how we fulfill our call as a body and so how
we work together corporately. They need to understand where their service
fits in with that of others, so we can be mutually supportive, including whom
they serve under and how they should relate to their service leader. They need
a team spirit marked by cooperation, submission, and willingness to serve.
The more of these seven items we have, then, the more effectively we will be able to pro-
vide leaders formation.
No doubt we will still use the sink or swim method for a while to come. But hopefully
we will be able to gradually upgrade our ability to provide leadership formation. And
while we do we will be working toward a common agreement as to what leadership for-
mation needs to be part of our common nucleus.
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1.12 The Leaders For-

mation Macroschema
The Leaders Formation Macroschema is an overview of leaders formation for those
working in pastoral and evangelistic service in Sword of the Spirit communities and out-
reaches. It can be found in a separate file (address in the SOS website below):
1.440 2014 Leaders Formation Macroschema 3.1
The Leaders Formation Macroschema covers the following categories of leaders in

Sword of the Spirit communities:
• Outreach Workers in Evangelism
• Mission Leaders in Evangelism
• Pastoral Workers in Initiations
• Pastoral Workers for Covenanted Members
• Senior Leaders
• Senior Woman Leaders
• Coordinators
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1.13 Our Call / Our Pur-

pose
We are called to be a community of disciples on mission. Our work as Sword of the
Spirit leaders, then, is intended to form communities of disciples on mission united in an
international community of communities. If we lose sight of that, we have lost sight of
the reason we are doing what we are doing.
To understand our call, we need to have gone through our community courses, espe-
cially the course Our Call (FC3). As leaders we also need to review our call with some
regularity. Our official statement “Our Call” provides a summary of our call and is be-
low.
As leaders in fostering our call, we need to foster discipleship in our members and
mission in our communities. We also, however, need to build communities. We need to
bring new communities into existence and maintain the ones we have in a healthy and
vital condition. While all our members should cooperate in building community life, it is
especially the work of the pastoral and evangelistic leaders to build community. This
manual is designed to equip us to build communities of disciples on mission.
Our Call
A Community of Disciples on Mission
In every age the Lord calls men and women to follow him, to put aside
concern for their own lives, and, trusting fully in his grace, to give them-
selves generously in his service. We have heard the call of God, a call to
serve him and his people in this time, a time of trial and challenge for the
Christian people, a time when he is pouring out his Spirit to renew, restore
and unify his people. He has addressed us as “The Sword of the Spirit”, a
name signifying our role as a missionary body witnessing to and proclaim-
ing the word of God in this age of spiritual warfare. In response to this
call, we have formed an international ecumenical association so that we
might more effectively come together from many nations, cultures and
Christian traditions. We are to be covenanted to Himself and one another
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in local communities and in an international community of communities

so that we might fulfill the mission he has given us.
Community
In response to this particular call of God, we have freely committed
ourselves to others who have been called in this same way. We accept the
mission our Lord has entrusted to us as a people and the responsibility to
live together as citizens of the kingdom of God (Phil 2:9; Eph 2:19; 1 Pet
2:11). We are:
• a covenanted body that lives and serves together
• brothers and sisters of one another in the Lord
• a people of praise and worship
• living a common way of life
• with a common mission, making ourselves and our resources
available for that mission.
In short, we live out our Christian commitment, united by a covenant, a
common way and life, and dedication to a common purpose and mission.
Disciples
By God’s grace we have become sons and daughters of God, filled
with His Holy Spirit, desiring to live out all our relationships on a daily
basis by the power of the Holy Spirit. We have responded to His invitation
by personal conversion and dedication to righteousness, growth in holi-
ness, and service as disciples of Jesus Christ. Our ideal is to be men and
women who can put their hand to the plow without looking back (Luke
9:62), take up their cross daily (Luke 9:23-27), and serve rather than be
served (Mark 10:45).
Mission
We have heard God’s call and respond gladly to that call to be joined
with others together across the world in a common mission, as a bulwark
to stem the tide of evil. We live work and strive by the power of the Holy
Spirit so that others might have true life in Christ now and forever. To do
this we have to live, locally and internationally, as a prophetic people. In
our outreach we seek to:
• proclaim the kingdom of God by life and word so that others might
come to conversion to Christ
• bring others into communities and movements so that they can live
effectively as Christians
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• live as disciples and work for truth and justice in the daily circum-
stances of life so that we leaven the situations we are in
• defend Christian truth and morality in the church and in society.
In general we seek to make ourselves available to the Lord for the trans-
formation of this world so that it increasingly reflects his glory.
In Unity With All Christians

We desire to live out our lives and mission in unity with all who love
the Lord and are called to serve Him. We wish to work in harmony with
those who serve Christ in roles of pastoral authority in the churches. By
our ecumenical unity and collaboration we want to witness to the unity
God intends for all His people.
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1.2 What is Community

As leaders in the Sword of the Spirit, we are seeking to build communities that are
missionary bodies, but nonetheless they need to be genuine Christian communities. In
this section, we want to understand the kind of communities we are trying to build. That
will allow us to be clearer on the goal of our work as Sword of the Spirit leaders.
First we will look at Christian community in general. This will involve reviewing the
basics of our teaching on Christian community. Then we will look at the kinds of com-
munities there can be and the kind we are trying to build.
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1.21 What is Christian Com-

munity
Christian Relationship
In the gospels, we see at the outset of his public ministry the Lord preaching the gos-
pel to everyone who would listen. But at the same time he began calling individuals to
himself and forming a band of disciples who were almost always with him and with one
another. These were the foundation of the subsequent Christian community.
In the rest of the New Testament, the Christians are talked about in a variety of ways.
Here we will consider three terms that communicate some of the scriptural vision of
Christians’ relationships with each other. These are the words brother(s); the word
koinonia, often translated “fellowship”; and the phrase the body of Christ.1
Brothers and sisters. The most common term for Christians in the New Testament is
brothers or as it is translated in some older versions of the Bible brethren. We might re-
phrase this as “brothers and sisters in the Lord.” The first Christians used to refer to each
other as brothers and sisters (brethren) as we can see in Acts 15:36,
And after some days Paul said to Barnabas, ‘Come, let us return and visit the brethren in
every city where we proclaimed the word of the Lord, and see how they are’.
The early Christians did not use the word “Christians” when they referred to one another.
Rather, they spoke about “the brothers and sisters”.
The love Christians are to have for each other flows from this relationship and bears
its special mark. In 1 Peter 1:22, it says,
Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love,
love one another earnestly from the heart.
In Hebrews 13:1, we read,
Let brotherly love continue.
A particular Greek word, philadelphia, is used in such places to mean “brotherly love” or
“love of the brethren”.
Scripture is referring to a special kind of love that should exist among us because we
are brothers and sisters in the Lord. In our own modern culture and language we have lost
1
The first two sections of this write-up are adapted from the unit in Foundations Course 1 entitled “Chris-
tian Community”.
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much of the underlying scriptural concept of brothers and sisters. On the one hand, it is
now usual for the words brothers and sisters to refer to children of the same parents. On
the other hand, the words are sometimes used to refer to some vague kinship among all
human beings, as in the slogan “the brotherhood of man and the fatherhood of God.”
Scripture, of course, does use brother and sister to refer to children of the same par-
ents. However, Scripture never uses the term brother to refer to all mankind. It consist-
ently only uses brother to describe situations in which there is a definite relationship
among a group of people. In the New Testament, this relationship is the brotherhood of
Christians. We are brothers and sisters because we are joined to one another in Christ.
Non-Christians are “outsiders.” For example, Paul writes, “Conduct yourselves wisely
toward outsiders, making the most of the time” (Col. 4:5).
Scripture does teach that we should love and serve all human beings, with special at-
tention to how to relate to those who persecute us:
Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of
your Father who is in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and
sends rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matt. 5:44-45).
We are to love our enemies because God loves them and wants them to be saved and also
because God wants Christians to be like himself. But we are not told to love all human
beings because they are our brothers and sisters.
The early Christians saw their relationship as Christians as a relationship among
members of a family and so family-like. They had been “born of God” (John 1:13), born
of the same Father. They had been “born of the Spirit” (John 3:8) — the same spiritual
blood flowed in them. When Christians were reborn spiritually, they found themselves in
a family, as newborn children do. The use of the term “brethren” or “brothers and sisters”
indicates something important: Christians are supposed to have a family-like commitment
to one another.
Being brothers and sisters in the Lord, then, means having a personal, committed rela-
tionship together. Moreover, oneness with brothers and sisters in the Lord is more im-
portant than relationships with fellow countrymen, with members of the same social
class, with political allies, even with members of the same natural family. When informed
that his blood relatives had come to visit him, Christ said
Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” And stretching out his hand toward his
disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! (Matt. 12:48-49)
There was an Old Testament background to the way the early Christians understood
themselves as brothers. The Jews also had understood themselves as brothers. Among the
Jews, brother meant not only “blood brother.” It also meant the relationship all Jews had
with one another because they were members of the Israelite people.
Old covenant law spelled out the responsibilities of this relationship in some detail.
Deuteronomy instructs the Israelites:
At the end of every seven years every creditor shall release what he has lent to…his
brother, because the Lord’s release has been proclaimed. Of a foreigner you may exact it;
but whatever of yours is with your brother your hand shall release.
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You shall not harden your heart or shut your hand against your poor brother, but you
shall open your hand to him, and lend him sufficient for his need, whatever it may be.
You shall not lend upon interest to your brother… To a foreigner you may lend upon in-
terest, but to your brother you shall not lend upon interest; that the Lord your God may
bless you in all that you undertake (Deut. 15:1-3; 15:7-8; 23:19-20).
To be members of the same people meant that each person was responsible for the wel-
fare of all the others and that responsibility was different than the responsibility to help
others who did not belong to that people. (See also Lev. 19:18.)
The relationship was the same for the early Christians, and it should be the same
among Christians today. But today few of us experience a definite relationship with many
other Christians like that, even with those who attend and support the same church. When
other Christians get into trouble or incur a need, we expect them to seek help from
friends, family, or from a social welfare agency or the secular government. We would not
expect them to look for help from fellow Christians who would help them just because
they are Christians.
In the modern world most commitments to other people are limited and partial. We
might, for instance, join a sports team. We then are committed to show up for practice or
the game. While playing the game, we support our team and do what we can to help the
team to win. But once the game is over, we go home or somewhere else, and we do not
feel an obligation to take a personal concern for our teammates. We might take a concern
for one or two of them if asked or if we have a special friendship with them, but we
would not feel we should automatically do so because of our relationship with the team.
Most Christians today have limited commitments to other Christians, perhaps mem-
bers of their church or of some Christian outreach. They can be counted on for a certain
amount of time, at least attendance at a church service, and perhaps they have volun-
teered for some service. In the remaining parts of their lives they are on their own. Our
commitments as Christians are usually little different from our other commitments such
as the sports team or our jobs.
For many of us, the only exception to limited commitments is our family. Most fa-
thers even now expect to have a full commitment to their wives and children. They are
responsible for the things the family does together and the things its members do alone —
for their children while they are at school, for their wives if they works outside the home.
He expects to keep an eye on how they are doing and help them financially or in any oth-
er need — at least until the children grow up and often even then, although in the modern
world this is gradually getting rarer.
The Christian community is meant to be like a properly functioning family. The
commitment of all of its members is full, encompassing all aspects of each person’s life.
Brothers and sisters place should no limits on their responsibility for each other’s welfare,
other than their capacity to help. For that to happen, however, we need to enter into our
relationship with other Christians, at least some other Christians, on the basis of our
commitment to one another as brothers and sisters in the Lord.
Koinonia. The New Testament sometimes uses a second term to describe the body of
Christians: koinonia. A common English translation is “fellowship.” “Fellowship”, how-
18
ever, is not a very helpful translation because in contemporary English it often has the
connotation of a loose collection of friends or it even just refers to some social interac-
tion. Koinonia means holding things in common. More exact translations would be
“community” or “sharing” The Christians had community; they were a group of people
who shared together what they had.
The first thing Christians shared was the Holy Spirit. Paul refers to the “fellowship of
the Holy Spirit” or the “community of the Holy Spirit” (2 Cor. 13:14). The Spirit was the
basis of the Christians’ common life.
But the early Christians shared more. They had their whole lives in common. Perhaps
the best definition of Christian community is found in the Acts of the Apostles:
Now the company of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that
any of the things which he possessed was his own, but they had everything in common…
There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were possessors of lands or
houses sold them, and brought the proceeds of what was sold and laid it at the apostles’
feet; and distribution was made to each as any had need” (Acts 4:32-35).then,
Having everything in common meant that no one thought anything he possessed was
his own. Everything was at the disposal of the community for the common good. Chris-
tian community, koinonia, means that our whole lives are in common. Our possessions,
our lives, belong first to the Lord and then to our brothers and sisters in the Lord, the
body of Christ. In Christian community, what’s yours is mine and what’s mine is yours.
As we will consider further on there are different kinds of Christian communities.
There are monastic communities, religious orders, communes where all possessions be-
long to everyone and used jointly, with decisions about time and resources made togeth-
er. But there are other kinds of Christian communities as well. In those communities the
members have their own house and possessions and decide how they use their time on
their own, but they do that in the spirit that their brothers and sisters have a claim on what
they have if they need something.
We can see that in an account in the Acts 5:2-4 where Ananias and Sapphira, mem-
bers of the first Christian community, sold a piece of property, said they were giving the
proceeds to the apostles for the needy. However, despite saying that, they kept back part
of the money. Peter said to them,
Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back part of
the proceeds of the land? While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And af-
ter it was sold, was it not at your disposal? How is it that you have contrived this deed in
your heart? You have not lied to men but to God.
From this we can see that it was not obligatory in the early Christian community to
put all possessions or resources into a common purse. The members could keep their pos-
sessions and still be in good standing. As Paul said in Second Corinthians 9:7, 11,
Each one must do as he has made up his mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for
God loves a cheerful giver…You will be enriched in every way for great generosity.
Nonetheless, “There was not a needy person among them” but that was because they
were committed to one another’s welfare, and accepted that their possessions belonged to
their brothers and sisters in cases of need.
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Quite often, the real test of our commitment to our brothers and sisters in Christian
community lies in our willingness to give up time and money. Time and money are not
among the things we can keep while we give them away. We can talk about our spiritual
life, and still hang onto it. If we share about a victory over a personal problem, the victory
is still ours. However, if our money goes to our brother’s purpose, we cannot spend it on
our own purpose. If we give up our time to our brothers and sisters, we cannot use it for
ourselves.
Scripture makes an explicit connection between the gospel and our use of material
goods.
By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us; and we ought to lay down our
lives for the brethren. But if any one has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need,
yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Little children, let us
not love in word or speech but in deed and in truth” (1 John 3:16-18).
Our love for each other does not consist of words — even sincere, holy, spiritual words.
It is something that gets expressed in material terms. It is practical, concrete, and some-
times painful.
In our modern society it is often our time that is the chief resource we have that our
brethren need. They often need material help, but they also need spiritual help: advice,
encouragement, social relationship. They also often need help with caring for their chil-
dren or their elderly parents or themselves in sickness. We can find it difficult to “free
up” the time, and sometimes we cannot. But if we can, we should.
This does not mean that we can produce Christian community by giving away all our
money or time to needy Christians. A relationship with one another as brothers and sis-
ters must come first. When that is established, then there should be koinonia, community,
among those brothers and sisters – in our Christian family. Many Christian groups have
found themselves in serious difficulties because they have started by developing commu-
nity in material terms and have not had the relationship with and commitment to one an-
other to sustain it.
The body of Christ. The phrase the body of Christ is found in the letters of Paul. In
Ephesians, one of his later letters, he uses the term to refer to the universal church. How-
ever, in his earlier letters he applies the term to a local Christian assembly. He tells the
Christians in Corinth that they should function as a body because they are the body of
Christ.
Just as the [human] body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body,
though many, are one body, so it is with Christ” (1 Cor. 12:12).
The members of the Christian body have different gifts, but they are to function in
unity.
For as in one body we have many members, and all the members do not have the same
function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of
another. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if
prophecy, in proportion to our faith; if service, in our serving; he who teaches, in his
teaching; he who exhorts, in his exhortation; he who contributes, in liberality; he who
gives aid, with zeal; he who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness.” (Rom. 12:4-8)
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Being the body of Christ means much more than running orderly worship services or
establishing proper procedures to make decisions and resolve disputes. It is a daily, living
relationship that embraces our whole lives. We are members of the same body all the
time. The relationship goes beyond the things we do together. On the job, alone in a secu-
lar environment, we are still parts of the body of Christ. Together, we are Christ in the
world today because we are members of his body. Through us, his body, he proclaims the
good news of salvation; he heals, feeds, teaches, and confronts human beings with the
truth about God.
An important implication for the church and for all of us as individuals is that we
must begin to give up our individualistic orientation and become interdependent in our
life in the Lord. This does not mean becoming weak or less capable of doing things. We
become interdependent in order to become stronger — more capable to act with greater
spiritual and human power because we are part of something greater than ourselves. We
experience interdependence as difficult largely because in our culture growing to maturi-
ty means cutting the ties that bind us to others and putting our own welfare and prefer-
ences first. We learn to make our own decisions and chart our own course. Acting as a
member of an interdependent body, acting with a communal spirit, acting to promote the
common good and advance the common mission, involves unlearning the habits of an
individualistic lifetime.
God’s plan for Christian maturity is not individualistic, a plan for all individuals to be
complete as Christians by themselves. The only complete Christian is the body of Christ.
Today Christ is present in the world in the body of believers. Only the body can be com-
plete in living the life of Christ and serving as Christ in the world. All who want to be
complete Christians must realize that they are part of a body, united with others, and must
act accordingly.
Sometimes Christians use the term Christian community vaguely to refer to any group
in which everyone is a Christian. A real Christian community, however, is Christians who
have a brotherly commitment to one another, who share their lives, and who live interde-
pendently as members of a body. Those who want to know what Christian community is
and how to build it should begin by studying the nature of the relationship among Chris-
tians that the scripture envisions.
A Common Way of Life

A community has to have a way of life. We could relate to a different set of people
than we do, if all we wanted to do was to be with other human beings. Nor do we mainly
relate to this set of people in order to accomplish some things together, although as a mis-
sionary body that is part of what we do. Rather we relate to one another in order to live
together with a common way of life and support one another in living it. Because we
want to be a Christian community, we need to have a Christian way of life together.
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The kingdom of God. The new order in Christ begins with the gospel. The gospel is
the foundation of Christianity and therefore of our lives as Christians. The gospel is
summarized in Mark 1:14-15 as follows:
Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, and
saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in
the gospel” (Mark 1:14-15).
The gospel is not just a gospel of forgiveness and redemption. It is the gospel, the good
news, of the establishing of the reign of God.
We can see what the kingdom of God involves more clearly in the prayer Christ gave
his disciples:
Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, On earth as it is in heaven (Matt. 6:10).
The kingdom is God’s full reign over everything at the end of time. When God reigns
fully, then his will is done. This is what happens in heaven now, but life in this world
does not follow his will completely and will not, until his reign comes to this earth at the
end of time. Nonetheless his reign is already beginning here and now among us, we who
accept the gospel. Therefore his will should be done on earth, now, in us and in our rela-
tionships. Accepting the gospel of the kingdom involves living differently now.
God’s reign expressed in a way of life. We will begin by reading a section from
Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. The first half of Ephesians explains what Christ has done
for us. The second half explains how we should then live. In other words, it contains
much of Paul’s teaching on how to live a life according to God’s will. This, of course, is
a life each one of us lives individually, but it is embodied in a common way of life, a way
of life we all live, and live together. This is an essential part of what unites us as a Chris-
tian community. Let us begin by reading the first part of chapter 4:
I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which
you have been called, with all lowliness and meekness, with patience, forbearing one an-
other in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one
body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call, one
Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all, who is above all and through
all and in all.… Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into
him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by
every joint with which it is supplied, when each part is working properly, makes bodily
growth and upbuilds itself in love (Eph. 4:1-6, 15-16).
Verse 1 says, I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the
calling to which you have been called. In other words, if we are Christian, born anew,
part of the body of Christ, we have to live together in a way that is appropriate to what we
are in Christ. We have to live a Christian way of life, a life worthy of and in accordance
with our call in Christ.
At the end of the first section of the chapter, Paul concludes by saying, speaking the
truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from
whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every joint with which it is supplied,
when each part is working properly, makes bodily growth and upbuilds itself in love. In
other words, he concludes by presenting a picture of a Christian community. It is a body
22
of people who live a life based on the truth. That truth is expressed in a loving relation-
ship with one another, one that builds the body up so that it is united with Christ but also
lives maturely in Christ.
Paul then goes on to speak more about the way of life that the Christian people needs
to live if that way of life is to be authentically Christian:
Now this I affirm and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do,
in the futility of their minds; they are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the
life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart; they
have become callous and have given themselves up to licentiousness, greedy to practice
every kind of uncleanness. You did not so learn Christ! — assuming that you have heard
about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus. Put off your old nature which
belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful lusts, and be re-
newed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new nature, created after the likeness of
God in true righteousness and holiness (Eph. 4:17-24).
This section begins with a surprising statement. Paul tells the community at Ephesus
that they must no longer live as the Gentiles do. This is surprising to us, because most of
the community was not Jewish. Paul is, however, taking a new covenant perspective. In
Christ, no Christians belong to the Gentiles, that is, the nations that do not belong to
God’s people, the pagan nations. We are not first and foremost Americans, Filipinos,
Mexicans, Polish or whatever — not if we are Christians. We belong to the new covenant
people of God. Paul then draws the consequence that we must no longer live as those
around us do.
He describes those around us as living in the futility of their minds. “Futility” here
does not mean pursuing a hopeless cause like trying to stay young forever. Rather, futility
here means not achieving a good or worthwhile purpose, in this case the purpose for
which we have been made. Pagans live the way they do because they do not understand
who made them, why he made them, and how they are supposed to live as a result.
In verse 19 Paul characterizes the life of those around the early Christians by saying
they… have given themselves up to licentiousness, greedy to practice every kind of un-
cleanness. Sexual immorality was a sign of paganism then and is a sign of paganism now.
The fact that we now find ourselves in a world in which sexual immorality is so prevalent
is a sign that we are experiencing a renewal of paganism. The fact that so many Chris-
tians nowadays have been taking on the sexual immorality of the world around us is a
sign that they are losing their way of life and becoming pagan.
Paul then says, You did not so learn Christ! — assuming that you have heard about
him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus. This is an unusual statement. We
would not speak about learning Christ; but the fact that Paul does, tells us something im-
portant. We can see from the context that to learn Christ is to learn how to live in a
Christian way. When we became Christians, we should not only have made a commit-
ment to Christ. We should not only have been instructed in the gospel or the creed, the
basic truths of Christian belief. We should also have been taught a new way of life.
Paul concludes in verses 22-24 by saying, Put off your old nature which belongs to
your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the
spirit of your minds, and put on the new nature, created after the likeness of God in true
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righteousness and holiness. We need to live a new life, but this life does not just come
from being instructed and then getting ourselves to behave in a certain way. More fun-
damentally, it comes from God having done something to us when we became Christians.
We have been given a new nature or, to translate the Greek more literally, we have been
enabled to become a new kind of human being.
Our nature is connected to how we act. Dogs bark, run around on all fours, and eat
raw meat, because they are dogs. That is what dogs are like. Human beings are different.
We speak a language, walk upright and, for the most part, eat meat we ourselves cook.
Since we have a human nature we behave differently than the beings that have a dog na-
ture. We are, however, the only animals who do not behave fully in accord with their na-
ture. In fact, we speak of people acting in an inhuman way, indicating that we have the
capacity for behaving in a lower way than we were made to behave. And many human
beings do that consistently. Human beings, then, need to have their natures renewed in
Christ so they can in live the way God made us to live.
All this raises the question of what is involved in the Christian way of life. Paul gives
a brief sketch of that in the next section of the chapter.
Therefore, putting away falsehood, let every one speak the truth with his neighbor, for we
are members one of another. Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your
anger, and give no opportunity to the devil. Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him
labor, doing honest work with his hands, so that he may be able to give to those in need.
Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for edifying, as fits the
occasion, that it may impart grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of
God, in whom you were sealed for the day of redemption1 Let all bitterness and wrath
and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, with all malice, and be kind to
one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.
In this section, Paul gives a series of brief exhortations — we should not lie; we
should not lose our temper and abuse people, we should not steal, etc. These are the kinds
of behavior that violate the ten commandments. Christians are not suppose to do such
things, but are supposed to love God and love their neighbor, as Christ summarized the
ten commandments.
Paul then says in verse 30, do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, in whom you were
sealed for the day of redemption. In other words, as Christians we have been given the
Holy Spirit who dwells in us. We therefore have to be a good place for the Spirit to live.
“Grieving the Spirit” is a way of speaking about rebellious behavior toward God. We
need, then, to be obedient to God’s teaching in order to live in a way that makes us a
pleasant place for the Spirit to dwell in.
Paul then goes on to say, Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and
slander be put away from you, with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted,
forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. These words refer to character
traits. The first part lists bad traits, traits that we need to put away. The second part lists
good ones, traits we need to make part of our lives. Being a Christian involves becoming
a certain kind of person, a person of good character, not just someone who avoids bad
actions.
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The exhortation Paul is giving continues through chapters 5 and 6. He speaks about
sexual morality, worship, the headship of the husband in the family, parents’ responsibil-
ity in raising their children, and Christian mission. In other letters he adds other topics
concerning how we should live. Ephesians, and the New Testament as a whole, then,
teach us that the Christian people need to live a way of life different from the pagans
around them and instruct us in what is involved in that way of life.
In chapter 5:1-2, Paul gives a summary exhortation. He says, Therefore be imitators
of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for
us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. In other words, the result of living as a
Christian is that we become like God, manifesting his character — individually and cor-
porately. And we are to love God and neighbor, as Christ did when he died on the cross,
making himself an offering to God but doing that for our sakes. The cross is the model of
the Christian way of life.
Christian culture. Another way of saying all this is that we need to have a Christian
culture. Modern people often talk about “a culture”. Most nationalities have their own
culture, different from that of other nationalities. A culture is often defined as “the way of
life of a people”. It is the way they relate together and conduct their affairs. To be a peo-
ple, we need a way of life. If we wish to be a Christian people, we need a Christian way
of life. If we lose our culture, we lose our life as a people.
We are not here talking about cultural expressions, but about the fundamentals of how
we live life. Suppose I am English and live next door to an Englishman. I will probably
find that I can communicate with him fairly easily. We talk English, dress the same way,
use many of the same forms of politeness, understand the same references to the same
sports teams and laugh at the same jokes. Suppose, however, he is not a Christian, is in-
volved in a sexually immoral affair, is shady with his finances, and is somewhat foul-
mouthed in the way he speaks about many things. Suppose on the other hand, next door
to me is a new immigrant from India whose native language is Hindi, who still wears In-
dian clothes, and who generally talks and acts in ways that are strange. Suppose, howev-
er, that he is a good Christian who keeps the ten commandments and is kind and clean of
speech. Which of the two has the same culture as I do? In one way, the Englishman, be-
cause we use the same cultural expressions and can communicate and interact with a high
degree of understanding. In another way, the Indian, because we are both Christians and
follow Christian teachings in how we live.
There is no one Christian culture in the sense of cultural expressions. Christians can
be English, German, Arab, Bantu or Filipino in their cultural expressions. Christian life
can be spoken about in many languages, sung about in many kinds of music, and ex-
pressed in many different customs and practices. On the other hand, there is one Christian
culture in the sense of the fundamentals of how we live life. If someone does not love
God and neighbor or keep the ten commandments — as many of those around us do not
— that person does not have a Christian culture.
Our way of life. When we talk about Christian community, part of what we mean is a
common way of life. To the degree we have a Christian community, we have a way of
25
life in common. That is what unites us. We worship God and do so together. We follow
Christian sexual morality, and we support one another in doing that. We believe it is im-
portant for people to find life in Christ, so we work together to spread the gospel.
Our way of life is primarily the Christian way of life. That is enough to make us dis-
tinctive nowadays from most of the people around us. But, like most groups of Chris-
tians, we do some things differently than other Christians. I would pick out two main
ways we in the Sword of the Spirit are distinctive. First, we have a way of making Chris-
tian life practical. We have an effective means to live the Christian way of life in the
modern world. For instance, we all belong to small groups for personal sharing and mu-
tual support. We also receive the same instruction and formation. We do not need to do
those things to live a Christian way of life, but we do if we want to live in this communi-
ty.
The second way we are distinctive is in some of our understandings of what is in-
volved in the Christian way of life. Nowadays, for instance, Christians differ in how they
approach the area of spiritual gifts or how they approach relating to Christians from dif-
ferent churches or how they approach courtship. We have certain approaches in these ar-
eas that we believe allow us to live in a more fully Christian manner. If we follow those
approaches we can be more effectively united as a body of Christians.
We live Christian community together for a reason. One reason is that community is
part of what it means to be Christian. Christianity is not supposed to be individualistic but
to be corporate. If we are going to be Christians, we need to love one another. But even
more, the goal is “heaven on earth”. We are seeking to live what we pray for — thy will
be done on earth as it is in heaven. We come together to support one another in doing
that and to live it together.
Our goal is to take as much of life in this fallen world as we can and make it as heav-
enly as we can — to glorify God, to do good to one another, and to treat one another well.
Even more, our goal is to glorify God, to do good to one another, and to treat one another
well in daily ways, not just occasionally or on important occasions. Our goal is also to
add to the number of those who are glorifying God and doing good to others by bringing
more people into the Christian life.
Covenant Community
Christian communities are people who have a relationship as brothers and sisters in
the Lord and who live a common life, including mission, together. There are, however,
various bases for relationship in human life:
• The natural basis, e.g., as found in the family or society as a whole
– This can be Christianized/spiritualized but is given by birth.
• The spiritual basis, e.g., the Christian people, church
– This is based on union with Christ and the gift of the Holy Spirit and is given
through conversion/baptism.
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– This is given to us, not created by us, although it does not become living and
effective except by being received with commitment.
• The voluntary basis, e.g., a business, a club, the Red Cross, a community
– This comes into existence by human decision (“voluntary commitment”).
– This can be Christian if formed by Christians for Christian purposes.
The basis of our coming together in the Sword of the Spirit is a covenant. We have
made a covenant commitment, a voluntary personal commitment, to belong to this body.
We have covenanted to be in an ongoing, stable relationship as Christians. We therefore
are a covenanted body that lives and serves together.
From the statement “Our Call”:

We are called to be
A covenanted body
Of brothers and sisters
A people of praise and worship
Living a common way of life
With a common mission
The nature of covenant community.2 As throughout the ages the Holy Spirit has been
active among the Christian people to bring about renewal, groups of Christians have
come together to respond. Many Christians have come together to perform some special
services or foster spiritual growth with no further bond among themselves than that nec-
essary for achieving particular goals. But the human race is naturally social, and it has
pleased God to unite those who believe in Christ into the people of God (cf. 1 Pet. 2:5-
10), and into one body (cf. 1 Cor. 12:12). Therefore, the very nature of the Christian peo-
ple is to be brothers and sisters in the Lord, one in the Spirit in the bonds of peace and
mutual love (Eph. 4:3).
Consequently, when the Holy Spirit renews his people, he often leads groups of
Christians to join themselves to one another to live more fully the life together of the
Christian people. Such a coming together is not intended as an alternative to the life of
the Christian church. Rather, it is a renewed living out of what the life of the church
should be and so signifies the communion and unity of the Christian people. In our day,
desire for such coming together is felt with greater strength because of the loss of natural
community in society and in parishes and congregations. With this has come the weaken-
ing of mutual help for the needs of human life and of mutual support for Christian living.
In recent years the Lord has brought into existence new forms of Christian life that
are called covenant communities. They are covenantal because they are based on the vol-
2 The material in this section is adapted from section 1 of Covenant Community and Church.
27
untary commitment of members to one another in a serious way that is not necessarily
lifelong and does not necessarily partake of the nature of a vow. The commitment is in
the form of a personal covenant of brothers and sisters one to another that supplements
and strengthens the relationship that comes from being members of the church. They are
communities because they share together their spiritual and material goods as an expres-
sion of their relationship as brothers and sisters in the Lord.
The relationship together of the members of covenant communities is personal and
family-like, with a concern that extends to the whole of their lives. In that it contrasts to
the partial and functional relationships that predominate in our society and tend to in-
creasingly prevail in Christian parishes, congregations and service organizations. At the
same time, the members’ relationship to one another is not normally the kind of commit-
ment that is found in religious communities and institutes, a commitment which puts the
whole of each person’s life under obedience to the leadership of the community. In this
sense, the commitment together is a limited commitment. Those in authority in the com-
munity have the role of helping the members to live an active Christian life and to fulfill
the commitments to one another they make in the covenant.
There are many types of covenant communities. Some are together primarily for mu-
tual support in Christian life and service, while others are missionary bodies, established
to be available to the work of the Lord for particular services. Some are together for the
renewal of the existing church life, while others engage primarily in an evangelistic or
social apostolate in the wider society. Some are together to live a special spirituality,
while others have no other spirituality than the common one of the Christian people. All
these communities are at one in their desire to live together as brothers and sisters their
Christian way of life.
To the degree that covenant communities arise out of a desire to live more fully the
life of the Christian people, they are patterned upon that life. They look to scripture for
instruction in how Christians live together and how Christian leadership functions. They
likewise look to the history of the church for models of how to live Christian life together
and how to relate to the broader Church. They desire to live the life of the people of God
in good relationship with the leadership of the Christian churches to which they belong.
Covenant.3 A covenant is a mutual promise of a solemn nature. The story of Isaac and
Abimelech, the king of Gerar, described in Genesis 26 (and also Abraham and Abimelech
in Genesis 21), is the account of one kind of covenant between two human beings. There
were conflicts between Isaac’s shepherds and Abimelech’s over the use of wells. In order
to stop the conflict, they made a covenant together that said they would not hurt one an-
other. As you can see from the text, the covenant was done in a solemn way, with oaths
calling God to witness what they said and punish either party who broke the agreement,
and with a feast expressing the fact that they were in a good relationship with one anoth-
er.
We might call the covenant between Isaac and Abimelech a peace treaty or a non-
aggression pact. It was a fairly limited covenant. Some covenants, however, establish on-
3 This section is adapted from the unit in Foundations Course 1 entitled “Christian Community”.
28
going, stable relationships that in principle affect our whole lives (e.g., marriage – Mal.
2:14). Our community covenant establishes such a relationship. On the other hand, it is
not a total relationship, one in which all our lives are lived in the community, as in a
monastery.
Covenants in scripture are solemn. They are done in God’s presence, with him as a
witness. The greater the matter, the more our commitment needs to be relied on, and the
more solemn the promise needs to be.
Our covenant is founded on the new covenant in Christ. It does not replace that cove-
nant. In fact, it presupposes it. All of us, as Christians, belong to the new covenant in
Christ. We could call our covenant a renewal covenant because it involves renewing our
commitment to live the basic Christian covenant. If we look at 2 Chronicles 15:8-15, we
can see King Asa leading his people to make such a covenant.
When Asa heard these words, the prophecy of Azariah the son of Oded, he took courage,
and put away the abominable idols from all the land of Judah and Benjamin and from the
cities which he had taken in the hill country of Ephraim, and he repaired the altar of the
LORD that was in front of the vestibule of the house of the LORD. And he gathered all Ju-
dah and Benjamin, and those from Ephraim, Manasseh, and Simeon who were sojourning
with them, for great numbers had deserted to him from Israel when they saw that the
LORD his God was with him. They were gathered at Jerusalem in the third month of the
fifteenth year of the reign of Asa. They sacrificed to the LORD on that day, from the spoil
which they had brought, seven hundred oxen and seven thousand sheep. And they entered
into a covenant to seek the LORD, the God of their fathers, with all their heart and with all
their soul; and that whoever would not seek the LORD, the God of Israel, should be put to
death, whether young or old, man or woman. They took an oath to the L ORD with a loud
voice, and with shouting, and with trumpets, and with horns. And all Judah rejoiced over
the oath; for they had sworn with all their heart, and had sought him with their whole de-
sire, and he was found by them, and the LORD gave them rest round about.
The people of Judah under Asa committed themselves to live the covenant at Sinai.
They were committing themselves to live out something that in principle they were al-
ready committed to but had not been doing faithfully. Our covenant is like that in that we
are committing ourselves to do something that all Christians, the church, should do. We
cannot expect to see the whole church functioning as a community of disciples in our
lifetime, but when we say we are a renewal community, we say that we are living that life
partly with the intention of fostering the church’s entering into what we have discovered
and are experiencing.
Our covenant and community life have an added feature. We are also committing
ourselves to a body, a particular group of people with whom we will live community life.
As the apostle Paul said in Romans 12:4-5:
For as in one body we have many members, and all the members do not have the same
function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of
another.
If “we” are supposed to be like a body, we cannot live the Christian life in its fullness on
our own. We need to be joined to others in such a way that we are interdependent with
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them. We need to be united with the rest of the body in such a way that we can function
in a unified way, with each member providing something of what is needed.
Our covenant is founded on God’s call to us. It is a mutual commitment we enter into
to be a community of disciples on mission, in response to our belief that God has called
us to do so.
The covenant commitment of a Sword of the Spirit Community.4 The basis of our
community life is the covenant commitment that we voluntarily make. Our covenant
commitment is based on the core covenant of the Sword of the Spirit. The core covenant
is a simple statement of the nature of our commitment. In our local communities we can
add elements to that core covenant or state the content of the core covenant in a slightly
different way, but all our communities have the same fundamental elements. As a result,
we are all committed to what we call the core covenant of the community. We make the
same commitment whether we live in the Philippines or in the United States or in Leba-
non. And we make the same commitment whether we are in a very large community or a
very small community.
When we make a commitment to the covenant we commit ourselves to our local
community and as a member of that community to the entire Sword of the Spirit.
Through our covenant commitment to the local community, we also commit ourselves
personally to every other member of the Sword of the Spirit. It is a commitment we make
not just to one community or as a member of this community to another community, but
we make it personally to every member of all the communities in the Sword of the Spirit.
That is one of the reasons we can go from one community of the Sword of the Spirit to
another and can live as a member there. We belong there. We can participate as a mem-
ber there because we are a member of the Sword of the Spirit.
The Sword of the Spirit is an unusual association or community of communities, be-
cause our community life is very much the same in its fundamentals from one member
community to another. But the particular expression can be quite different. We have large
communities containing thousands of people, but we also have some very small commu-
nities. We have communities that differ from one another in language and culture and are
located in many different countries. At the same time the fundamental elements of our
life together as a community are the same throughout the Sword of the Spirit.
Our core community covenant expresses our understanding that God has called us to
our local community and to the Sword of the Spirit. We do not have our community life
because we came up with a good idea; rather we believe that this is something God has
called us to, something that God has initiated. That is a very important spiritual under-
standing.
God works over and over again to built up his people and to renew his people by giv-
ing calls: calls specific to a particular age, a particular time, and also to a particular peo-
ple. Throughout the history of God’s people, renewal has come about as God has inter-
vened. God has acted and called people to follow him in a new and particular way. We
4 The section is adapted from the talk in Foundations Course 4 (Living in Christian Community) entitled
“1. Membership and Commitment”.
30
believe God did that for us many years ago in the Sword of the Spirit. And the reason we
live today as we do is in respond to the initiative and call of God.
God has called us to be a community of disciples on mission. We are not just an out-
reach organization or a fellowship or society to support us in religious practices, but we
are a community of disciples on mission. In order to be that, we have to live a way of life
that supports us in that call.
We are also not a church. We are a special Christian community, a renewal communi-
ty and a missionary body within the broader church. One consequence of that is, our
communities do not provide all that everyone needs to live the Christian life.
We are a community and not a religious organization like most contemporary parish-
es or congregations or Christian outreaches. Many parishes or congregations describe
themselves as communities. In a certain sense they may be. But they function like Chris-
tian organizations, set up to provide certain activities or accomplish certain tasks. When
we say that we are a community, we mean that we have a personal commitment to one
another and belong to one another and live a common way of life together.
This has some important consequences. First of all, when we commitment ourselves
to the community, we are committing ourselves to one another as brothers and sisters. We
have a family-like commitment, not just a membership commitment to an organization.
Secondly, our commitment reaches to everything in our lives. We are committed to
supporting one another as Christian disciples in every aspect of our lives – family, work,
church, etc. We do not do everything together. We are not a monastery or a commune, a
total community. We do not live in the same house or houses or have all our resources in
one bank account, and we do not decide everything together about how we live our lives.
But we accept that in principle all our resources belong to one another and to our com-
mon life and mission. We have the kind of commitment that members of a family have to
one another.
There are many ways Christian communal groups constitute themselves. We are con-
stituted as a covenant community. We have a covenant, and those who commit them-
selves to that covenant become members of the community. People cannot join our com-
munity by birth. We consider children of community members to be members of the
community until they reach adult years, but then, if they are going to continue with us,
they need to commit themselves to the covenant if they are going to continue. Our life
together is based on a voluntary commitment of the members to our covenant.
31
1.22 Community and Kinds of

Community
Defining Community
If we are leaders involved in building community, we should understand what we are
trying to build. We need first of all to understand what we mean when we speak of
“community”. For that reason we reviewed in the last section our basic understanding of
Christian community. There are, moreover, a number of kinds of communities (including
different kinds of Christian communities), so we also need to know what kind of commu-
nity we are trying to build.
We are going to begin by picking out some common understandings of community
that can get in the way of understanding community in the sense we mean it.
First of all, people use the word “community” in some very loose ways. The newspa-
pers at times talk about “the business community” having interest in a certain proposal. In
a normal city, however, the business community is not much of a community. The only
tie it has is common interests. Sometimes people speak of the artistic community or the
educational community in this way because of their common interests. We mean much
more by “community” than common interests.
Sometimes people use the word “community” to speak about natural community.
Families, both the nuclear family and the extended family, are the prime examples of a
natural community. People are born into them and usually raised in them. They have not
decided to be in that grouping but they found themselves in it. In a similar way a village
or a city is commonly considered to be a kind of community, and sometimes even a coun-
try is. We are part of this kind of community because of where we live, not because of a
purpose or way of life we have chosen. Even though natural communities can be spiritu-
alized and many are Christian, when we speak of community, we mean something differ-
ent than a merely natural grouping.
Sometimes people mean by “community” or “fellowship” active, friendly or warm re-
lating. It is what develops by spending time together, talking to one another, doing things
with one another. That is certainly involved in what we mean by “community”, but such
a view leaves out the committed and corporate aspect of community.
For others “community” is primarily a set of activities and services. A community is a
group that does certain things together, usually enough things to create good personal in-
teraction. People who have this view think in terms of commitment to a set of services
32
and activities – a limited set. Activities and services are certainly involved in what we
mean by “community”, but such a view leaves out the personal, family-like nature of the
commitment and usually the living of a common way of life.
Underlying these last two views is often an individualistic orientation. People think of
community as something they participate in for certain benefits that they receive from
doing so. The individualistic orientation, so pervasive in our society, undercuts true
community, because it begins from me and what I want, rather than beginning with be-
longing to a people.
By contrast, we are, first of all, a covenanted body that lives and serves together.
When we say that, we do not mean that everyone in the community lives in the same
house or spends all their time in the same outreach or service. We mean that we share our
lives together in a daily way and that we are engaged together in the same mission.
When we speak of “a community”, we are speaking about a set of people who are
formed or form themselves into a bodies. To be a full community, such bodies have to
have the following characteristics:
1. They are distinct from those around them (they have members) and
therefore they have some interactions among themselves that are not
shared with others (except, perhaps, as guests).
2. The members have a personal bond (“relationship”) with one another.
3. The members interact with one another in an ongoing way (have some
“shared life”).
4. These bodies have some purpose or purposes for being together that
motivates them to have a shared life. Those purposes concern how
they live in a daily way (their way of life) and not just some task they
perform together. They are together to live a way of life together and
to support one another in doing that.
5. These bodies are capable of functioning together in a united way, ei-
ther to build up their life together or to do some mission/outreach; that
is, they have a corporate life.
A distinct grouping. A Christian community is a distinct grouping of people. A Chris-

tian community has a membership, and it usually is present in the middle of others who
do not belong to it. There are, therefore, some things that the members of the community
only do with those who belong to the community. Some communities, like a cloistered
monastery, are very closed off from those around them. Others take in guests for most of
their activities. But even in the latter case, it is normally clear who is a guest and who is a
member. Members of a community identify with one another in ways they do not identify
with others.
A personal bond. When we say that the members of a community have a personal
bond with one another, we mean that they are in a relationship that exists for the welfare
of those who participate in it. A community may have additional purposes and may in
fact have been begun to fulfill some purpose like missionary work. Nonetheless the
33
members recognize some mutual duties or obligations towards others in the community
or towards the body as a whole (a bond without obligations is not really a bond). As a
result of the personal bond, members of the same community would see themselves as
belonging to one another (for more than just the accomplishment of a task).
A simply functional or task-oriented grouping, like a business corporation or a service
organization would normally not be referred to as a community. They do not have a “per-
sonal bond”. They have an “organizational bond” that primarily exists for the sake of ac-
complishing a task and not for the welfare of the members. That does not mean that they
do not care for the welfare of those who work for the grouping within the framework of
their organization put they do not exist for that reason. At the same time, there are com-
munities that have been formed for the sake of a mission (e.g., Bethany Fellowship, the
Dominicans). They are not solely missionary organizations, but they are also communi-
ties, because one of their purposes is the mutual personal support of the members.
When we speak of a personal bond, “personal” does not refer only to the relationships
some sociologists would term primary relationships5. Large groupings of people like the
Franciscan order can be communities even though members do not know most of the oth-
ers. Rather, “personal” refers to all relationships that at least partially exist for the sake of
the mutual welfare of the members. For a community, the word implies that in entering
the relationship, members are willing to take on one another’s welfare as their own con-
cern, at least to some extent6. It is the word that indicates that there is or should be some-
thing to the relationship besides membership in the group or participation in a common
set of activities. There should be personal concern for the other members and a personal
commitment to them.
Traditionally, people would talk about mutual duties when they wished to talk about
relationships. They would understand a relationship as something that involved mutual
duties (and consequently, certain claims on others, or certain rights). Being a member
meant taking on a responsibility for the welfare of others, a responsibility that others
could count on. That responsibility may have been exercised by a responsibility for the
corporate group. The watchman who guards the city does not guard each individual in
any distinction from the others. He guards all together. But whether someone takes active
responsibility for the welfare of the whole or for a set of individuals within it or more
likely both, mutual responsibility is a condition of real relationship. In fact, without it,
community is illusory, and those who seek help they can rely on from others, especially
in time of need, find that it is often not there.
Ongoing interactions. The next clearest notion connected to the Christian community
is that there is some ongoing interaction between the members of a community. The word
community implies that there is regular interaction or shared life between the members
5 Primary relationships are, in common sociological usage, face-to-face relationships. Someone who is
in a primary relationship with someone else knows that other person, at least well enough to “connect a
name with a face”. Probably they will have spoken enough with them to know something about them.
6 Augustine in his Treatise on John, 65, speaking of God’s people, says, “And so all her members make
each other’s welfare their common concern.
34
by which they support one another and care for one another. That interaction is one of the
means, perhaps the prime one, for benefitting the members.
The interaction between the members here is understood as something that does not
have to be local. For many, “translocal community” is a contradiction in terms. However,
as long as the various local groupings of a community are tied together in such a way that
they are concerned with one another’s welfare and their members would understand
themselves to be responsible for (committed to) the welfare of members in other loca-
tions, even if they never meet them or do anything for them on an individual basis, then
the translocal grouping is a community. If the local groupings have some concern for one
another’s welfare and have regular interaction between themselves, then they form to-
gether a translocal community7.
Ongoing interaction, of course, could be accidental. People could live together in the
same apartment building, have some interaction, even like one another a great deal, and
yet still not be a community. That points to a further aspect of the ongoing interaction.
People have to recognize themselves as being in a stable relationship if they are to de-
scribe themselves as a community. They have to, in short, be somehow tied or joined to-
gether. Or to put it in terms of the second characteristic, for a community the bond is
more important than the actual amount of interaction although community life will not be
vital without a fair amount of interaction among the members.
This is, perhaps, the point where community is most counter-cultural. People in a
modern society like to “keep their options open”. Such a mentality is bred by the rapid
change and mobility in modern society. As a result, people want relationship, often pre-
cisely because of the loneliness and isolation produced by modern society, and yet they
want it without “being tied-down”. As a result, “community” is commonly used to desig-
nate something without commitment or obligation. Nonetheless, the ongoing concern for
the welfare of the other and the ongoing interaction in which others are benefitted cannot
be had without some kind of tie or bond.
Contemporary people use the word “community” in a positive sense. They are, how-
ever, often looking for something somewhat different than the above definition points to.
They are often mainly looking for a group of people with whom they can have a positive
interaction, that is, an interaction that meets their experienced desires or, to use a word
that is often employed, which they find fulfilling. However, it is not always the case that
relationships people like or desire are ones that involve a concern for the others’ welfare.
Often relationships with positive interaction do not. Social groups, golf clubs, sexual
partners, etc. are often very unconcerned with the welfare of the others, and members are
ready to abandon the others when a need is no longer being fulfilled. At the same time,
family members who may not like one another very much can be faithful to the relation-
7 There is the possibility that one grouping might get cut off from the rest for many years, as was the
case with groups of Christians under Communist persecution. In such a case, they still form part of the in-
ternational community. The fact that the bond has not changed and they would interact with the rest if they
could is here understood to be enough to constitute them a community with others they cannot interact
with. This only indicates that the bond is more fundamental than the interaction, because it will lead to an
interaction under normal circumstances. People without such a bond might interact with one another for no
compelling reason, but if they moved away, they would not keep any contact.
35
ship. According to the definition given, then, the family members who do not like one
another have community together, while the members of a social grouping who like to be
together might not.
There is, nonetheless, a correlation between positive interaction and relationship con-
cern for the welfare of others. Each leads to the other. But it is too often observable in
contemporary society that the two are not necessarily linked. Many end up being deeply
disappointed when they are in personal need by the lack of concern which is shown by
those with whom they have had an enjoyable relationship for years or by the way they are
simply abandoned by someone who has chosen to pursue something they wanted more
than they wanted the relationship — often relationship with a different set of people or
with a different individual.
At the same time, it is probably no longer possible to maintain genuine community in
the modern world without positive interaction. The family member who simply lived the
family relationship faithfully out of grim duty is increasingly something of the past in
“modern” societies. There are too many other alternatives. Positive interaction and the
ability to foster it has to be one of the ingredients of successful community building in a
modern society.
A purpose. Some groups form communities for the sake of having community. In the
sixties in North America, for instance, many communes (as they were often called) came
into existence. Most did not last very long — for the simple reason that focusing on being
together is not that motivating in the long run. What draws people together and motivates
them is some greater purpose.
But people can be drawn together and motivated for some greater purpose without
forming community. They often form organizations and work for “a cause”. Some of the
stronger forms of social unity in modern times have been political parties with a cause,
like the Communist Party before it fell apart. People are only willing to join a community
when they are looking to have a way of life with other people who want that same way of
life.
A Christian community, then, needs a purpose to bring it into existence and to main-
tain it. That purpose has to be first and foremost commitment to Christ, and a desire to
obey him. We can, of course, express our commitment to Christ in a Christian outreach
organization. That may enable us to work for Christ better than we could on our own. But
if we want to obey him, we want to live a Christian way of life, a consistently Christian
way of life. We therefore need others to do it with. We cannot worship God as a Christian
without having others to worship with. Moreover, if we want to follow the Christian
teaching on speech, we soon find we need others to talk with who also want to follow the
Christian teaching on speech. In addition, the more we want to grow in the Christian life,
the more we will want to have the support and help of others to do that.
Is there any other way to find others to live the Christian way of life with and to find
support in doing so than to be part of a Christian community? Yes, there is. Many people
can find what they need in their parish or church congregation. Some churches are in fact
Christian communities, although most do not seem to be, even though they often describe
themselves that way. Nonetheless, even churches that are not Christian communities as a
36
whole most often have a core of people who are the backbone of the church and who re-
late together in a supportive Christian way. We could say they are an informal communi-
ty within the parish. In addition, many Christian service organizations are made up of
people who want to live a Christian way of life and who do support one another in doing
so.
The point is not that belonging to a Christian community is the only way of getting
help to live the Christian way of life. But it is important to recognize that most often a
Christian church as a whole does not function as a Christian community. It normally
functions as a service organization. It provides activities like worship services and in-
structional and sometimes counseling activities. It often sponsors certain outreaches. But
it is not a community. It is normally not enough to simply be a church member if we want
to live a dedicated Christian life, even though a good church is a help.
The point of discussing the purpose of the community is rather to indicate that a
Christian community needs a purpose and that purpose has to be commitment to Christ
and living a Christian way of life. Community cannot be an end in itself, and commit-
ment to Christ has to involve commitment to living the way of life he teaches. If we want
a Christian community, we need to have the purpose clear — to be committed to Christ
together and to be committed to living together the Christian way of life consistently.
Commitment to Christ and to living the Christian way of life has a functional im-
portant for a Christian community. To be sure, we do not do those things because of their
functional usefulness. We do them out of faith, loyalty and personal commitment. None-
theless, the more fervent we are as a body in our Christian commitment and our Christian
living, the stronger our life as a community will be. The more a community is “purpose-
driven” to use a common phrase, the more it will thrive, and the more its members will.
Functioning in a united (corporate) way. As we have seen, the New Testament some-
times sees the Christian community as a body. In so doing, it sees it as a set of people
who are the same in that they are committed to Christ and live the Christian way of life.
But they also are different from one another. Their differences may be natural: they are
young and old, male and female. Their differences may be occupational or social class
differences. But they also have different roles or services within the community that al-
low the community to function in a corporate way.
The services people perform for the body may be quite varied. Some may be engaged
in evangelistic outreach. Others in works of mercy, like caring for the sick or aged. Some
may work in the formation program or in instructional programs. Some may serve in the
music ministry. Others in practical services that allow the community to function like car-
ing for the meeting place or the sound system. For the community to function effectively,
its members must depend on one another in a variety of ways.
The interdependence and total commitment of Christians to one another is not possi-
ble without authority and submission. To be unified, a Christian body must have recog-
nized leadership and governance. To function as a body Christians must make themselves
subordinate to one another. When we put our lives and resources in common, we need to
establish some person or group to take responsibility for the common life to see that it
functions in good order. When Christians love one another and are one in the Lord, au-
37
thority takes on the character of service. It changes from something of a power struggle
into a personal relationship we can trust. Those in Christian authority serve those they are
responsible for so that all can live a good Christian life in one body (Gal. 5:13).
Christian Community: If a community is a Christian community, the mutual support

and care is Christian. It exists for a Christian reason, at least the reason of living for and
serving the Lord. It is done in accordance with the law of Christ. It includes a concern for
the other’s eternal welfare as well as this-worldly welfare. Here the phrase “Christian
community” is only used to refer to a voluntary grouping of Christians who have come
together to support one another as Christians and, usually, to further some aspect of the
mission of the church. .Such groups seem to be commonly designated “communities”.8
Kinds of Christian Communities

Not only is the word “community” used in various ways, even the sort of community
we have been discussing (a body with definite membership and a definite bond between
the members) has many kinds. We want to consider these so we can understand the kinds
of communities we work with in the Sword of the Spirit.
A community that is a body, that has a corporate existence and can function in a unit-
ed way, has a structure. The nature of the community is determined by the kinds of struc-
tural elements it has and the kinds of commitments its members can have. The following
are the structural elements that such communities need to have:
• Recognized patterns of corporate life
– meetings of the whole group and/or of sub-groups
– small group meetings for personal care
– services and service teams
• Recognized leadership, both recognized positions and recognized decision-
making processes
• Recognized commitments
Using the word “recognized” indicates that the structural elements can be customary (ask
everyone and they say, Sam is the leader of the group) or formal (we elected Sam).
There are a variety of kinds of commitments that the members may have. Different
members may have different commitments, depending on the approach of the community
and the relationship of the members to the community. The following is a list of possible
commitments:
• Commitment to the Lord, including commitment to belief in the creed and
keeping the commandments
8 The first recorded use of the Greek word koinonia, the word for community, to designate a voluntary
grouping in the church, was by Pachomius in the Fourth Century. See Armand Veilleux, “La liturgie dans
le cénobitisme pacômien au quatrième siècle,” Studia Anselmiana, 57, (Rome: Herder, 1968), pp. 176-181.
38
• Commitment to activities of the group and contributions needed to sustain the

activities
• Personal commitments to the group beyond activities (they can be called upon
to meet its needs)
• Obligations to other members of the group (brother-sister commitment)
• Commitment to a way of life
• Commitment to practices of greater Christian dedication (prayer, Christian
service, etc.).
The above considerations lead to the following definitions of some different kinds of
Christian community:
Informal community
=df a set of people who come together because of their commitment to Chris-
tian discipleship and have a stable, supportive interaction but do not have
a corporate life. They have community life that is:
1. informally structured
2. with involvement with the community being customary
– Those who are regular recognize one another as members.
Community group
tian discipleship and have a stable, supportive interaction. They have cor-
porate life that is:
1. formally structured
2. with limited personal commitments to community activities and
practices
Full community
2. with personal commitments to a way of life and to the welfare of
the group and its members
Total community
2. with personal commitments to a way of life and to the welfare of
the group and its members
3. with everything done together (all their time and resources are in
principle subject to the corporate life).
39
The Kinds of Communities We Work With

We work with all four of the above kinds of Christian community in different ways.
We are mainly oriented to building full communities that are covenant communities. But
we have other kinds of communities inside the Sword of the Spirit and work with others
outside. What follows is a list of the kinds of groups we work with and where we work
with them.
Groups we work with outside of the SOS

Informal community
Community group
Groups we work with inside the SOS

The movement group
The small single-unit community
The single-unit community
The multi-unit community
Special SOS groups

The associate community
The expatriate communities
Note that Building and Supporting Communities has a list of kinds of communities as
well. It is, however, focused on membership in the Sword of the Spirit (prospective
members, affiliates, underway A, underway B, full member). The list in this write-up has
a different purpose, because it is focused on the (internal) dynamics of the community.
Groups We Work With Outside the SOS

Informal Communities
The informal (or semi-formal) community is a set of people who have come together
because of their commitment to Christian discipleship and have a somewhat stable, sup-
portive interaction. Their leadership is recognized, sometimes formally but normally in-
formally. They are usually a small group and will probably not last very long. Examples:
40
some prayer groups, some special groupings (often students or young married couples or
older people, who have regular informal interaction).
Community Groups
A community group is a set of people who have come together because of their com-
mitment to Christian discipleship and have a stable, supportive personal interaction. They
have recognized leadership and some structure (patterns of interaction). They probably do
not have formal membership but do have a recognized core. Examples: many prayer
groups and many “ecclesial communities”. Many parishes and congregations have a core
that functions somewhat like this.
Our Communities and Groups

All the member groups of the Sword of the Spirit, whether movement groups or regu-
lar communities, are full communities as defined above.
The Movement Groups

A movement group is a set of people who have come together because of their com-
mitment to Christian discipleship and have a stable, supportive personal interaction. They
have recognized leadership and structure (patterns of interaction). They have formal
membership involving some commitments to the corporate life. They usually also have
personal commitments (e.g., to regular prayer). We usually have such groups as the basis
of our movements.
The Single Unit Communities9

The single unit community is a self-sustaining community and can provide all the ac-
tivities, including the formation, needed for its members to live the Sword of the Spirit
life. The community can handle almost everything on its own, but needs help from out-
side (another community or the region) to do full leadership formation. Districts in larger
communities function in an analogous way. In contrast to the above types, this or the
multi unit community is what we are aiming for when possible.
Dynamics
1. The community is larger than a small single unit community but smaller in size
(40–150 members) than the multi unit community.
2. The community does not have a small group dynamic (where everyone knows one
another decently and relates somewhat like an extended family). There is a need
for sub-groupings, at least men’s groups and women’s groups and service groups,
perhaps clusters, perhaps some other kind of sub-grouping.
9 “Unit” means our basic pastoral unit, which is a group of SOS members who are cared for in a longer-
term way by a coordinator and pastoral team.
41
3. The community can sustain outreaches that are not just part of the community it-
self (e.g., open community meetings or other open community events), for in-
stance, a university outreach, a men’s movement.
4. The community has a body of coordinators.
– Smaller communities usually grow in the number of leaders they have. As a
result they often do not have enough gifted leaders to sustain a full govern-
mental structure and a full initiations process when they are at the smaller end
of the scale but eventually should be able to.
5. The community can form new members for public commitment.
The Multi Unit Communities

Because the community is large, it is divided into districts. It can provide all or al-
most all the regular leadership formation. It can sustain outreaches. Communities are in
this category because they are too large to function well as one district, but they are not
so large that they have to become separate communities.
A district in a multi unit community is a unit made up of a coordinator and pastoral
team (senior men and women leaders, servant, etc.). We have two kinds of districts:
• districts with a common life (district gatherings and other activities)
• districts that are only pastoral units.
Multi-branch communities are an acceptable option in principle. These are communi-
ties with branches outside the city in which the originating community is situated.
Dynamics
1. They are over 125-175.
2. The community has several coordinators, usually at least 4.
3. The districts provide most of the basic care and often much of the basic life.
4. Unless the community is widely separate geographically, most of the outreaches
are run on a community basis, as are many of the services.
5. Normally communities of this size can handle all their needs, at least when sus-
tained by interactions with other communities in a region and by some inter-
community sharing.
The Small Single Unit Communities

These are communities that do not have the pastoral resources to give full community
care. They therefore have less community activities within their own group and if possi-
ble tie in to the region, a regional grouping, or a larger community for other needed activ-
ities. They also are not completely self-governing and are represented through their out-
side coordinator in the international association. The full members have a public com-
mitment and live the Elements of Good Membership.
The small single unit community is a way for a small group of people to live as mem-
bers of the Sword of the Spirit. They often grow into basic communities. Many of them,
however, do not grow, but may remain members of the Sword of the Spirit.
Dynamics
42
1. The small single unit community would typically have a “household” dynamic
not a full community dynamic.
2. It usually does outreach by opening its community events or bringing people to
something regional or to a nearby community.
3. It would be at least 6-10 adults and would normally have a men’s group and a
woman’s group.
4. Small single unit communities (whether beginning communities or communities
that look like they will be on the smaller side long term) should normally have
their governing council be a leadership team (usually of at least one coordinator,
either from within the group or from outside, senior men leaders and/or outreach
leaders and a servant) rather than a council of coordinators.
5. The small single unit community would also have one or more members capable
of functioning as a formation leader (responsible for the initiations process). Part
or all of the initiations process for members may be given outside the community
or by people from outside
6. Between 20–25 adults, the group would need another level of organization and
could become a small community. At that time, it should receive further for-
mation as a community.
Special SOS Groups

Associated Communities
These are communities that wish to be part of the SOS but cannot fulfill all the re-
quirements of full membership either because of external reasons or internal reasons. The
community membership has agreed to accept the agreement of membership as an associ-
ated community in the Sword of the Spirit and the community has made a formal com-
mitment. The agreement should be tailored for the community.
Expatriate Communities
These are communities made up of expatriates, most of whom are expecting to return
to their home country or to some other country where they will be expatriates again. They
are therefore transitory, and they are often reluctant to commit themselves to something
more than a limited set of activities (less than our normal community activities). They
usually function like a movement group.
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1.3 The Personal Care

We Give
Our overall approach to pastoral care in general can be found in The Statement of
Community Order, VIII. The material here is designed to give an overview of how that is
structured in the Sword of the Spirit so that leaders can see more clearly where the kind
of pastoral care they do fits in.
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1.31 The Pastoral System

The pastoral chain. There is a basic structure to the way the pastoral system is put
together. The fundamental elements include the groupings within the community:
• the community as a whole,
• districts for larger communities,
• pastoral subgroupings within the community or district,
• men’s and women’s groups.
With each grouping go positions of pastoral leadership:
• the senior coordinator and community council for the community as a whole,
• district coordinators for the districts,
• senior leaders and senior women leaders who work under a coordinator,
• the pastoral workers (in formation and with covenant members), who work under
a coordinator or under a senior leader or a senior woman leader.
These are all put together in what we refer to as a pastoral chain.
First all community members should be in a men’s group or women’s group. This is
the basic unit of pastoral care. The group meeting is led by a pastoral worker who is re-
sponsible pastorally (the pastoral leader) for all the members of the group.
The pastoral worker responsible works under a senior leader or a senior woman lead-
er. They, in turn, work under a coordinator. The coordinator supervises the pastoral care
of all those he is responsible for, either by directly supervising the pastoral workers or
supervising the senior men or woman leaders who work under him.
The senior coordinator (or in a small community the sole coordinator) supervises the
pastoral care of all those in the community. He normally does so through the other pasto-
ral workers.
For unified pastoral care of the whole community, the leaders need to be related in a
pastoral chain. The pastoral workers need to be pastorally responsible for all the members
of their groups. The senior leaders need to be pastorally responsible for all the members
of the sub-grouping they are responsible for, that is, for those who are cared for by the
senior men or senior woman leader they are responsible for. A senior woman leader
works with the senior leaders or coordinators and is responsible for all the women the
pastoral workers who work under her are responsible for.
When there is a structured pastoral chain, then each level of pastoral leaders can be
pastorally responsible for all those under them. They can get information about how the
members they are responsible for by talking to those working under them (in team meet-
ings or one-on-one). If need be, they can take responsibility for situations in the lives of
the members by working through those working under them, although they can, in addi-
tion, take direct responsible. If the responsible coordinator wants to give some direction
45
to all the members he is responsible for, he can work through the senior leaders working
under him, who in turn can work through the pastoral workers they are responsible for.
It is easiest to understand the pastoral chain in the multi unit communities by under-
standing that the senior coordinator supervises and works through the district coordina-
tors and the district coordinator supervises and works through the senior leaders and the
senior woman leaders he is responsible for, and they in turn work through the pastoral
workers they are responsible for.
In the single unit communities, there are no districts, so the district level is eliminat-
ed. That means that a coordinator is often the direct supervisor of the pastoral workers.
The simplified schema used above provides the basic understanding. It is helpful,
however, to keep in mind that there are some arrangements that provide greater flexibility
but also some greater complexity. Among them are:
• The coordinators and senior leaders are also pastoral workers and commonly have
a pastoral group they lead in addition to those they supervise through those who
work under them.
• Sometimes a pastoral worker is working with and supervising an assistant who at-
tends the group meeting and is responsible pastorally for some members of the
group. That usually happens so the assistant can get training as a pastoral worker.
• Occasionally for special reasons, members can have a personal pastoral leader
outside their men’s or women’s group, but the pastoral worker responsible for the
group is still the main one responsible for them pastorally.
• The small single unit community (see the section on “Kinds of Communities We
Work With” p. 40 above) has some special arrangements.
In short, we can make special arrangements to deal with special situations, but there
should still be a consistent chain of pastoral responsibility.
For more help in setting up the pastoral system during the formation process, see “In-
tegrating the Process of Pastoral Care” below (p. 109).
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1.32 Kinds of Personal Care
Kinds of Pastoral Care

We need to know the nature of our service in order to know how to serve and lead
well. If we do not, we can easily mis-locate or mis-apply truths of leadership. A speaker
on leadership once said, “What leaders need to know is that above all they should take
the initiative to move things forward”. For many leaders, moving things forward whenev-
er they can is an important truth for being effective. But servants or secretaries or most
kinds of leadership positions that involve assisting someone else, should not “above all”
move things forward. They should only move things forward when they have been as-
signed something to move forward. Taking inappropriate initiative is counter-productive.
We have four main kinds of leadership positions in our communities: outreach lead-
ers, community service leaders, pastoral workers for covenant members, and pastoral
workers for formation and initiations. There are truths that are the same for all of them.
But leadership in each kind of service works somewhat differently than in the rest and
therefore truths of leadership either are different or have to be applied differently.
Some of our leadership positions are primarily oriented to task-effectiveness, to get-

ting something accomplished. Leadership positions in community service or in much out-
reach are like that. Some of our leadership positions, however, are primarily oriented to
helping people live our life well (and so living the Christian life well). These we term
pastoral leadership positions. When we have a responsibility for some community mem-
bers in order to help them live our life well, we do pastoral care or personal care.
We have three significantly different kinds of personal care: care of covenanted
members, care of new members needing formation, and evangelistic personal care. We
will consider evangelistic personal care in the next section.
Pastoral care of covenanted members and pastoral care of those in formation (initia-
tions) function in two significantly different ways. Those in formation have agreed to be
part of a process in which they will be helped to live a certain kind of life. Those at the
beginning of the formation process are being given formation in Christian discipleship or
Christian maturity. As they go on, they are increasingly given formation for being mem-
bers of our communities. They receive that formation by participating in a formation pro-
gram that brings them to the point where they can live as Christian disciples and as com-
munity members.
Covenanted members are in a different place. They have received formation and so,
presumably, can live our life well. They have, in addition, made a commitment to living
47
it. They may need some further formation in certain areas as they get older: marriage
preparation, parenting, living as seniors. But most of the time covenanted members are
not receiving personal formation in a formation program.
The responsibility of pastoral workers in initiations, then, is to see that new people ei-
ther go through the formation program or leave it. The responsibility of pastoral workers
with covenanted members is to help community members live the life they have been
formed in and committed themselves to. This means that the dynamics of pastoral care in
the two situations is significantly different. The following are some of the more important
differences:
• The nature of the goal
During formation: the new people are moving through a process of change to the
goal of living the community (and Christian) life well. After formation: they are liv-
ing that life as they deal with changing life circumstances.
In general, new people are not living a full life of Christian discipleship or living
our community life. We do sometimes get new people who are living a full life of
Christian discipleship, but most are not. Moreover, almost none of them are living our
life fully — at least not in an adult way. There is, then, a clear goal that they are mov-
ing towards, one summarized in The Elements of Good Membership.
On the other hand, once people have completed formation and made a public
commitment, they have reached the goal of living our life. They could probably al-
ways improve in how they live it and may need remedial work in certain areas. They
are, however, living our life and serving the Lord. Their challenge is to live it out in
changing life circumstances as they go through life. They may, for instance, live our
teaching on family life well when the children are young, but will need a new ap-
proach to live it with teenagers.
• The primary responsibility
During formation the pastoral workers have the primary responsibility to get the
people they care for through the formation process. After formation the covenanted
members have the primary responsibility to live the covenant they made.
In general, new people do not know very well what it is to be a Christian disciple
and do not know a great deal about how to be a community member. After formation,
that should all have changed. Therefore the pastoral workers in initiations are the ones
who need to take the responsibility to see that the process moves forward successfully
and the new people get the help they need. In this they function like teachers or train-
ers in an occupation. If the formation has worked well, the covenanted member
should then be in a position to take the primary responsibility.
• Authoritative input
During formation the pastoral workers give the people they are responsible for a
fair amount of authoritative input (primarily through teaching, correction and advice).
After formation the pastoral workers give less input and little of that authoritatively.
One way of saying this is that pastoral input plays a larger role in the formation
process than it does in working with covenanted members. It would be wrong to con-
48
clude that covenanted members do not need any pastoral input. It can be crucial, in
fact. But much of the care comes fraternally, especially from the other members of
the men’s and women’s group. And even the input that comes from the pastoral
worker responsible for the brother or sister is more often fraternal or advisory in na-
ture and less often authoritative.
• Initiative
During formation the pastoral workers are the ones who should bring up with
those they are responsible for what they need to work through. After formation the
covenanted members should take the responsibility to bring up with their pastoral
leaders new challenges they are facing, to ask for help with the problems they are
having, and to check whether they are hearing and responding to community instruc-
tion in the right way.
New people often do not know what they need to discuss and work through with
the pastoral worker responsible for them. They are inclined to talk about the things
that are bothering them (felt needs or perceived problems), but they often miss the
most important things. The pastoral worker, then, should know what needs to be dis-
cussed and take the initiative in seeing that it happens. Covenanted members on the
other hand should have learned from the process of formation what they need to dis-
cuss with the pastoral worker (or the coordinator or the senior women’s leader). They
should therefore take the initiative to see those things are discussed — and discussed
ahead of time.
To summarize, pastoral workers in initiations, have a somewhat different role than

pastoral workers for covenanted members. During formation the pastoral workers should
lead the new people from stage to stage, assessing how they are making progress and giv-
ing personal care in the light of that. After formation, however, pastoral workers should
(1) keep an eye on how the covenanted members they are responsible for are doing, (2)
respond to problems they bring up (or their men’s or women’s group brings up) and (3)
anticipate major changes in their lives and help them prepare for and go through them.
They both do pastoral care, but the dynamics are significantly different.
We can err in two different ways. Often in the past pastoral workers have tried to give
pastoral care to covenanted members as if they were in formation, as if they were their
trainers. At a certain point, this does not work well. At times in reaction to over-
extending a formational approach, pastoral workers have drawn back from giving forma-
tional care to new members. This has kept the new members from making the progress
they should. All community members, new and covenanted alike, need pastoral care, but
the way we give it needs to be different.
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Evangelistic Personal Care

In the last section, we considered the kind of pastoral care we have in our communi-
ties. We also, however, do something else that is like pastoral care — evangelistic per-
sonal care. It is like pastoral care in that we take a personal concern for some people to
help them move forward in the Christian life. It is different from pastoral care in that we
cannot presuppose that the people we work with have a commitment to us, and often we
cannot presuppose that they have much if any commitment to the Lord.
“Evangelism” means “spreading or communicating the good news”. Strictly speak-
ing, the good news is the good news about Christ and about what he has done to make it
possible for us to have new life. Usually, though, when we speak about evangelism, we
mean everything that goes into bringing someone into a relationship with Christ. In the
community, we consider the period from the time when we come into contact with some-
one until they enter the community formation process to be the period of evangelism.
Evangelism focuses on bringing people to Christ. He is the source of new life for
them. But the scripture shows, and we have seen by experience, that few people, our-
selves included, come into a full Christian life without a relationship with other Chris-
tians to live their Christian lives with and to support them in it. We want to communicate
the good news wherever and whenever we can, but one of our main goals has to be to
connect people with our community life so they can grow as Christians.
We primarily evangelize by connecting people with evangelizing environments where
they can hear about Christianity in a way that helps them to understand it and can get to
know committed Christians who relate to the Lord and who share their lives together as
Christians. We usually speak of these environments as outreaches. University outreach or
neighborhood Bible studies or men’s breakfasts are all examples of such outreaches.
They make use of meetings and special events and programs like the Life in the Spirit
Seminars. But meetings, events and programs are rarely effective in bringing people to
the Lord unless we work with them personally.
In the initial stages of evangelism, our personal work is mainly evangelistic personal
contact — getting in touch with people who have some openness and helping them con-
nect with the outreaches or programs that will aid them to move on. We often have a
chance to witness to them about our relationship with Christ and about the Christian life.
We also often have a chance to explain to them various things about Christianity. But we
mainly try to keep contact with them and keep them connected to an evangelistic envi-
ronment.
After new people have reached a certain conversion, they are willing to come to
something regularly — usually a growth course of some sort or a small group meeting. If
we are the leader of a discussion group in such a course or the leader of a small group or
if we just work on an evangelism team and have some people we are responsible to help,
we need to do evangelistic personal care.
50
The goal of evangelistic personal care is to bring people to conversion to Christ and
to take the steps that they need to take to grow in the Christian life. Both are important. If
they do not enter into a personal relationship with Christ as their Lord and Savior, they
will not be able to live a genuine Christian life. If they do not take certain steps, especial-
ly if they do not commit themselves to some formation program, they will not move on to
full Christian living.
When we help new people at the front end of the process, then, our goal is simple. We
are not trying to form people in Christian living or get their lives working well, although
we are willing to help in whatever way we can. We are rather concerned with getting
them to an initial conversion to Christ and to take the first steps that will allow them to
live as Christians.
In evangelistic personal care, we cannot count on commitment in the people we are
working with. In pastoral care, we expect some level of commitment and can expect peo-
ple to do certain things out of commitment — like coming to meetings. But in evangelis-
tic personal care, we cannot presume that. Perhaps the most helpful description of our job
is that we try to win people to commitment to the Lord.
This means that we mainly are trying to encourage, motivate and persuade people to
connect to the Lord and to do the things that will help them to move forward in the Chris-
tian life. We have no authority in their lives that we can exercise, and we cannot call
them to commitment. Rather, our commitment to them is normally the important factor.
If we do not stay with them, they will have less chance to make progress. We also show
them the importance of commitment by our faithfulness to them.
In evangelistic personal care, we are the ones that need to take the initiative. If we are
giving pastoral care to covenant members, we should be able to expect them to come to
us when they need to talk about something. Sometimes a new person will do that, but for
the most part we cannot expect it. We have to keep up with them, keep an eye on whether
they are coming to the things they should, ask them about what they are getting out of the
meetings they are taking part in or how they are responding to what they have heard.
Even though evangelistic personal care works in a different way than pastoral care,
much of what we do in pastoral care is important in evangelistic personal care. We are
taking on a responsibility to care for people, at least as long as they are willing to receive
some help from us. We are taking a personal interest in them and in their welfare. We are
seeking to befriend them and serve them. We are looking to give them what we can that
will help them and that they can receive.
There are important qualifications to what was just said about the lack of commitment
in new people. In evangelistic outreach, we sometimes work with people who have a
commitment to the Lord. We get good Christians or at least somewhat practicing Chris-
tians who are ready to consider growing as Christians and are perhaps interested in seeing
if the outreach we are working in or even the community would be a good place for them.
We also get younger people who have been raised in the community and are open to, or
even expecting to, continue.
In both cases, we still need to do evangelistic personal care, not pastoral care. We
may not need to bring people to initial commitment to the Lord, but we still need to bring
51
them to commitment. We need to bring people to a step of commitment — the commit-

ment to receive the formation they need to live as Christians. This too is a kind of evan-
gelistic personal care where we cannot count on their having commitment to us or to tak-
ing the next step. Our goal is to help them come to such commitment. We therefore need
to try to win them, and we need to take the initiative with them.
In addition, even though evangelistic personal care is different from pastoral care, we
often have to “be evangelistic” with people we are pastorally responsible for who are
covenanted members. Many of the people we work with pastorally need to have their
commitment and relationship with the Lord strengthened. All pastoral work, therefore,
involves a certain amount of evangelism, because the key to effective Christian living is
true conversion to and relationship with the Lord. Evangelistic pastoral care teaches us
things that are useful even when we are working with covenanted members.
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Men and Women in Personal Care

Men and women work in personal care somewhat differently. Most of our personal
care is separated by sex, so most of our personal care is man to man and woman to wom-
an. We use small groups that focus on or at least include personal sharing, and those are
either men’s groups and women’s groups. We provide pastoral workers or outreach
workers who meet with people one-on-one to help them to grow personally, and men
workers work with the men and women workers work with the women. We do this be-
cause it is a clear matter of experience that men interact differently with men than women
interact with women — especially in personal matters, and the more wisdom we have
about those differences, the more effective we will be.
This does not preclude having men give some pastoral care to women. There are
times when a man’s approach can be particularly helpful to a woman, especially when
there is a need for authoritative input or when the man’s objectivity (detachment) is help-
ful. Likewise there are times when women’s approach or understanding can help men see
things that they would not otherwise. Normally, however, our approach to ongoing per-
sonal care is for men to work with men and women to work with women.
In the previous section, we considered the differences between our personal care in
evangelistic situations and in community situations (initiations or covenant membership).
Men-women differences affect both situations for the most part the same way. The fol-
lowing considerations therefore should help us in how to deal with all matters of personal
care as they are affected by the differences between men and women.
Despite some propaganda to the contrary, the differences between men and women
are easily recognizable. It is only wise to take them into account. That means that men
and women leaders will work in a somewhat different way from one another if they are
doing personal care.
The differences between men and women are best understood as tendencies or orien-
tations rather than as absolutes or laws. The following is a brief discussion of some men-
women differences that come into play in personal care. They indicate that men and
women pastoral or evangelistic leaders will and should work in somewhat different ways.
While there are a set of things both need to do in somewhat the same way, there will be
characteristic differences in the way they handle personal care.
This is a difficult area to talk about well. Because the differences between the way
men and women handle things is not absolute, we cannot always make clear-cut distinc-
tions. We cannot say all men do it this way and all women do it that way. We can only
say men on the whole tend to do it this way and women on the whole tend to do it that
way. We also can say that on the whole men respond best to the approach other men take
and women respond best to the approach other women take – for most matters of person-
al care.
53
In addition, there are no ways of speaking about these things that everyone accepts
and follows. There are generally understood differences, but often different words are
used by different people when both are trying to speak about the same thing. Often when
we hear someone speak about these things, we say “I am pretty sure I understand what
they mean, but I would not say it that way.”
The items below are, then, are broad contrasts. These contrasts are not mutually ex-
clusive. A mixture of the both usually works best. But for men working with men, the
men’s approach should normally take priority, while with for women working with wom-
en, the women’s approach normally takes priority.
Objective understanding versus empathy. When we speak to someone about their
lives, especially when we speak to them about personal difficulties or matters that need to
change, we can express objective understanding or empathy. When we express objective
understanding, we seek to speak about the situation with clarity and with a certain
amount of detachment. When we speak with empathy we convey feeling (usually sympa-
thy) in regard to the situation. Men pastoral leaders are usually more inclined to express
objective understanding and women are more inclined to express empathy, while the men
we are working with are usually more inclined to respond well to objective understand-
ing, and the women we are working with are more inclined to respond to empathy.
Helping them versus being there for them. When we work with others in personal
care, the nature of our relationship to them is important. We can understand our relation
to them as one where we are primarily there to help them. For men, this is often positive-
ly exemplified in the coaching relationship. On the other hand, we can understand our
relation to them primarily as what people often refer to as “being there for them”, that is,
as being a personal support, a source of confidence and encouragement, regardless of
whether we can help them in any way or not. Men leaders are usually more inclined to
approach relationships of personal care as a helping relationship. Women leaders will
usually put a higher priority on being there for those they are caring for.
Calling on/challenging versus positive affirmation. The way we speak to others in
personal care when we want to get them to change is also important. We can call them on
or challenge them to do better. We can also express positive affirmation. Men respond
better to being called on or challenged, perhaps because it motivates them to seek to de-
serve more respect. Women respond better to affirmation and encouragement, perhaps
because it gives them more confidence that they can do what is being asked of them by
the Lord and/or the circumstances of their lives. Of course, for both men and women it is
important to hear the truth about what should change, but the context of how the truth is
spoken is important. In general, men can and even should be rougher with one another
than women can, and women can and should be more sensitive to the feelings of the
women they are caring for, although once a relationship of trust is established, calling on
in a womanly way is also important.
Being part of the same team versus valuing each one’s uniqueness. The way we relate
to being in a group as a whole is also important in personal care. Men respond positively
to being accepted and valued as part of a team, even if they are not among the most high-
ly respected members. Women respond positively to being valued for their uniqueness,
54
their special contributions, often because it will give them trust that what they do will be
received well. Men leaders, especially when working with a group, do well to foster a
sense of camaraderie, a sense that we are working together for the same goal. Women
leaders do well to express their understanding and concern for each one’s uniqueness.
Once again, women appreciate being part of a team of women, especially in service, and
men also value having their leader understand their uniqueness, especially when their
leader is trying to help them with something that is not working so well. Nonetheless,
teamwork with camaraderie is more important in men’s personal interactions and a
recognition of the “specialness” of the other is more important in women’s personal in-
teractions.
To summarize the above, men and women leaders handle personal care relationships
in somewhat different ways. Their style of exercising care is different. They both need to
fulfill the basics of their responsibility, but the way they do it is different. This is one of
the reasons why it is normally better for men to handle personal care with the men and
women with the women. Moreover, the women pastoral leaders should not feel that they
have to use the same style as the men pastoral leaders and vice versa.
There are, of course, also individual differences in this area. All pastoral leaders have
their own style of how they handle personal care. Moreover, their style often changes be-
cause of the different personalities of those they are caring for. The goal is for each pasto-
ral worker to learn how to handle different people and to handle a group as a whole in the
most effective way. Paying attention to men-women differences is one way to do that.
55
2. Guide for Pastoral

Workers in the Formation
Process
This is a pastoral approach presentation designed for the use of pastoral workers in
formation and initiations. It treats the process of formative pastoral care. It is followed by
a Guide for Pastoral Workers with Young Singles and a Guide for Pastoral Workers With
Married Couples.
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57
Introduction to Part Two
2.01 The Basic Principle
Every community needs a formation and initiations process to

survive and thrive.
A formation and initiations process is a way of helping people move to full Christian
conversion, maturity in Christian living, and commitment to our community (for those
who should join us). All healthy communities need one.
One reason to have a formation and initiations process is so that we can maintain our
community life, that is, so that we can have communities that live our call and way of
life. To do that, we cannot indiscriminately add new people, even if they want to be part
of us. If they can just join — if and when they want — there will be nothing to maintain
the commitment and way of life of the community, and the life of the community will
soon be diluted or drained out. The environment that is supportive of the life of the com-
munity will be lost.
A process of formation and initiations is a means to get people to a place they could
not get to otherwise, or at least not very easily. Most people find it hard to get help and
support by being part of a group that lives at a higher level of commitment than they do,
even though they often would like to. A formation and initiations process should be ac-
cessible to the unconverted or only initially converted, enabling them step by step to
move to a higher level of Christian discipleship. They need to be gradually won to the life
and enabled to live it. Those who are already converted and mature as Christians also
need a formation and initiations process if they wish to become part of a community like
ours, with its own spirituality and way of life.
Subsidiary Principle
We can help many others towards mature Christian living and

discipleship by working with them in our formation process.
58
At the same time as we work with people to move towards community life, we help
others, who might not stay with us, to grow in Christian maturity and discipleship. We do
this most commonly for those who take part in our outreaches (especially our student out-
reaches), who will often be moving on after a period of time.
In some of our communities we have a process of working with new people that is
simply oriented towards bringing them to membership in the community. More often,
however, communities have a process that begins in their outreaches and is not directly
oriented to having people join the community until the second part of the process (the
underway stage). The beginning of that process is described as the formation program
(usually Formation in Christian Maturity) and is clearly open to those who want to be in
the outreach and want to grow as Christians, but who do not necessarily envision them-
selves as moving towards the community — although who may decide to do so later on.
The initial formation program, then, is in fact the first part of the initiations process
for those who will enter the community, but it is only presented as a process of formation
in Christian living and it only becomes part of the process of moving to membership in
the community for those who wish to consider community membership. The second stage
of formation is described as the underway stage. The program is commonly described as
the Formation in Community Life program.
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2.02 Reference: Terms for the Formation

Process
Formation / Initiations: the term for the process of bringing new people into maturity in
the Christian life and into membership in the community.
Evangelism or evangelization: the term for bringing people to initial conversion to the
Lord, a prerequisite for entering the formation process.
Initial formation or the affiliate stage: the term for the first period of the formation pro-
cess in which new people receive basic formation in Christian living (discipleship),
including living in Christian community. This is sometimes referred to as “Formation
in Christian Maturity”. During this stage they participate in the community or one of
its outreaches.
Note that this stage is the first part of what was called the underway stage in the early days of
the community. It is now common practice to divide the process into two stages.
The underway stage: the term for the second period of the formation process in which
new people receive formation in community membership. During this stage they live
as a community member. This is sometimes referred to as “Formation in Community
Life”.
The initial commitment: the commitment by which new people begin the first stage of the
formation process.
The formation commitment: the term for the initial commitment when it simply in-
volves a commitment to the formation program and not also to the community or
when it is additional to the commitment to the community.
The affiliate commitment: the term for the initial commitment to the community or its
outreaches, normally a commitment to limited participation in the life of the
community or outreach and additional to the formation commitment.
Note that it is often helpful to distinguish an initial commitment to the community from a
commitment to being part of the formation process. The above terminology allows flexibility
in how to approach this.
The underway commitment: the commitment by which new people begin the second stage
of the formation process, a commitment to community membership on a temporary
basis.
The public commitment: the commitment to full covenant membership.
The associate commitment: the commitment to associate membership.
The formation group: the community care group in which the members receive for-
mation. It is normally referred to as the men’s group or the women’s group.
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The one-on-one session or meeting: the meeting in which the pastoral worker gets togeth-
er with a new person they are responsible for to give them personal input for moving
through the formation process.
The Formation Team: the group of pastoral workers who take a responsibility for the
formation process.
The Evangelism Team: the group of pastoral workers who take a responsibility for the
evangelism process. In smaller communities or outreaches, this is sometimes the
same group as the formation team.
The formation team leader: a senior pastoral leader who supervises the formation team
and the work of the team members. If possible, he is a coordinator and then is referred
to as the formation or initiations coordinator.
The women’s formation team leader: a senior women’s leader who supervises the work
of the women’s formation team and the work of the women team members. Common-
ly the men’s and women’s teams will work together to move the process forward and
will work separately for the pastoral care of the men and women.
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2.1 Formation: Our

Overall Approach
When we bring in new people and provide them formation and perhaps bring them to
community membership, we work with different kinds of people: young single people,
university age and post-university age, young married couples, older married couples
usually with families, and older singles. Each group has to be approached in a somewhat
different way; nonetheless, there is a core of common principles that should shape all we
do in formation. In this manual we will begin with a description of our overall approach,
the core of common principles. We will then look at how we work with young singles
and married couples.
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2.11 Overall Principles
A Goal-Oriented, Process-Oriented Ap-

proach
We have a distinctive approach to forming people, and that approach is one of the
main reasons for our success as communities. In this section, we will look at the overall
principles of our approach. One of the gifts the Lord gives us is pastoral wisdom, and if
we use that wisdom, we will see more spiritual fruit.
To be sure, our pastoral wisdom and approach is less important than the fact that the
Lord has called us and has given us a charism (communal spiritual gift) as a community.
Our first priority, then, is hearing the Lord’s call, seeking to obey him, and cooperating
with the way he works with us. But he has also given us pastoral wisdom, and respecting
godly wisdom is a key to effectiveness in service of the Lord.
There are three approaches that are common among Christian leaders and shape their
approach to many matters, including caring for people:
• a problem-oriented approach
• an activities-oriented approach
• a goal-oriented, process-oriented approach
How we are oriented in our leadership shapes what we do and determines our priorities in
how we go about doing what we do.
The problem-oriented approach. We need to be able to handle problems, and when

we are working on a problem, there are certain ways we need to approach them to be ef-
fective. Key is being able to identify real problems and work on solutions. If someone we
are working with does not seem to have much spiritual vitality, we may need to figure out
that the real problem is that he or she is not praying. We then need to help them to pray
regularly, perhaps by making schedule adjustments. We are successful when we have
eliminated the problem, in this case getting them to pray and thereby strengthening their
spiritual life.
At times, usually when we are confronting some difficulty, a short-term problem-
oriented approach is the only way to make progress. If we know where we need to go,
and there is an obstacle to getting there, we need to solve the problem. However, some
leaders, especially some pastoral leaders, have an overall problem-oriented approach to
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what they do. They approach their service as helping with and hopefully solving prob-
lems that are presented to them by those they are responsible for. If they want to make
improvements, they look around for problems they can solve.
This approach has two chief drawbacks. First, pastoral leaders who take this approach
are often at a loss for what to do if there are no problems in a brother or sister’s life. If,
however, they rely on the brother or sister to bring them their problems, the limitations
may be even more severe, because unformed people usually do not recognize the most
serious problems they have or sometimes try to keep problems they recognize hidden.
Even people who have a good level of Christian commitment are sometimes not so good
at recognizing and bringing out their real problems.
More importantly, though, when leaders’ approach is problem-oriented they do not
actively move new people forward and do not provide vision for where people should be
going. The result is that the new people do not make progress as Christians when they
need to or could, because no one is telling them what they should be aiming at or telling
them the steps they need to take to get there, much less helping them in taking those
steps.
Such a result has the added difficulty that problems can be often solved simply by
taking the approach of moving things forward — either in the individual’s life or in the
community or district or outreach chapter). If some of the people we are working with are
getting defeated by sexual temptation, we can work on that, but we often find that provid-
ing people with a moral environment to live in (which we want to do anyway) or teaching
them how to use their leisure time (which we want to do anyway) turns out to be a major
help to avoiding or overcoming sexual temptation. Moreover, if we are not moving things
forward, the problems often seem intractable or even get worse, because there is not
enough motivation or forward momentum to overcome them.
In other words, to be effective our leadership should be proactive, to use the popular
contemporary term, especially if we are working as pastoral leaders in the process of
evangelism, formation, and initiations in a Christian community. When we are proactive,
we do not just respond to difficulties and try to overcome them. Rather we get clear on
where we are headed and take steps to get there. That has the beneficial side effect that in
the process we often avoid problems or create resources for dealing with them.
The activities-oriented approach. Activities are essential to a community or evange-

lism and formation process and the better they work, the better things go. Part of our
leadership responsibility is to run good activities. We put much of our effort into having
meetings, getting people to come to them and seeing that they are lively, with good con-
tent, and a good experience for those who come. We also work on having retreats, con-
ferences, instructional sessions, parties, sports events, etc. etc. etc. Good activities are
very helpful.
However, some leaders, including some pastoral workers, have an activities-oriented
approach to what they do. As long as they lead a group, meet with a person, give a talk,
or do whatever is on their to-do list, they have done their job, at least if they do such
things well. The key to success in their view is carrying off certain activities.
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This approach also has some drawbacks. First, it does not help us to determine when
activities are needed — when more are needed and when less are needed. Having a busy
community or outreach is not the same things as having a good community or outreach.
More importantly, though, leaders who take such an approach tend to see having
good activities as an end in itself. Sometimes they even see just having activities as an
end in itself (activity for activity’s sake). They therefore do not put a high priority on
making use of activities to move things forward.
An activities-oriented approach may not be so problematic if our task is maintenance.
It is, however, not very helpful if our task is helping people move forward in evangelism,
formation and initiations, and it can even be disastrous. We can go for a year running a
good men’s group, one that is lively, inspiring, useful. It might even turn out to be what
many of us are tempted to appreciate the most — one that everyone likes. But the men’s
group can still fail to help people move forward in the formation process if we do not do
the right things in the course of it.
Evangelism, formation and initiations work makes use of activities, like men’s and
women’s groups. It also involves solving problems, helping people through obstacles.
But there is something more to it. It has to be a goal-oriented process. We have to move
people forward to reach a goal over a period of time. If we do not, we will not be effec-
tive formation workers.
The goal-oriented, process-oriented approach. As workers in evangelism, formation

and initiations, we need a process orientation. Although we need to solve problems effec-
tively and lead activities well, we mainly need to help people reach a goal in a limited
period of time. That, of course, means that we need to understand what the goal is, what
we are aiming at, where we are going. When we say our approach is process-oriented,
then, we mean that our pastoral service involves moving towards a goal or goals that can
only be reached at some point in the future.
There is another feature of this that is often overlooked. To say that our approach is
process-oriented also means that we are working in such a way that reaching those goals
in a limited amount of time determines what we do and how we do it. We usually do not
have an unlimited amount of time to work with people. If we do not get some changes to
happen with them soon (conversion, for instance, or some amount of schedule discipline),
they will not stay with us. If we do not bring them to a certain level of commitment in a
year or two, they will not decide to continue with us when they graduate or when they get
a good job offer. If we do not help them to understand the value of a good courtship ap-
proach in time, we may find that they are already deep into a relationship that will be
counter-productive to their Christian life. In other words, we are goal-oriented, but we are
goal-oriented with the understanding that we usually have a limited amount of time to
reach that goal or we will never reach it.
There is one more important feature of a goal-oriented process, namely, that we need
to do some things before we do other things. We need to lay a foundation and put up the
framework of walls, before we try to put up the roof. We may really like roofs and would
prefer to spend all our time working on them. We may see the value of roofs to keep the
65
whole building functional. But we cannot start by trying to put up a roof if there is no
foundation and no walls to put it on.
These observations have a couple of important implications. The first is that we need
to understand our goals. If we cannot say what we are trying to accomplish, we will very
likely not accomplish it. It will be like leaving our house and driving down the road with-
out knowing where we are going. We will, as the apostle Paul puts it, run aimlessly, or
we will be like a boxer that just hits the air and not the opponent (1 Cor. 8:26).
The second is that we need a process of evangelism, formation, and initiations that
takes a limited amount of time. It needs to be designed so that we reach the goal at a cer-
tain point in the future that is not too far off. That means that our activities and our prob-
lem solving need to be part of a process and support it, so that we reach our goal and
reach it in a timely fashion. We should not just do things and hope people will eventually
benefit enough from what we do to end up as mature Christian disciples or as community
members. We should take steps to get them there.
More to it. Construction managers have a goal-oriented, process-oriented approach.

So do farmers. So do many businesses. We have to have at least as much practical wis-
dom as they have and therefore take a goal-oriented, process-oriented approach, but there
is more to it.
Certainly a chief difference lies in the nature of our goals. We are aiming at mature
Christian discipleship for the individuals we are working with. We are also aiming to
build a community of disciples on mission that can sustain mature Christian disciples and
can reach out to bring more people to Christ and to mature Christian discipleship. Our
goals are distinct from those of construction managers, farmers or businessmen.
There are, however, some other differences that come from the nature of the task we
are engaged in. We have what could be called a relational or pastoral approach. We work
with people by means of ongoing personal contact. We keep an eye on what is happening
to the people (how they are changing), not just on activities or problems. We also have
what could be called an environmental approach. We form environments that are evange-
listic or formative, and we work with people in that context. We will consider these two
aspects more fully in the next section.
Here it is enough to realize that we need a goal-oriented, process-oriented approach.
Our activities, our special efforts to solve problems, need to support that process, not be a
substitute for it. We need to run, and run with a clear aim in mind (1 Cor. 8:26). In the
following section we will consider the relational (pastoral) and environmental aspects.
An Environmental Pastoral Approach
As we have seen, we are not unique in having a goal-oriented, process-oriented ap-

proach. Construction managers, farmers, businessmen, if they are effective, also use such
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an approach, even if they do not describe what they are doing in those terms. Many
Christian churches and groups do not use such an approach, probably because they do not
understand it. Sometimes they even think it is unspiritual to do so or think it is merely
functional and not truly personal. Their failure to use it, however, is often a reason for
ineffectiveness, although it is usually not the only reason.
We also, however, have an environmental, pastoral approach. In this we are different
from secular business but also from most Christian groups. Most Christian groups are
primarily activities-oriented or programmatic in their approach — although to be sure
some, especially movements and communities, take a similar approach to ours. In this
section, we will consider what it means to have an environmental and a pastoral ap-
proach.
An environmental approach. An environmental approach is one that places great im-

portance on creating and maintaining vital environments of certain kinds.
An environment is a stable interaction among people. Families, for instance, are envi-
ronments. Even though families are becoming less stable in the modern world they are
environments, at least when they stay together. Friends often form environments. Those
are usually informal environments, but there is some stability to them. Peer groups form
environments when they attend the same school. Workers or managers form environ-
ments when they work in the same business. A school or a business is an institution or an
organization, but often environments form in connection with organizations.
We are Christian communities. We believe that Christianity is essentially communal
in nature, that is, Christianity is lived by bodies of people who love the Lord and who
love one another because they belong to the Lord. When we speak of Christian communi-
ties, we are speaking about Christian environments, people in a stable interaction together
because of their commitment to the Lord and to one another. One reason we work with an
environmental approach is that such an approach is natural to people in communities.
Environments have a great effect on people. People’s values, beliefs and orientations
are largely formed by the environments they are in, or have been in. For instance, stu-
dents in a university often are formed by their peer groups even more than by their teach-
ers or by what they study. This is something non-controversial and something we have
known for a long time. Therefore in order to form Christian disciples effectively and help
them maintain a discipleship life, we seek to create communities, stable environments
that sustain people in committed Christian living. We also form movements for outreach
that are most effective when they create strong environments.
We work on the principle of looking to environmental dynamics. If we want to evan-
gelize people, we want to bring them to an evangelistic environment, an environment that
will have an effect on their wanting to be Christians. If we want to form people, we want
to create a formative environment, an environment that will make them want to be
formed as Christians.
We spend much of our time in groups of people and we are usually unaffected by the
beliefs, values and orientations of those people. We travel in groups with others on planes
or other transportation. We shop in the same stores or malls with others. We walk the
67
same streets with others. We are nonetheless little affected by their views. That, however,
is usually not the case with our families, our friends, our peer group at school, the fellow-
workers we spend time with — their views affect us, whether we let them form us or re-
sist them.
We can be more or less affected by an environment. We are more affected when the
environment is strong or vital, that is, when the group is cohesive and the interaction be-
tween the group members is active and enthusiastic. We are also more affected if we
want to be part of the environment. If students want to be part of a certain group, a frater-
nity or sorority, a sports team or the group of athletes, or a music group, they will be
more affected by the members of those environments. We are, in addition, most likely to
be affected by an environment if there is no other environment we are in that is counter-
ing its influence. We are less likely to adopt the loose morality of some group we spend
time with if we belong to a family or Christian group that clearly takes a different ap-
proach.
We work by taking an environmental approach to our evangelism work and also to
our formational work. That means that we do not just put on activities and programs, but
we put a considerable part of our attention into fostering an interaction among those we
are working with. In other words, we seek to create environments that are supportive of
our goals.
To some degree we form environments within the activities and programs we put on.
We do not only put on a well-run program, but we also make the events lively and partic-
ipative. Even more, however, we try to create an environmental dynamic among those
who come to what we do so that their interactions together go beyond participating in the
events. We want them to become part of a group, a Christian environment, and relate to
one another as Christians in an ongoing way outside the events. Our university outreach-
es, for instance, begin to form a kind of community. Our formation program either forms
a community or draws people into the larger community. We rarely succeed with bring-
ing people to strong conversion unless they become part of an evangelistic or formative
environment.
To create an evangelistic or formative environment, we need to consciously pay at-
tention to the environmental dynamics. We need to make the environment God-centered
and Christ-centered in a natural and not artificially pious way. We need to create an iden-
tity for the group that is attractive. We need to help people become part of smaller group-
ings and personal relationships within the group. We need, of course, to draw them into a
deeper commitment to the Lord, and for that we need some events and programs that give
them input that helps them to move forward. The more, however, we do such things in
the context of a supportive environment, the more successful we will be.
A pastoral approach. We work with evangelistic and formative environments to bring

people to the Lord and Christian maturity. We also, however, work in a pastoral way.
This too is key for getting good results.
The word “pastoral” comes from the Latin word for shepherd (pastor). One of the
things shepherds were supposed to do was to keep an eye on the sheep — each and every
sheep. If one sheep was lost, the shepherd would try to find it. If one was harmed, the
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shepherd would try to help it. The word “pastoral” has to do with paying attention to the
individuals and what is happening to them.
If we say our approach is pastoral, then, we mean that we pay attention to each indi-
vidual in the process. We do not just pay attention to groups or environments, but also to
the participants in those environments. We usually, however, mean something in addi-
tion. We mean that we judge the success of what we are doing by how the individuals are
making progress.
This is not the only way of evaluating the success of Christian efforts. Many Christian
organizations, for instance, evaluate their success by how many people they are attract-
ing, how much numerical growth they produce, or how many successful programs or
events they put on. Other Christian groups evaluate their success by how contented their
members are with their life together or their action. Those are criteria we also pay atten-
tion to in our formation work, but they should not be our major concern.
We are here talking about our process of formation. The chief criterion, therefore, of
whether we are succeeding is whether the individuals in the process are changing. Of
course, we are not looking for any old change. All the members of our formation process
might be getting rich or losing weight, but those would not be signs that our formation
process was succeeding. Rather, we look to see if those in the formation process are in-
creasingly living lives of greater Christian maturity and, in the second half of our for-
mation process, we are looking to see if they are increasing living the Elements of Good
Membership.
We might ask why other Christian groups do not use the same criterion of success. It
seems like common sense. The answer is often that they do not have any way of doing so.
One reason is that they have not worked out what it means to have Christian maturity in
such a way that they can tell concretely if someone is becoming more mature as a Chris-
tian or not. The other reason, perhaps more important, is they do not know how to find
out if those in the process are living with greater Christian maturity.
We do two things that most Christian groups do not do. We first of all ask those we
are working with how they are doing in living the things we teach them. We do that by
having them share in men’s and women’s groups. We also do that by asking them in one-
on-one meetings for pastoral care.
The second reason is that we do not have to rely on what they say. We have brought
them into a Christian environment, and we share life with them. As a result, we can often
see for ourselves whether they are increasingly living in Christian maturity. We also can
often tell if what they tell us about their Christian growth matches up with how they are
living their lives.
To say that we take a pastoral approach, then, means a set of things. It means first of
all that we are in personal contact with those who are part of our formation process, and
personal contact about their Christian lives. We talk to them about how they are doing in
growing in Christian living — in men’s and women’s groups, in pastoral care, in informal
contacts. We also have enough daily life contact with them to have a sense of how they
are doing.
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Secondly, it means that we know what we are aiming for. We understand what Chris-
tian maturity is in a concrete enough way to know whether the men and women we are
working with are actually moving forward or not. If, for instance, we know that Christian
maturity involves a personal prayer time every day, we know that those who are not hav-
ing one have not yet reached Christian maturity and need more help to do so.
Third, if we are pastoral leaders we encourage people to do what they need to do. We
speak to them personally about their lives if they are not taking the steps they need to.
This often gets us into helping them in more personal ways — in why they lack disci-
pline, in how they deal with discouragement or in what they can do to handle family
problems that sap their strength. In other words, we do not engage them only in formal
ways or organizational ways, but as the people they are.
Fourth, it means that we are working to move the new people forwards. Here it is im-
portant to understand the stages of our formation and initiations process and how they
work in the community or outreach we are part of. If those we are responsible for ought
to sign up for the next course or if it would help them to go to the conference that is being
put on, we make sure they know about it, we seek to motivate them to be part of it, and
we help them to respond to it well. In other words, we support the activities that are de-
signed for them, and we get them to take part in them.
Although the emphasis in this section so far has been on winning the people we are
working with, we do have to keep in mind that success is often helping them to go else-
where and not stubbornly trying to get them to do something the Lord has not called them
to or equipped them for — or that they just are simply unwilling to do. Some of our pas-
toral work with them may be to help them not to stay part of our formation program, at
least not for now.
The main thing we are aiming for in the formation process is the inner willingness to
believe and do everything involved in Christianity (Christian discipleship). Many come to
us with the modern cafeteria (buffet) approach to Christianity. Christianity is one of the
good things on offer, like many other things in our society. We choose it, because we
want it — as one of the many things we want or are invested in. If we do not want all of
it, we can leave the parts we do not want. Or maybe we can put the whole thing on our
plate but not get around to eating it all. But that is not Christian discipleship. Christian
discipleship wants above all to follow the Lord and live in a way fully pleasing to God,
therefore seeking to do all he wants, not just some of it.
We need to do what we can to motivate the people we are responsible for to want
each new step when they are ready for it. Motivation, primarily spiritual but also human,
is a number one priority all the way through. We might summarize it by saying that as
pastoral workers in initiations we are about winning people to Christian discipleship or
recruiting people as missionaries, servants, for the kingdom.
We need to be convinced that we are benefiting those we are working with. We are
helping them to find a blessing, the greatest blessing a human being can have, the Chris-
tian life. At first what we are offering them may look to them much like a car or house
that is not worth the investment we are trying to get them to make. We do need to win
them to some things most of them do not want at the outset. We are convinced that vari-
ous things are important to the Lord that they do not think are. We also need to win them
70
to the features of our way of life that they do not begin by seeing any value to. We need
to persuade them that in that field we want them to buy is a treasure, a pearl of great price
(Matt 13:44-46). We also need to be convinced that when we are offering them a chance
to be disciples on mission, we are offering them a great privilege. We are offering them
the chance to use their lives to make the greatest contribution they can to others.
To be sure, our approach changes to some degree as we get closer to the end of for-
mation. As we move into the underway period we are more concerned to see that our
community is the right place for them. We also need to be sure that they know what they
are committing themselves to and are sure they are ready to make a commitment. Our
input most commonly is towards encouraging them to approach it right than to jump
ahead. Nonetheless, to the end of the process, we should be the ones who know better
than they do what a bargain they are getting — merely for being willing to give their
whole lives to the Lord.
An integrated approach. We need a pastoral, environmental process-oriented ap-

proach that uses good problem-solving and helpful activities to reach the goal. We need
to integrate those aspects of our approach to produce a unified effect.
This means first that we need to keep our eye on the goal. We need to know what we
are aiming at, what our purpose is. We need to know what an authentic Christian life is in
the modern world, and when people are living it.
We also need to remember that Christianity is fundamentally relational. It is about
bringing people to a good relationship with God and with one another. We could say that
it is about love, but not love in the sense of a feeling, a positive emotion, but love as a
committed relationship in which we want the good of the others. And it is a love that is
created by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
This means that we need to keep our eye on people and how they are doing in rela-
tionship to God and one another. We also need to keep our eye on the environments we
work with and how the people we are responsible for are interacting to foster Christian
living. We are about creating Christian community, an environment of people who love
the Lord and love one another and seek to bring other human beings into that relationship
together.
We do not mainly focus on problems. We focus on problems when we need to in or-
der to move forward the work the Lord has given us. We have not succeeded because we
have solved a problem. We have only succeeded when we have brought people to the
goal. Nonetheless, we often need to work on solving problems. In the right time and the
right way, problem solving needs to be part of our work.
We do not mainly focus on activities. We use activities to reach our goal. We evalu-
ate activities by whether they foster the goal. We have not succeeded because we have
good activities that people like. We have only succeeded when those activities are helpful
in bringing people to the goal. Nonetheless, our activities, our meetings and programs,
are a key part of successful formation. They provide the framework and often the impetus
within which we can work successfully.
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We also do not mainly focus on maintaining people in living the Christian life. We do
need to do that. Many of our leaders put most of their effort into maintenance and that is
needed. But in the formation process we are about bringing people to live the Christian
life. We may be working at doing so with young people who have been born into com-
munity families or with others who do not yet know the Lord or with others whose Chris-
tian life is nominal or sub-par. Nonetheless, in our work in formation, we are focused on
a process, one that brings people to where they should be.
We use an integrated approach. It is goal-oriented and process-oriented. It is pastoral
and environmental. It seeks to solve problems and have good activities. But it focuses on
forming an environmental process that brings individual people to the goal of full Chris-
tian living.
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2.12 Goals of the For-

mation and Initiations
Process
The Three Goals
Goals of the Formation and Initiations Process
1. Bringing people to full conversion to Christ and maturity

in Christian living
2. Bringing people to a discipleship commitment to Christ

and the advancement of his kingdom
3. Bringing people to commitment to our community and

mission
When new people come to us, we want to help all of them live as Christians and some
of them become community members. We describe the way we work with them as the
process of evangelism, formation, and initiations. We talk about the first stage of the pro-
cess, the stage that leads to an initial commitment to Christ, as the evangelism stage. We
sometimes talk about the second stage of the process as the initiations process, the pro-
cess of initiations into the community. We also more commonly now talk about it as the
formation process, the process of formation into mature and dedicated Christian living
and into consistent, reliable community membership.
In order to understand why we approach the formation process the way we do, we
have to understand the goals. Our formation is “purpose-driven”, to use a current popular
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phrase. We are trying to achieve a purpose, actually more than one purpose. What we are
aiming at can be summarized in the three goals above.
Our formation process begins after we have brought people to an initial commitment
to the Lord. If they have a genuine initial commitment, a spiritual commitment, they
should be motivated to find out how to live fully for the Lord. We may have to help them
to develop this motivation enough to take the concrete steps they will need to make pro-
gress. We will certainly have to explain to them the help they need and where they can
get it. We therefore need to talk to them about the formation process, which is designed
to give them that help.
Our formation process, however, is not just an adult religious education or catecheti-
cal program. Some of those we work with will need that as well. Our formation process is
primarily designed to lead to a change of life, potentially three important changes of life.
Perhaps the simplest goal to state is the third one. Our formation process is designed
to bring people to commitment to our community and mission. In other words, it is the
process by which we prepare people for and bring them to community membership.
We do not, however, expect everyone who enters our formation process to go on to
community membership. Some will, some will not. Some will not for good reasons; some
for bad reasons. Nonetheless, we want to help everyone in our formation process with
their future Christian life, so we need to give all of them solid help, as much help as they
can take from us, even when they will never join our community.
We begin our formation process, therefore, with a focus on full conversion to the
Lord and maturity in Christian living. We focus there because all of the people who begin
the formation process need that, whether they become community members or not. Some
will drop out of the process in the first or second years, so we want to help them come to
as complete a conversion and maturity in Christian living as we can as early as we can.
We also focus there because if they do not reach full conversion and maturity, they will
not be able to take the step of community membership, or — worse — if they take the
step, they will not be able to live it well.
Focusing on Christian maturity does not mean, of course, that we omit concern with
Christian community in the early stages of the process. We believe that Christianity is
communal and that everyone needs Christian community to live it well. That is part of
full conversion and Christian maturity. Even if new people do not join our community,
they should seek Christian community wherever they end up.
We also seek to lead people to a discipleship commitment early on in the process. We
are seeking to help people to live “all out” for the Lord and for his kingdom. Some will
only reach the kind of conversion that involves keeping all the commandments. Hopeful-
ly most will decide to fully give their lives for the Lord and his kingdom. We do our best
to foster that decision and to help them apply it to every area of their lives.
In the second part of the formation or initiations process we focus on our community
and its mission. We are a community of disciples on mission. We are not a church, but a
special Christian community. We are covenant communities with a particular way of life
and a particular mission. Those who wish to be part of us need to understand what we
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are, commit themselves to that, and commit themselves to the way of life and mission
involved in that.
All healthy communities need a formation process. We need it so we can maintain
our community life so we can have communities that live our call and way of life and en-
gage in our mission. As we have seen to do that, we cannot indiscriminately add new
people, even if they want to be part of us. If they can join however they want, their pres-
ence will not uphold the commitment and way of life of the community, and our commu-
nity life will soon be diluted or drained out. Moreover, the environment that is supportive
of the life of the community will be lost. The second part of the formation process, then,
is designed to bring people to the point where they can be active, participative, committed
members of our community, disciples on mission in our Christian community.
Two stages of the formation process. In some of our communities, the formation or
initiations process from beginning to end functions as a community initiations process. In
most of our communities, however, the initial part of the process, the part concerned with
formation in Christian living, is open to others, many of whom will be with us for only a
limited period of time.
Most often we open the initial part of the formation process to others because of our
outreaches to students, especially students in universities. Many will be with us in our
outreaches during their university years and then will move on in life. If we can give
them solid formation in Christian living during that time, we can benefit them a great
deal. While many of the participants in our outreaches end up in the community, many of
those who have been with us for a period of time have gone on to be part of active
churches or Christian groups that support much of what we seek to give people.
Others, usually older people who participate in our outreaches, have stayed part of
those outreaches for a lengthy period of time, living a mature and active Christian life.
They find support by being with us, but they are not ready, or perhaps in a condition in
life, to successfully live our whole call. We try to set up the formation program for those
outreaches so that many people can receive the initial part of the formation we give and
so that it will equip them for longer-term participation in the outreaches.
We also have found that many people are willing to enter a formation program, but
they are not yet willing to enter a community initiations program, that is, a program that
is designed to lead to community membership. They may be open, but they want more
time. If they can take the first step and make a commitment to formation, they will often
take the next step when they have understood more about community life and have grown
in discipleship.
In the second part of the formation process, we encourage those who can and who are
willing to consider membership in our community. At that point we more explicitly teach
them about our community and its way of life. We also encourage them to seek to discern
whether they should become part of us.
Most commonly, then, the formation process is explicitly divided into two parts: the
initial part, formation in Christian maturity, and the second part, formation in community
membership. In such an approach we first ask people to make a commitment to receive
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formation and to participate in our outreaches or community to a limited extent. If they

continue to the second part of the formation process, we then ask them to make a com-
mitment to receive formation in community membership. During that time they gradually
participate fully in the community, live all of its way of life, and discern whether they
want to be part of the community long term.
We distinguish between our evangelistic outreaches and our formation process.
Evangelism or evangelization is the process of bringing people to initial commitment to
the Lord. Formation is the process of bringing people to full commitment to the Lord,
maturity in Christian living and Christian discipleship, and, for many, community mem-
bership. Even though we are not here considering the evangelism stage, we have to keep
in mind that it is really the beginning of the formation process, because if people do not
go through it well and come out with a genuine initial conversion to the Lord, they will
not be ready for the rest of the formation process.
We have then, more than one goal we are seeking to accomplish with our formation
process. All the goals are essential. Together they explain why we do what we do. We
have, in addition, certain principles that also explain how we reach these goals success-
fully. We will consider our goals more fully and then we will consider the principles that
shape our formation process.
Full Conversion and Christian Maturity

We could accurately describe the formation process in our community as a process of
conversion. It is the process of helping someone move from initial conversion to full
conversion. Unless we recognize that for most people initial conversion is incomplete, we
will not see the importance of a formation process.
The New Testament, when talking about people becoming Christians, uses the word
“conversion” or “convert”. This is sometimes translated “turn to”, as in the phrase “turn
to the Lord”. Once people are converted to Christ or have “turned to the Lord”, they are
Christians. Of course, it is common to hear speakers talk about ongoing conversion or
encourage people who are already Christians to be more converted to the Lord. In such a
case they are speaking about a process of Christian growth that will go on until someone
dies. The New Testament, however, mainly uses the word conversion for when someone
becomes a Christian, or for when someone has fallen away and then returns. In this case,
conversion can be completed in a limited period of time.
We deal with many kinds of people who come to us. Some are simply Pagans. Some
are good Christians looking for help to live a discipleship life or looking for a community
for support. Most, however, are either nominal Christians, people who identify them-
selves as Christians but have not been actively seeking to live a Christian life, or what we
could call deficient Christians, people who live something of a Christian life, but live it
minimally or inconsistently.
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If all goes well in our evangelistic work, people enter our formation process only after
they have converted to the Lord. We at least want them to have made an explicit com-
mitment to Jesus Christ as their Lord and to be baptized in the Spirit before formation.
They cannot grow in Christian life without having a relationship with the Lord and the
power of the Spirit at work in them. But most of them only have an initial conversion, not
a full conversion.
We can see the difference between initial conversion and full conversion in the para-
ble of the sower (see Mark 4:1-20), which speaks about four different kinds of people
who hear the gospel. One kind gets no further than hearing it, because “Satan immediate-
ly comes and takes away the word which is sown in them”. The second two accept the
word with joy. In other words, they have a conversion, because they accept Christ and the
gospel. But one kind of these falls away because of encountering opposition. The other
kind, probably the kind we most often deal with, does not “bear fruit” because of the “the
cares of the world, the delight in riches, and desire for other things”. Only the fourth kind
of people hear the word and accept it, but in addition bear fruit. The fruit the parable is
concerned with is probably what Paul speaks of in Colossians 1:10 as “bearing fruit in
every good work”. The parable is not speaking of the fruit that is produced by success in
evangelizing others, but the fruit of living a consistent Christian life. In short, initial con-
version is one thing; coming to the point of living a consistent Christian life is something
else.
Paul speaks about full conversion by using the word “maturity” to describe what we
should be aiming at in our formation process. In Colossians 1:28, he speaks of his own
work by saying, “Him [Christ] we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone
that we may present everyone mature in Christ.” In other words, many people who have
achieved initial conversion have some kind of spiritual life in them, but they do not live a
full Christian life. They are like babies who are alive and have a human nature, but still
cannot do many of the things human beings can do, like walk and talk. Only after they
mature can they function as full human beings. In a similar way, only after we have
grown into Christian maturity can we function as full Christians.
When we talk about maturity, we are not talking about flawless perfection. We are
talking about living the basics of the Christian life. When people have had a conversion
but still fornicate or shoplift, they are not living all the basics of the Christian life. They
are not fully converted. Even after coming to the point of living all the basics of the
Christian life, people can still grow in virtue or fervor or prayer. But until they keep all
the commandments of God (1 Cor. 7:19), they have not reached a full conversion. Nowa-
days, as sociological surveys tell us, many people who identify themselves as genuine
Christians, even as born-again Christians, and attend church regularly, do not keep many
of the commandments. They are not, in other words, fully converted.
In order to reach full conversion, people need more than initial conversion. Paul tells
us that in order to present people mature in Christ, after proclaiming the gospel to them
and getting them to accept it, he had to admonish them personally and teach them what
was involved in being a Christian (Col. 1:28). He needed to put them through what we
would call a formation process, with teaching and individual pastoral care. Until they
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came to understand what it took to live the Christian basics and then actually lived them,
they were not fully converted.
On the other hand, there is a direct connection between initial conversion and full
conversion. Initial conversion leads to full conversion. When people have turned to the
Lord in a genuine way, they should want all of what it takes to be a good Christian. If
they want to have him as their Lord, they should want to obey him, and the sign of that
being the case is the desire to find out what they need to do to obey him and to live a life
fully pleasing to him (Col. 1:10). At the same time, some Christian workers aim at full
conversion without establishing initial conversion first, that is, a vital connection with the
Lord. This too is ineffective.
Not everyone who professes a commitment to Christ or Christianity has actually
reached initial conversion. Not everyone who has had some spiritual experience or has
some desire for spiritual things or Christian things has actually reached initial conversion.
If the people we work with do not yet want to go on and receive formation in how to ac-
tually live in a way that is pleasing to the Lord they have not reached even genuine initial
conversion. Hunger is a sign that babies are alive and spiritual hunger is a sign of being
alive as a Christian.
When people have had an initial conversion and have come to the point of wanting to
live a full Christian life, we should offer them a chance to be part of our formation pro-
cess. That process will further on give them an opportunity to consider membership in
our communities. But the core of the process is helping them to come to full personal
conversion so they do not just want to live a Christian life, but actually live the basics in a
consistent way. And as we do, we should also teach them how to maintain that life, to
persevere and bear fruit. This should be where the process begins.
A Discipleship Commitment
In the previous section, we looked at what we do to help bring people to Christ. We
saw that many people who begin our formation process have an initial conversion to
Christ — they accept the gospel and have accepted Christ as their Lord and Savior — but
they have not come to full conversion or Christian maturity. They do not keep all the
commandments, often because they do not fully know what is involved in keeping them.
Our formation process is designed to bring them to full conversion, “bearing fruit in eve-
ry good work” (Col. 1:10).
That is not, however, all we try to do. We also want to make them disciples of the
Lord. And if they are true disciples, they will want to give their lives to advance his king-
dom. Many of us would be inclined to say that people who are fully converted in the
sense that they keep all the commandments (love of God and love of neighbor, including
faith in Christ) are disciples. But that leaves something out, something expressed most
clearly in the discipleship sayings in the gospels.
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Most people who identify themselves as Christians are nominal or deficient Chris-
tians. Sociological surveys tell us that the majority of people who identify themselves as
Christians do not “go to church” and do not keep the commandments. These are nominal
Christians. Many who go to church do not keep some or even most of the command-
ments. These are deficient Christians. Some of those whom we meet at church, however,
are good Christians. They do keep the commandments. Some of them are quite active as
Christians. Most of those say that Christianity is very important to them. But do they
have a discipleship commitment?
Some do. Many do not.
We talk about Christian discipleship throughout our work with new people in evange-
lism and formation. We make the fullest presentation in the talk “Disciples” in the Our
Call course. There we say:
• Disciples are people who live for the coming of the kingdom, who are on mission
to advance the kingdom, who live to do the will of their heavenly Father (Luke
11:1-2).
• Disciples are people who deny themselves and give their lives to their master, so
that their lives are his and not their own (Luke 9:23).
• Disciples are people who take up their cross and follow Christ, being willing to
give their lives for him and his kingdom as he gave his life for us, “For whoever
would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake and the
gospel’s will save it.” (Mark 10:35)
• Disciples are people who live “all out” for the kingdom by the power of the Holy
Spirit. (Matt. 12:28)
• Disciples are people who follow the Lord and live for his kingdom “with all their
lives for the rest of their lives”.
• Disciples are people who sell all to buy the treasure hidden in the field, the pearl
of great price. (Matt. 13:44-46)
Why are many good Christians not disciples? The answer has to do with what some
people have called “the discipleship issue”. The discipleship issue is first and foremost
about our lives. Whose are they? Are they our own or the Lord’s? If we have truly given
our lives to him, we approach our lives as stewards of a life that belongs to the Lord. We
simply want to know what he wants to do with his life that he has given us, and we want
to do whatever that is.
The discipleship issue is secondly about what we have. As modern human beings, this
focuses on our time and money. Do we keep our time and contribute some to the Lord, or
is it all his? Do we keep our money and contribute some to the Lord, or is it all his? If we
are disciples, our time and money is his time and his money that he has given us to stew-
ard.
For most good Christians, the Lord and his kingdom (Christianity) is one of many
things in their lives. For some it is something very important. But they have the Lord
and… They have the Lord and their family and their job and their friends and their music
and their motorcycle and, and, and… As one Christian teacher put it, they have bought
the pearl of great price (rather cheaply, it might be said) and added it to their pearl collec-
tion. Until they settle the discipleship issue, they may be good Christians, people the
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world around them would see as good Christians, at least if they invest enough in Chris-
tian things, but they are not yet disciples.
We do not have to stop having a family or a secular job or a bank account in order to
be a disciple. As the Acts of the Apostles makes clear, the early Christians saw them-
selves as disciples, and yet many of them were married, with regular occupations, and
with material resources. The discipleship issue is whether we have given over those
things to the Lord or whether we keep some of them for ourselves and give some to the
Lord.
Our formation process is designed to bring people to a discipleship commitment. Dis-
ciples, of course, have to keep the commandments, as we saw in the section on full con-
version. Zeal for the Lord is not a substitute for obedience. In fact, most of what we do as
pastoral workers in initiations is centered on helping people keep the commandments. We
encourage people to pray, to raise their families well, to support community life, to seek
to build up their brothers and sisters in the Lord, to keep Christian sexual morality, to stay
out of debt, etc., etc. These are the day-in, day-out concerns of our formative care. None-
theless, we should not simply be trying to form law-abiding, commandment-keeping
Christians. We should not even simply be trying to form faith-filled, obedient Christians.
We should be trying to form law-abiding, commandment-keeping, faith-filled, obedient
disciples.
One key feature of the discipleship issue concerns decisions in life. We want to help
the people in our formation process to make intelligent decisions. We want to help them
use their time and money wisely, for instance, not to waste it or inadvertently throw it
away. Even more, we want them to make Christian decisions. Much of the time, these
will be commandment-based or obedience decisions. Very often young people who come
to us have to decide to stop fornicating or not to borrow money without paying it back.
These are decisions that are simply a matter of keeping the commandments — or not.
But there is a different kind of decision. For instance, some young people who come
to us decide to repent of serious sin as early as the Life in the Spirit Seminars or their first
retreat. But then they need to decide to come regularly to our activities (or something
similar) so that they can grow as Christians. Many do not make that decision. They want
to use their time in a different way, and so they do not take the steps that will allow them
to be disciples.
People farther in their life in the Lord, people who have decided to give some of their
lives to grow as disciples, continue to have to make more discipleship decisions. A young
person may have decided to be connected to us and even enter the formation process. He
may be keeping out of sexual sin. But he may have met someone he is romantically at-
tracted to who is not much of a Christian and who does not want to be. He may marry
that person anyway. If he does, he is practically guaranteeing that he cannot live much of
his life in a discipleship way, even though he may not have broken a commandment in
marrying that person. He has not taken the path of a discipleship.
Older people have to make similar decisions. They may be facing the need to get a
new home. They may decide not to buy a house that is beyond their means or that is in a
bad neighborhood for their children to be in. They may, however, decide to buy a house
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that is too far away for them to be much of a part of the community because they like it
better. Their decision may not break a commandment, but it is not a discipleship decision.
The question a basic good Christian asks is: can I keep the commandments and still
do this thing I want to do? Or the less committed good Christian may in the back of his
mind be asking the longer-term question: can I do this and not go to hell? But the ques-
tion a disciple asks is: how I can use this life I have — this life that is the Lord’s and not
my own anymore — how can I use it to live for the Lord and advance his kingdom.
Which possible marriage partner will allow me to live most for the Lord? Which house
that I might buy will allow me to contribute most to the advancement of his kingdom?
We are, to be sure, seeking to bring people to Christian maturity, to a life of keeping
the commandments. We are, however, also seeking to bring them to Christian disciple-
ship. If those who complete our formation process simply want to be “good enough”
Christians and do not want to be disciples, we have not fully succeeded. That means that
we have to regularly help the people we are working with to ask the discipleship question
as they make their decisions in life — which choice will allow me to live most fully for
the Lord? The answer, of course, may be “either one”, and so the decision has to be made
on other grounds, but we want to help them get to the point where they ask the question
instinctively and approach all their decisions as disciples.
Discipleship, of course, is not just a matter of making decisions. It is a matter of liv-
ing our whole life. That means that we as pastoral workers in initiations are also trying to
help people to look at their lives as a whole and say, “am I using my time and money in
the best way for the Lord and his kingdom?” Regular reviews of schedule and budget are
very helpful in this regard. Being a disciple does not mean that we eliminate all rest and
recreation or never spend any money on ourselves. We need such things to function well.
But it does mean that we regularly ask the question: “am I stewarding my life and re-
sources well for the Lord in the way I use my time and money?”
Sometimes young people are afraid that if they decide to be disciples, they have to
live single for the Lord. Some certainly should live single for the Lord. But some should
get married for the Lord. The discipleship question is: “how can I live in the best way for
the Lord?”, not “what do I most want to do?” or “what do I most deeply desire?” Most
should probably get married, but, if they are disciples, they should do that because that is
the best way for them to live for the Lord and advance his kingdom. But all in the course
of the formation process should ask the question how they could live best as a disciple of
the Lord, someone seeking to advance his kingdom. We treat this in the course on Enter-
ing Your State in Life (Foundations Course 2 for Singles).
The decision to be a disciple can come at any time in the formation process. For some
it happens at the moment of initial conversion. When some new people come to faith in
the Lord, they know he is the most important thing in life, the pearl of great price, some-
thing worth living their whole life for, and they give him their lives with no strings at-
tached.
For some becoming disciples is a gradual process. They can say the words of a disci-
pleship commitment and mean them as far as they understand them. However, their lives
stay much the same. They have the same friends and interests, the same values and priori-
ties, the same things taking up most of their time. Only gradually do they agree to pray
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regularly, to be a regular part of a Christian group, to get some Christian friends, to con-
tribute some of their money on a regular basis. If they are young, only gradually do they
seriously make the Christian commitment of their prospective marriage partner an im-
portant consideration or ask how their planned occupation can fit into a Christian life. If
they are older, only gradually do they make discipleship decisions about how to use the
money from the raise they just got or about where to get a new house or what school to
send their children to.
Those who have been raised as good Christians are often the slower ones to become
disciples, at least to become disciples with “all their lives”. New converts sometimes see
the issues more clearly and take more decisive steps quickly. Because they are making a
big change to become a Christian in the first place, they see the consequences of the step
they are taking more easily. Nonetheless, those who have been raised as good Christians,
if they go through the formation process well, will step by step become disciples.
There is a simple truth here, the truth of what the scripture calls “testing”. We only
have made a real decision when it is put to the test. It is when we have to decide against
marrying someone we are attracted to because that person will not enable us to live for
the Lord that we become a disciple in the area of our marriage. It is only when we have to
decide to forego a promotion, because the new job will not allow us to live as fully for
the Lord that we become a disciple in the area of our occupation. We need to, in a certain
way, remake our discipleship commitment constantly. We need to extend it to more and
more of our life. And the Lord seems to help the process by constantly providing tests
that allow us to grow in discipleship. As pastoral workers, we can be most useful when
we help the people we are caring for see that they are facing a discipleship decision.
Nonetheless, whether by quick growth or slow growth, discipleship is what we are
aiming at, what should characterize all the members of our communities. We want to be a
band of disciples, seeking to give our lives to advance the kingdom of the Lord. And as
pastoral workers in initiations, we want to help those we are caring for see the surpassing
worth of the pearl of great price and constantly choose for it in small as well as in big
things.
Commitment to Our Community and Mission

We seek to be clear on the need for Christian community all the way through the pro-
cess of evangelism and formation. Christianity is not an individualistic matter, even
though some Christian preachers and teachers speak as though it were. It is true that each
individual needs to make a genuine personal commitment to the Lord and to live a con-
sistent Christian life. No individuals can rely on family, church or a Christian group to
handle their relationship with the Lord for them. But, on the other hand, Christianity is a
corporate matter, a social matter. It is something we live with other Christians. We do so
for personal support, and we do so in order to have a full Christian life and engagement in
Christian mission. We cannot be Christians without being in the body of Christ.
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We also seek to be clear on respect for the church. We do not see ourselves as a
church or as a substitute for a church. There may be individual congregations or parishes
that belong to us, and in such situations there is no distinction between the individual
community and the church. However, as an international body of Christian communities
(the Sword of the Spirit) we respect and support the church membership of all our mem-
bers.
There are many other communities like us. We are often described as “special Chris-
tian communities”. We are communities that seek to live a Christian life together and
support our members in Christian living or mission or both. We do not, however, try to
be churches. As a result, we do not believe we are obligated to ourselves come up with a
full set of Christian beliefs and practices. That is the responsibility of a church. We can
take a more limited role.
As special Christian communities, we cannot say to the people we work with that
they have to belong to us or they cannot be good Christians, as many churches do or have
done. There are other options for them to live a good Christian life. Nor can we simply
say that if they are fully converted or fully disciples that they have to be members of our
community — or any special Christian community. Again, there are, at least in principle
other options.
We do not, however, at the same time want to say that it does not matter whether they
become part of us or not. At this point in time, most parishes or congregations do not
provide the help people need to live a consistently mature Christian life or to live a disci-
pleship life. They need renewal. We see ourselves as renewal communities, contributing
something that is not easily available elsewhere and something that Christians should
have.
In addition, we have some distinctive features of how we live our Christian lives. We
have come up with a practical approach to supporting a group of Christians and to doing
Christian outreach and we live that approach together. We uphold a fairly disciplined ap-
proach to Christian discipleship. As a result, we do not think our whole approach is ob-
ligatory for Christians to be good Christians, and we think that some people who can be
good Christians would not live our life well. Those who become part of us have to delib-
erately choose our community and our way of life. Nonetheless for most people who en-
gage with us, being part of the community is the best way to live a committed Christian,
discipleship life, and they should do that.
As we have already seen, we have structured our formation process so that the second
part of is designed to help people decide if they want to be part of us and live our life.
In the first part of our formation process, we focus on truths that we think are for all
Christians. We teach basic Christian maturity, and we encourage people to live as disci-
ples of the Lord. We do recommend some practices that are not simply obligatory for
Christians (belonging to a men’s or women’s group, keeping a schedule, etc.). But we do
so on the basis that in the modern world something like these are practically important for
people who want to live a Christian life. However, we are winning people to Christian
maturity and consistent discipleship not to special practices.
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In the first part of our formation process we are not directly focusing on our commu-
nities and getting people to join our communities. We do usually connect them in various
ways with our community life. Most of our communities do give them the option of a
lower level of community membership (affiliate). We are interested in having the ones
who could live our community life well become members of our community and we of-
ten encourage them to consider it. In these ways we attract those in our formation process
towards membership in our communities. But the process is not designed to bring them
into community membership.
That changes in the second half of the formation process. There we are deliberately
presenting our community life and membership in our communities as an option for those
in the process. We are encouraging them to seriously consider whether they should be
members of our communities and live its way of life. And we are seeking to present all
the necessarily elements of membership and why we consider them important.
To be sure, we are not just indiscriminately recruiting everyone in the process to
membership in our communities. We do not think they all should necessarily become
members — although by this point in the process, we think most probably should. But we
are asking them to seriously consider it, and to consider if they are willing to make the
investment it requires.
We begin by giving them a vision for what we are about. We do so in the course Our
Call. There we present the idea of being a community of disciples on mission. The partic-
ipants should have already experienced what this means, but this is the point at which
they are expected to clearly understand it and see how membership in one of our commu-
nities involves being disciples in a community on mission.
Being a mature Christian involves sharing in active Christian community, but it does
not involve belonging to a special Christian community with all the commitments to the
other members and the corporate life that that involves. Being a mature Christian in-
volves engaging in Christian mission, but it does not involve the commitment to work as
part of the specific mission of a special community in the church. To become part of our
communities is to take on something that is additional to basic Christian maturity. This is
the point at which we want them to consider doing that.
The call to Christian discipleship raises a further question: Do all Christians have to
live the discipleship call in order to be good Christians or in order to be mature Chris-
tians? This question has been discussed in various ways over the centuries, partly because
most churches accept as members in good standing many people who would not take the
call to discipleship very seriously. Many churches would see the living of the discipleship
sayings as a special call among the Christian people.
We take a practical approach to this question. We teach people to keep the com-
mandments, and we encourage people to a life of discipleship without saying it is simply
required to be a Christian or receive salvation. We also approach this question gradually.
In the first part of the formation process, we focus on teaching basic Christian maturity,
while also presenting the call to discipleship. In the second part of the formation process,
we teach them that the life of discipleship is part of being a member of our community.
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The core of discipleship is making our lives over to the Lord so that they are his lives
and not our own, and approaching all our decisions in the light of that. Such an approach
cannot be made a matter of simple law (like do not commit adultery). Rather it is some-
thing that is a matter of constant encouragement. So even though we teach those who are
becoming members of our communities that they should commit themselves to being dis-
ciples, we do not approach it as a law that we can hold people to. We rather present it as
an ideal that all the members of our communities should strive to live.
We do, however, also teach our way of life. Not all of it is taught by the churches of
the members. Many elements in it are distinctive of our communities. We do, nonethe-
less, expect our members to live all of it, especially the things that are part of The Ele-
ments of Good Membership. We also expect them to conduct themselves in the communi-
ty in accord with the Statement of Community Order. This is our way of life, and every
strong community needs a commonly understood and commonly lived way of life.
During the second part of the formation process, we have those who want to seriously
consider being members of our communities become members on an underway basis. We
want them to live our life and see by experience that it is a good life and one that they can
live well. We only then let them become full (publicly committed) members.
We are seeking to be a community of disciples on mission, a community that can con-

tribute to the renewal of the Christian people and of the churches. We are seeking to be a
community that can contribute to the mission of the Christian people in ways that others
are not doing or not doing as effectively. We are seeking to be a community of people
who live lives of Christian maturity and radical discipleship.
For that, we need to add members who want to be part of a community of disciples on
mission and who are seeking to live our way of life in a consistent way.
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2.2 The Elements of

the Formation Process
This section contains a survey of the most important elements in the formation pro-
cess. It is followed by a section on the way of putting them together into an effective pro-
cess.
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A System of Elements
A process of formation or initiations into the Christian life and into the community is
like an irrigation system. This world is something of a desert in respect to the life of God
(Isa. 43:18-21). You can fly over a desert and see nothing but lifeless brown dirt. Then all
of a sudden you can see a lush green area. It is not an accident that it is green. It has been
irrigated and planted.
A number of things need to come together to produce crops (fruit) in the desert. One
is seed. Seed has the potential inside to grow into a plant. The second is water. Water
makes it possible for the seed to grow. The scripture uses both images to describe Chris-
tian growth. The word of God is compared to seed (Mark 4:1-20). The work of the Holy
Spirit is compared to water (John 7:37-39). Both are needed.
We can sow a fertile area watered by rain, and we will get a crop (if, of course, we
tend the plants in a good way). But in a desert, something more is needed, namely, an ir-
rigation system — a set of ditches and often pumps and locks that bring the water from
its source to where the plants are supposed to grow. The irrigation system is not as im-
portant as the seed and the water, but without it there would be no crops.
An irrigation system cannot bring life by itself. If we dig ditches in the desert without
seed and water, all we have done is created a fancy desert. But if the irrigation system
brings water to seed in the right way, we can produce an excellent crop. It is auxiliary,
but very important. One way to describe our task is to say that it is to build and maintain
a way of sowing the seed of God’s word and bringing spiritual water to that seed so that
we can produce a crop of Christian disciples in the desert of this secularized world.
It is not an accident that an irrigation system is described as a system. It is a set of el-
ements connected with a certain order that allows the water to get where it is needed in
the right way at the right time. Each piece connects to another piece in the right way.
Having a pump that pours the water onto the ground instead into the irrigation ditch
would not be very effective. To use another scriptural analogy, it is like a set of building
blocks that need to be put together the right way to produce a building (1 Cor. 3:9).
In this section, we are going to begin to look at the building blocks of our process of
formation and initiations. The easiest place to begin is with the meetings we need. If we
do not have some of these meetings, we will have trouble getting the result we want. If,
for instance, we have ditches, but no pumps in our irrigation system, we will not produce
much of a crop. So we need a set of meetings, and that will be the subject of this section.
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Meetings Needed
Core Formation Meetings
• Instruction sessions: community courses
• Formation groups led by pastoral workers
• One-on-one meetings led by pastoral workers
• Formation team meetings
The four essential meetings. There are four regular meetings that we need to have in
order to have an effective process of formation in Christian maturity and initiations into
our community. Three of them are meetings for the participants in the process, and the
members of the formation team, the pastoral workers in initiations, lead them. The fourth
is only for the pastoral workers in initiations, and leaders of the formation team lead
them.
The first meeting is the instruction sessions. In this meeting the community formation
courses are given. These courses present the material that the participants need in order to
grow in the Christian life and then, for those who go on, the material they need to become
members of the community. The talks are given by someone on the formation team who
has been trained to give them, or they are given on video. The discussion groups are led
by pastoral workers in initiations.
The second meeting is the formation groups. These are groups made up of people in
the formation process who participate in the group to receive formation, and they are led
by a formation worker, a pastoral worker in initiations, who is normally the one pastoral-
ly responsible for the people in the group. During the meeting, the participants share how
they are growing in the Lord, especially, how they are implementing the teachings in the
formation courses, and they receive help and personal input for doing better.
At times the participants in the formation process are put in groups with older com-
munity members. This should only be done when it is not possible to put them in a for-
mation group that will work well for them. This usually happens because there are only a
few people in the formation process, as is often the case in small communities. Some-
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times this is also done because they are the only people like themselves in the process.
For instance, they may be older married people and all the rest of the people in the pro-
cess are young, single students. In all cases, if new people are not in a formation group,
they will need more one-on-one time from their pastoral leader in order to get the help
they need.
Formation groups are one of the most effective tools we have for helping new people
grow in the Lord. Precisely because everyone is there to receive formation and because
the group can be led in a way that fosters formation, the groups have a high formative
impact. Unless there is no alternative, new people should be given formation groups until
their formation is completed or almost completed.
The third meeting is the one-on-one meetings. In these meetings the new people meet
with their formation leader for a discussion of how their life is going and especially how
they are doing with the formation process. They also discuss matters that cannot be han-
dled as well in the formation group, usually a special difficulty or a transition in their life
that needs added help.
The one-on-one meeting is the place where the formation process can be tailored to
each person’s special needs and where supplemental help can be given. It is not, howev-
er, primarily a counseling session. Rather, it is a place where the pastoral leader helps the
new person connect well with the formation process, receive the formation that is being
given, and make the personal changes that are needed.
The last meeting is the formation team meeting. In this meeting an initiations coordi-
nator or senior leader or senior woman leader meets with a group of pastoral workers in
initiations. Together they work with a group of participants in the formation program.
They oversee how the process is going, and they talk together about the individuals in the
process and what they need. While the pastoral workers in initiations have the primary
responsibility for keeping up with those they are working with and trying to see they get
what they need, the senior leaders also help with the process and sometimes have a one-
on-one meeting with the new people. The team meeting is also the place where new pas-
toral workers in initiations get much of the in-service training they need.
Normally the formation team meets all together occasionally to attend to the organi-
zation of the formation process, while most of the time the men and women meet sepa-
rately. They meet separately because their time together is mainly needed for discussing
how to help the individuals in the process pastorally, and the way men help men is con-
siderably different from the way women help women. In addition, the needs of the men
and the women in the process differ considerably.
In larger communities, there is often one formation team for the whole community,
led by the community formation (initiations) coordinator, but the team is divided into dis-
trict teams, and most of the meetings are by district.
Sometimes, often for reason of lack of time, communities or outreaches try to get by
without a team meeting, or they only have them infrequently for organizational commu-
nication. Such an approach significantly reduces the effectiveness of the formation pro-
cess.
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Differing circumstances. If we could do everything the ideal way, we would give the
community courses on a regular basis in the best sequence; we would put everyone in
formation groups with others in the same stage of the formation process and in a similar
stage in their life; and we would have them meet regularly with their pastoral leader, who
would also be the leader of their formation group. If we can do all those things, the for-
mation process will work the best. We will call that the standard approach.
Sometimes, however, we cannot put together the formation process the best way pos-
sible. We regularly make exceptions because of the circumstances of the individuals in
formation — they have special needs or they cannot make some of the formation meet-
ings because of their responsibilities. We also, however, structure the formation process
in a different way because of the situation we are dealing with. The most common rea-
sons for doing so are the following:
• There are not enough people in the formation process to follow the standard ap-
proach, or at least there are not enough at this time.
• We only have a trickle of a certain kind of people (older married people, students,
etc.).
• There is a great geographical spread, so it can be difficult to get people together
for the right kind of meetings.
• There is a lack of teaching resources or pastoral resources in the community, usu-
ally because of the size of the community.
The two most common adjustments to the standard approach are (1) to give the
courses by video with a discussion group format and (2) to put some (or occasionally all)
the people in the formation process into groups of people who have been through for-
mation. Occasionally, communities have a pastoral worker take an individual, a couple or
a few individuals through the formation process in special sessions. Each community or
outreach will need to design the process in the most effective way, and we will discuss
how to do that in a different write-up.
Conclusion. For our formation process to work well, we need certain elements. Those
elements include a set of four meetings: instructional sessions, formation group meetings,
one-on-one meetings, and team meetings. We can sometimes make exceptions to the best
way for those meetings to work, but we need all of those meetings. They are basic build-
ing blocks of our formation and formation process.
Having meetings is not the essential part of the process of formation and initiations.
The essential part is bringing people into contact with the Lord’s word, especially his
teaching about how to live the Christian life, and bringing them into a living relationship
with him through the work of the Holy Spirit, the water of life. But if we do not have
meetings to put people into regular contact with the Lord and his teaching and to help
them to respond well to him, they will not make progress. The meetings provide a
framework within which the essential things can happen.
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Other Key Elements
Other Key Elements
• Attendance at outreach or community meetings
• Retreats and other high impact events
• Participation in service and mission
• Relationship building (fraternal and pastoral)
• Help “by category of person”
In the last section, we began to look at the elements that go into the formation pro-
cess. We first considered the structural elements, primarily the meetings that make the
process possible. Now we will look at other important elements that go into making the
process effective in the lives of those who participate in it. Some of these are other meet-
ings and events that are not part of the formation process itself, but that we connect peo-
ple in the formation process to. Others are activities outside the formal formation process
we get them involved in.
The first key element is attendance at outreach or community meetings. As we have

said before, often the formation process happens in the context of an outreach, very
commonly a university outreach, sometimes a movement like a young singles or couples
movement. Often, on the other hand, it happens within a community. Our outreaches and
communities have meetings that all the members of the outreach or community are ex-
pected to attend on a regular basis. These meetings are the focal point of the outreach or
community in the sense that they bring everyone together to create an environment that
builds unity and provides a context in which many things can happen. We need to see
that those in the formation process connect well to these meetings.
We will discuss the role of outreach and community meetings and the purposes they
can serve later on. Here we are mainly concerned with the way they function for people
in the formation process. Often, of course, they played an important role in the initial
evangelization of the new people. For those in the formation process they can still con-
91
tribute to making their initial conversion firmer and more enthusiastic. However, they
also play an irreplaceable role in the process of formation itself.
It is in the outreach or community meetings that the participants in the formation pro-
cess experience a Christian community, either in a movement form or in a full communi-
ty form. Coming to the meetings makes it possible for the participants to experience be-
ing part of the larger group as a whole, allows them to understand it and how it functions,
and allows them to make contact with activities and people in the outreach or the com-
munity. If the meeting is alive and vital, it can play an important motivating role in help-
ing the participants want to receive formation and want to connect more effectively with
the Lord and the community or outreach.
Most of the participants in the formation process will be eager to come to the meet-
ings and take part in the interactions around them. Some, however, will be less eager.
There are a variety of reasons for this, including time pressures, personality dispositions
that make them not want to be part of large group events, and preference for other aspects
of the formation process, like the formation group or the courses. Nonetheless, those re-
sponsible for the formation process should encourage them to come, even when they are
not motivated to do so.
The second key element is participation in retreats and other high impact events. A
high impact event can be a special meeting, but more normally it is a day, weekend or
weeklong event. It can be a conference, a rally, a camp, or a special instructional session.
The longer it is, the more effective it is — providing of course that it is well done. When
it involves staying overnight together in the same facility, it is still more effective.
Retreats and high impact events are often the places where further steps of conversion
happen. When people come into a special environment, particularly when they do so for a
period of time, they can focus more easily on spiritual realities and hear the message in a
clearer way. This usually allows them to take definite steps to move forward. Very com-
monly events like this are the place where decisive conversion happens or where im-
portant repentance occurs.
If possible there should be one or two (or more) high impact events each year of for-
mation. Many of them can be for larger groups than just those in the formation process.
They could be an outreach event that is open to new people as well as members. They
could be a community men’s or women’s retreat to which people in the formation process
are invited. Some of them, like special retreats or instructional sessions, should be de-
signed just for those in the formation process to help them to make another step of con-
version and commitment.
The third key element is participation in service and mission. By “service” here is
meant service for the community or outreach, internal service that contributes to the life
of the community or outreach. By “mission” is meant involvement in activities directed
outside the community or outreach, especially activities that seek to bring people to the
Lord and to share what the Lord has given, most often those things that the participants
are being formed in.
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The primary reason why participants in the formation process should do internal ser-
vice and/or engage in mission is that those are integral parts of the Christian life, as we
explain in the instruction we give. However, here we are concerned with how such partic-
ipation functions for those in the formation process. Service in the community or out-
reach makes them contributing members and as a result they experience themselves being
more part of it. Outreach focuses them on sharing what they have received, thereby help-
ing them to value it more. Generally speaking, we should seek to involve people in ser-
vice and mission as early in the formation process as they are willing and able.
Sometimes participants in the formation process do not have time to do more than just
be part of the basic and essential meetings. If at all possible, however, they should be
asked to do some service, even a small amount, perhaps during the outreach or communi-
ty meeting. It contributes substantially to their moving forward.
The fourth key element is relationship building. Community life is based on a kind of
relationship that is unfamiliar to most people in the world today, the relationship of being
brothers and sisters in the Lord. The formation process, therefore, needs to build relation-
ships of Christian support for those in the process of growing into community life. Those
relationships need to be fraternal (primarily with those in the formation group) and pas-
toral (both with a pastoral leader and a coordinator). This is the time for new people to
learn how to receive and give support with other community members and also to receive
pastoral care — in the context of committed personal relationships.
To some degree good relationships can be formally set up. Some of the deepest
friendships in people’s lives are established in formation groups or with a pastoral leader.
Many of the relationships, however, should develop informally. Often this will happen by
itself. Often the pastoral worker will need to encourage the process. Sometimes pastoral
workers do so by informal events like sports, parties, and entertainment. Sometimes they
do so by themselves building relationships with those they are responsible for or with
others they can connect well with personally. Sometimes they need to work pastorally
with some of those they are responsible for in the formation process to help them to de-
velop Christian friendships.
Good Christian personal relationships are the heart of what we are about. Of course
the most important “Christian personal relationship” is with the Lord himself. Relation-
ships with others who are committed to the Lord, however, are crucial for growth in
Christian commitment. We need to work to have active and healthy relationships at the
core of the formation process.
The last key element is help by categories of people. Much of what we do in the for-
mation process is more or less the same for everyone. However, different categories of
people need different kinds of help. The main human categories (men and women, young
and old) are most important, but state of life (single, single for the Lord, married, wid-
owed, divorced), kind of occupation, and cultural group (nationality, social status) can
also be important.
We need, then, to see that those we are working with get the specialized help they
need. Usually this means involvement with others like themselves. Very few people will
93
stay involved with us or grow in our life without being able to do it with others like them-
selves. That, by itself, will also bring them much of the help they need in informal ways.
Often the people we need to be most pastorally concerned about are those who are in a
minority position for one reason or another and cannot find others like themselves in our
community.
Simply participating in the formation process will provide much of the specialized
help people need. For instance, they may be in formation groups with others like them-
selves and there talk about things specific to their situation in life. For the most part,
however, the workers in the process will either need to connect the people they are re-
sponsible for with that help or create the help themselves.
Almost always, there needs to be something for men and something for women. Usu-
ally there needs to be instruction directed to people in different states of life. Usually
there needs to be instruction or exhortation that is age-specific. The official initiations
courses provide much of that, but more is normally needed.
If we set up the formation process with the four essential meetings, we will have gone
a long way towards making it work well. There is, however, a temptation to see the for-
mation process solely in terms of activities or events that we can take care of, perhaps
supplemented by some special interventions to help people with problems. We need,
however, to keep conscious that we are mainly concerned with a process, a process of
growth and development that new people are going through to reach Christian maturity
and perhaps also community membership. We need to keep an eye on how that process is
going.
There is another temptation, namely, to think that if the new people come regularly to
the key meetings in the formation process, all will be well. Sometimes all will be well,
but if that is all that happens, most often all will not be well. They need more than the
formation meetings provide. They need to be put into good contact with the outreach or
communities and its activities and interactions. They need to be integrated into a larger
group in which they can share a vital Christian life. They need to make good personal
contact with other individuals who can be of help to them. One of the main tasks of
workers in the formation process is to see that those in the process they are responsible
for are “knitted into” a broader body and participate in its life and mission.
Putting the Elements Together

We could say that if all the elements are present we have a formation process. It
would probably be better to say, though, that we have the makings of a formation pro-
cess. It is not until we have combined them in the right way and work with them so that
they achieve certain goals that we have a formation process.
We can explain this most easily by examples. Paul uses two images for Christian
community builders: the farmer and the builder. He says,
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What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed,
as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the
growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only
God who gives the growth. He who plants and he who waters are equal,
and each shall receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God's
fellow workers; you are God's field, God's building. According to the
grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation,
and another man is building upon it. Let each man take care how he
builds upon it. For no other foundation can any one lay than that which is
laid, which is Jesus Christ. (1 Cor. 3:5-11)
Paul is applying these images to community building workers (what we might call
missionaries), but they also apply to pastoral workers in the evangelism and formation
process. Let us use the farming example. We start with seeds. The seeds in this example
are the seeds of the word of God, the new spiritual life. It begins to take root in people
when they have reached initial conversion and so have spiritual life in them, life that can
grow. The formation group in the community or the outreach chapter is the soil, the field
we work in.
Now it is true that if a farmer just throws out some seeds and lets them grow, some of
them will grow. But he will not likely get a wheat harvest from that field later on, or it
will be a poor harvest (and will probably get poorer each year he does it that way). He
can, however, get a good crop if he does the right things, if, in other words, he is a trained
farmer.
If, as a formation worker, you put the seed in it properly, if you water it and fertilize it
when that is needed — not always, you can do too much of both — if you weed it at cer-
tain points in the process, if you harvest it at the right time (and do not let it rot), if you
dry it well, if you separate the seed (grain) from the rest of the plant well, etc., etc., you
can get a good crop. In other words, it takes a period of time to grow a crop, and to suc-
ceed at it you need to take the right steps at the right time in the right sequence.
The building example lets us understand a different aspect of formation and initia-
tions work. Like construction workers, pastoral workers usually work on a team as part of
a larger effort. All the materials might be present: wood, nails, braces, roofing, etc. But if
you let the materials just sit there, you cannot say that the house is there. Most of us
would see pretty readily that what we have is only the makings of the house.
To get a house, we have to combine the elements. And we have to do it the right way
— so that each piece functions the way it should and fits into the architect’s design. And
we have to do it in sequence: we do not start by putting the roofing shingles on pieces of
wood but by digging foundations.
In addition, we need to work with others. Like construction workers, we need some
general building skills and we need to do a set of basic tasks on whatever part of the
building we are assigned to. We at times need to call in people with specialized skills
(electricians, perhaps). And we need a foreman to get us to work together and to lead us
forward in the process. In short, a pastoral process has some similarities to a building
95
process. Like a successful building process it is a sequence of steps that leads to a goal—
if done by a group of people working together in a skillful way.
The building example, even more than the farming example, lets us see another fea-
ture of the formation process. It fits into a larger whole. A building, especially a modern
building, does not end up being much use if it is not linked up to power, water, etc. That
comes from outside of it. Nor is it likely to work well if it does not fulfill the zoning re-
quirements so it fits into the rest of the city. In fact, builders do not get very far on the
building without some of these linkages and without initial zoning permission. In a simi-
lar way, we have to see our work in the evangelism and formation process as something
that has to be well linked with the larger community or chapter.
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2.3 The Process: Struc-

ture and Important
Features
This section contains a presentation of the key principles behind the way the for-
mation process is put together into an effective whole.
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2.31 The Process: The Key

Principles
We began considering the formation process by looking at the basic principles behind
our approach. Then we looked at the goals it was trying to accomplish. Then we looked at
the elements that need to go into it — the instruction sessions, the formation group, the
pastoral care session and the team meeting, the regular staples of the formation process.
Then we looked at other elements, events that are not regular formation process meetings:
attendance at community or outreach gatherings, retreats and other high impact events,
participation in service and outreach, relationship building and special help “by category
of person”. These too, even though not formally structured, are important elements. Then
we looked at how the pastoral worker in formation should function effectively.
Now we are going look at the process itself and how we need to develop it so it works
successfully in reaching our goals.
Key Principle: Working by Stages
Key Principle: Working by Stages
We work by “stages”.
It takes people time to change.
We build the foundations first, then the rest of the building.
If you try to go in a boat from Lake Ontario to Lake Erie, you encounter Niagara Falls
part way up the Niagara River, the river that connects the two lakes. But you can take a
boat from Lake Ontario to Lake Erie. So how can you get a boat up and over the Niagara
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Falls? The answer, of course, is that you do not. You build the Welland Canal and then
go by boat via the Welland Canal.
In other words, instead of trying to take a boat straight up a high cliff with a torrent of
water pouring over it, you built an alternate waterway, and that waterway has stages. As a
result the boat gradually ascends to a higher level, stage by stage — instead of either sit-
ting where it was or getting deluged by the Niagara River. We can often do things by
stages that we cannot do all at once.
Now we are switching from looking at the elements of the formation process to look-
ing at the principles that go into forming it. The first principle is working by stages. This
principle shapes everything we do, and if pastoral workers do not understand it and help
people in accordance with it, they will be much less effective.
Here the Welland Canal (and other canals) provides a helpful analogy. Every canal
has locks. The locks allow the boats to go up a level. Instead of trying to bring the boat in
one fell-swoop from the level of Lake Ontario to the level of Lake Erie, the boats pro-
gress from lock to lock. Each time they go through a lock successfully, they are at a high-
er stage. Each step in the process is manageable. We need to do something similar in the
work of formation.
In our evangelism and formation process, we have five main stages: the evangelistic
winning stage, the initial conversion stage, the basic formation stage, the underway
membership stage, and then the full membership stage (after someone makes the public
commitment). Two of these make up the formation process: the basic formation stage and
the underway commitment stage. The basic formation stage is the one in which the focus
is on bringing the new people to full conversion and Christian maturity. The underway
commitment stage is for those who want to consider or move toward community mem-
bership. We will look more fully at the nature of each of these stages further on.
We work by stages primarily because it takes people time to change. It would be nice
to be able to give a talk on Christian maturity and have everyone who heard the talk be
mature the following week. Nice, but impossible. It is no more possible than to explain to
a 6 year old what it means to grow up and then find him grown up the following week.
Some things just take time. Significant human change is normally one of them. Signifi-
cant spiritual human change is also one of them.
We need to have the patience to be willing to work with people for some years to help
them to live a full Christian life. We also need the realism to understand that it is not
enough to give people some talks and then expect them to live what we have told them
about — or even sometimes to remember what we told them.
Some Christian groups think that all we need to do is to preach at people enough and
they will be changed. Other Christian groups think that all we need to do is to teach peo-
ple enough — especially enough doctrine — and they will be changed. Some Christian
groups think that all we need to do is get people converted to the Lord, and they will au-
tomatically change in all the important ways. But none of these is true, important as each
one of these things is. We need to work with people in a variety of ways — over time.
There is another important truth that leads us to work by stages, one that we already
looked at in the section “Putting the Elements Together” (p. 94). Someone described it by
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the very commonsensical saying “we have to lay the foundation before we can put the
roof on”. If we do not know what has to come first, what second and so on, we will not
know how to build a house. One thing supports another —the foundation supports the
walls and the walls the roof. We cannot get the walls to stand up if we have not laid the
foundation, and we cannot get the roof to stay up if we have not at least built the frame of
the walls.
Something similar is true for helping people grow in the Christian life. To take a sim-
ple example, if they do not have a regular “prayer time”, most people will not grow much
in their relationship with the Lord. Or if they have not learned the importance of obedi-
ence, they will not put good Christian teaching into practice. We need to begin with these
foundational things before, for instance, trying to help people form their family life in the
right way. First things first.
The stages we use. There is a chart called “The Process of Evangelism and For-
mation”, that we have used for many years to explain how we bring people to Christian
maturity and membership in the community. It presents the process from the time we first
make contact with people to the point some percentage of them make a covenant com-
mitment to community membership. The chart is one page long and is in a separate file.
You might find it helpful to print it out so you can keep referring to it easily. Look over
the chart at this point.
There are five stages. The description of each stage on the chart indicates what we are
aiming for in that stage and therefore orients us to the approach we need to take to help-
ing new people in each stage. They need different things at different points in their pro-
cess of growth.
1. The first stage is called evangelistic winning and is the stage in which we win
people to take a serious look at Christianity. Or often we are winning them to take
a serious look at our life if they are already Christians — or think they are — and
are looking for a Christian connection — or a better one than they have. This
stage could go fairly quickly or take quite a bit of time.
2. The second stage is called initial conversion and is the stage in which we help
people to know enough about Christianity and want it so that they are willing to
commit themselves to a serious investment in growth to Christian maturity. This
means that they should make a personal commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ, or
renew their commitment to the Lord if they have already made one. As we have
considered, the sign that they have done so is that they are ready to get the help
they need to know what is involved in the Christian life and to do it.
3. The third stage is the stage of initial formation — formation in Christian maturity,
that is, maturity in Christian living, and encouragement to consistent discipleship,
discipleship applied to every area of their personal lives.
4. The fourth stage is underway membership, the stage in which we then give them
the opportunity to consider becoming part of our communities and to be formed in
living as a community member.
5. The fifth stage is full membership (after they make the public commitment). In
this stage, they live as disciples on mission in our community. Reaching this stage
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is the completion of the process of evangelism and formation, but should not be
the end of their equipping and strengthening in our life.
Stages 3 and 4 are the stages in which people are part of our formation process.
This is a quick overview of the stages. In the next section, we will look at what goes
into making a stage effective. We will then look at the stages of the formation process in
more detail.
Key Principle: Goals and Criteria
Key principle: Goals and Criteria
Stages are defined by the goals to be reached in each

stage.
There are criteria for determining when goals have been
reached.
There is an “exit strategy” for those that cannot reach the goal.
Goals and criteria are guidelines, not laws, but “we ne-
glect them at our peril”.
As we saw in the section on “Our Overall Approach” we have a process-oriented,

goal-oriented, environmental, pastoral approach to the way we work. That means that we
know where we are headed and we seek to work toward getting there. We pay attention
to solving problems, and we seek to have good activities, but we mainly keep our eye on
the people in the process of evangelism and formation and see that they are moving along
in that process well (and we see that all our efforts contribute to that).
In the last section we saw that processes usually go by stages. We also saw that our
work of evangelism, formation and initiations goes by stages. Before we look at those
stages, though, we need to understand how to put a stage together so it works well.
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Goals for each stage. As we have already discussed, we have a final goal. Actually,
we have three final goals. We are trying to bring all the people we work with to maturity
in Christian living. We are trying to bring as many of those as we can to genuine Chris-
tian discipleship. We are also trying to bring as many people as should be part of us to
membership in our communities, communities of disciples on mission.
To work by stages, though, we need subordinate goals for each stage of the process.
To go back to the canal analogy, when we build a canal, we also build a set of locks. We
do not build all the locks at the same place. Rather we space them at a distance from one
another. And we have criteria for spacing them. We build a lock when the boats need to
go higher to make progress. There are various factors that go into the placement of locks,
but the basic principle is clear. We need a set of locks, and they have to be spaced at
some distance from one another to reach the final goal of getting the boats high enough to
be where you want them to be.
A process of formation and initiations works the same way. We need to have a set of
stages, and at the end of each stage, the new people should be farther along towards ma-
turity in Christian discipleship and community membership. That means we need to
know where we are trying to bring them in each stage. If we do not know the goal or
goals we are trying to reach in each stage, we run the great risk of not getting them to the
final goal at the end of the process.
This is the place where what some have called the “church youth group principle” can
do us in. The youth group in a church or community or whatever is set up to take care of
the children of the members. The purpose is to provide something that will “bring them
along”. The youth group basically works on the principle of working with those who are
willing to come.
If we are youth group workers, therefore, we try to get them to come and keep com-
ing. We try to make the group attractive — “fun” even — so that they will be willing to
come. And we keep all those who show up, as long as they are not disruptive or a really
bad influence. We hope that being there, and belonging to their family, and showing up at
other church or community events, will have a good influence on them, perhaps a good
enough influence to keep them coming to church or the community for the rest of their
lives. Some will even reach Christian maturity, but probably not because of what we have
done for them in the youth group.
The result of the youth group approach is usually good — the young people turn out
better than they would if they did not attend. The youth group approach, however, rarely
gets them where we (and God) want them to be. It is, in other words, not enough. If we
want the people we are working with to be people who have maturity in Christian disci-
pleship and community membership of the sort that involves living all the “Elements of
Good Membership”, we need something else — a goal-oriented process with stages and
with goals for each stage.
Criteria for knowing when we reach the goal. We also need something else. We need
criteria that will allow us to know when people have reached the goals. We could proba-
bly rattle off a list of goals that all of us would agree to — they should be good people,
loving people, holy people, etc. But a list like that can be very vague. We cannot always
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agree when they are loving — and we especially cannot always agree when they are lov-
ing enough. Suppose parents do not discipline their children but give them everything
they want? Are they loving? Perhaps in some sense of loving. But are they loving in a
way that qualifies them to be considered good parents?
This is especially true when we are trying to move people forward in Christian ma-
turity. It is one thing to decide that it is acceptable for Brother X to come to outreach
meetings and still be sleeping with his girlfriend. But if he is ready to make an underway
commitment and still is sleeping with his girlfriend, is that acceptable? And when does he
have to stop sleeping with his girlfriend before we have decided that he is not making
enough process to keep being moved on?
In other words, we need criteria, criteria that are clear enough so we can tell not only
that someone is making progress, but also is making enough progress to move on, indica-
tors of readiness to enter the next step. We need to know when someone can enter the
formation program, when they can enter a process of discernment for community mem-
bership, and when they can make a public commitment. And we need to know if we are
getting them closer while we are working with them. If we adopt the youth group ap-
proach, we may be doing good things for them, but we are still like a boxer who is just
hitting the air (rather than an opponent), as Paul put it (1 Cor. 9:6). We may not be doing
anything, or much, that is actually moving them forward.
It is perhaps common sense to say that we need to know the goals and we need to
know what the criteria are to tell when we have reached the goals. Those principles are
familiar enough from secular work experience. We do not want to be taken care of by
doctors or nurses who have a degree from a medical school that does not know whether
their graduates can take care of patients successfully or not, because they do not know
what the criteria are for knowing when they have accomplished a cure. Anyone who
knows how to run an effective formation process in anything would agree with this. Pas-
toral workers in formation have to be the kind of Christian leaders who know how to run
an effective formation process.
Exit strategy. There is, however, one other piece that goes along with these principles,
and I am going to use the term “exit strategy” to describe it. We need an exit strategy.
Tucked into that term is the principle that sometimes we have to drop people. They need
to exit from the process. They need to exit from the process even if they are willing to
stay. They need to, because they are never going to reach the goal at the end. We run the
risk of giving them a degree, even if they cannot pass any reasonable test.
This is a point where we run right against some of the views that determine how
many Christians nowadays approach what they do. If we are loving — so the idea goes
— we cannot exclude anyone. Maybe we can make an exception and exclude those who
are hurting other people, but if they are not, we cannot exclude them.
We want to be able to help anyone who can be helped. But we do not accept anyone
who wants to be a community member, just because they want to be one. If we accept
anyone who signs up for community membership, even though they do not live a large
part of the elements of good membership, we will not have a community of good mem-
bers. If we accept anyone who signs up, even if they do not want to live as disciples, we
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will not have a community of disciples. If we accept anyone who signs up, even though
they are just with us to get help and do not want to engage in our mission, we will soon
not be a community on mission.
Following the youth group principle in our formation and initiations process leads to
progressive watering down of our life and weakening of our mission. If we want to be
what the Lord has called us to be, we cannot just add anyone who wants to be part of us.
We need to only add the ones who should be there.
There is another feature of this that is very important. Let us go back to Brother X
who is sleeping with his girlfriend. Suppose we take him in as a member and he is still
sleeping with his girlfriend. We say “we are a community of disciples on mission and
you, Brother X, are now a member”. What then are we saying to him? We are saying —
in effect — that it is all right to sleep with your girlfriend. But sleeping with someone you
are not married to is not compatible with being a disciple or with being a mature Chris-
tian. In other words, we are lying to him. We may not say such a thing to him directly and
overtly, but de facto that is what we are saying. It is like telling a patient with cancer that
he does not need treatment.
We need an exit strategy. Some people need to exit our process of formation and ini-
tiations, because they are not making progress and look like they will not make progress
in the foreseeable future. But the second word is important as well. We need a strategy to
help people exit well.
If we just throw people out because people are not making progress, we are being pu-
nitive. If we simply drop them because they are not making progress, we are quitting on
helping them. Now, sometimes that is the best we can do, but usually we can do better.
What then are some of the elements of a good exit strategy?
• We need to see if we can provide some other help for them if they do not want to
quit on living as a Christian. Sometimes we can give that help. For instance, if
someone is not yet ready to make progress in the formation program, we can often
have them stop being part of the formation program but still take part in our uni-
versity outreach or couples movement or something else we have.
• We can also help them transit to another group. We can find some other Christian
group, perhaps even a certain congregation or parish, that will provide them the
help they are ready for.
• We also need to speak to them in a way that does not discourage them. We should
avoid trying to say to them something that amounts to telling them that they have
hopelessly failed in life or Christianity, because we will not be keeping them with
us.
• We should, however, try not to be dishonest with them. We should not lie to them
about why we do not think they can go on with us.
We certainly need to be patient, but there is a limit to patience. If someone just is
making no progress, that is, not living a more mature Christian life as a result of going
through our formation process, we should recommend that they drop out for a while.
Such a decision, of course, properly belongs to the formation or initiations director.
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Guidelines, not laws. We need goals, clear enough that we know what they mean. We
need criteria, helps that allow us to decide whether we have reached the goals or not. We
need an exit strategy, a strategy that allows us to move someone on when the process
does not seem to be working.
Goals and criteria are guidelines, not laws. You simply have to follow a law, other-
wise you are being disorderly or disobedient. You use a guideline to help you make a
good decision, but you do not always need to follow the guideline. Sometimes you can
decide it does not apply. More often, you decide that it applies, but it would be better to
make an exception, at least for a while. In other words, you need good judgment to apply
a guideline well.
To say such a thing can take away from the seriousness of good guidelines. However,
“We neglect them at our own peril.” The reason we have guidelines is to keep us from
going wrong. Therefore, if we do not follow them, we run a risk. Many communities do
not succeed because they do not have the guidelines they need. Some, however, do not
succeed because they have the guidelines — on paper, or in some computer file — but do
not follow them, at least most of the time.
Stages with goals and criteria provide a framework for us. They allow us to work
more effectively and surely. There is a lot of room within a framework to be wise, or to
be flexible, or to be creative — if need be. But without a good framework, we will not be
as effective.
We now need to look at the actual stages of our process of formation and initiations
and see how these principles apply.
The Overview: A “Map”

Now look at the chart “The Process of Evangelism and Formation”. The chart is a
map for how to bring people to mature Christian discipleship and community member-
ship. We are going to explain how the process works and in doing so apply what we have
been saying about the stages of a goal-oriented process.
The chart gives us an overview. If we are technicians, we do not need an overview, or
at least not much of one. We mainly need to know how to do our task well. If we do radi-
ology tests, for instance, we do not have to decide on the treatment a patient needs. We
only have to provide accurate data for the physician. We do need to know that the goal is
getting the patient healthy, so we can interpret the data well, but we do not need to figure
out how to move the patient forward. That is the work of the physician, and he is the one
who needs an overview.
Pastoral workers in the process of initiations also need an overview. They not only
need to be able to pray with someone to be baptized in the Spirit, they also need to know
how doing that fits into the whole process. They need to know where we are going and
how we are going to get there. It is possible to design an excellent pipe that will be com-
pletely useless in our plumbing system, but it is also possible to design an excellent pipe
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that will fit perfectly and be just what we are looking for. We need to see that each thing
we do contributes to the process, and for that we need an overview.
We ought to be familiar with the chart “The Process of Evangelism and Formation”,
and we should especially be familiar with what we need to do within each stage and how
it should fit into the process as whole.
The five stages. To begin with, the first row of the chart at the top lists the stages of
evangelism and formation. As we have already seen we work with five main stages. The
chart begins with 0, because that helps us to keep in perspective that we have to do some-
thing to be able to start to work with people. We at least need to get them to come to
something (a meeting, a presentation) or at very least have a discussion with us before we
can have much effect on them. That allows us to begin stage 1 of the process.
Stage 1 is the stage of evangelistic winning. Once we get into contact with people,
our goal to get them interested enough in Christianity and connected enough to us to be
ready to receive more. Usually this stage does not last too long. Either people decide to
go on or we lose contact with them, although sometimes people “hang around” for a
while and eventually make it.
Stage 2 is the stage of initial conversion. We want to bring people to Christianity if
they are pagans or nominal or inactive Christians. We want to bring all of them to serious
Christian discipleship. The goal of this stage is conversion to Christ, initial conversion to
Christ.
We normally expect stage 2 to last about a year. That gives us enough time to work
with people to bring them to a solid initial conversion and readiness to go on. During this
time, we try to give them the Life in the Spirit Seminars and Life in Christ or some equiv-
alent. For many the first is what brings them to an initial conversion, and the second so-
lidifies it enough in them that they are ready to receive formation.
Stage 3 is the stage of initial formation. Those who are part of stage three make a
commitment to come to our formation program. There they get help to live as committed
Christians in a consistent way, what we refer to as maturity in Christian living. Our for-
mation program is structured to include a set of courses and a process of working pasto-
rally with the participants to help them make progress.
Stage three lasts between two or three years. There are usually a number of practical
considerations that determine how long it lasts, for instance, how the courses can be
scheduled.
A high percentage of those who complete our initial formation should be ready to go
on to the next stage.
Stage 4 is the stage of underway membership. In this stage, we explain to people what
is involved in being part of our communities, and they agree to live as members of our
community. Usually it takes a while for them to be formed in and live everything in-
volved in being a good member of our community. Once they are doing that, we let them
finish formation and enter normal community life. They then have their “solo flight”, that
is, they live our life without the special helps of the formation program before making a
full commitment. For most people, the underway stage lasts for at least two years.
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Stage 5 is the stage of full membership. Those who are ready make a public commit-
ment, and then they live our life as covenanted members. If all goes well, they live the
rest of their lives as disciples on mission in one of our communities.
Key actions of God. The second row of the chart is entitled “key actions of God”.
These are special actions of his that enable people to function in a new way. We are not
looking for external or merely human Christianity. We are looking for something that
God “works” in people.
God’s role is constant throughout the process (he can always be relied upon to give
grace). Much of his work comes in steady ways. He teaches and feeds us through scrip-
ture, for instance. He meets us in our times of prayer. He helps as we go through the day.
There are in addition key actions of his that we can look for that equip people spiritually
to proceed in a new way. When we describe ourselves as a charismatic community, one
of the things we mean is that we are looking for such actions of God.
There are three key actions of God that we should expect during the process of evan-
gelism, formation and initiations:
• It is common for people to have an initial experience of grace (sometimes called
“a conversion experience”) and then a further one that we would refer to as being
baptized in the Spirit, although sometimes the two come together. We seek to fos-
ter these two experiences so people can be spiritually ready to make a genuine
commitment to receive formation. We should rarely let anyone start formation
without both.
• We also are looking for further “calls”, that is, workings of God which allow peo-
ple to belong to our community or to enter a state of life in a good spiritual way
(or sometimes to make a good church commitment). These involve God giving
them light (insight or revelation) as to how he has worked with them or how he
wants to work with them. As a result of that light, they can see how they should
proceed in making commitments in their life. He usually also does something in
them that makes them desire the life he wants them to live, even if it would not be
their personal preference. We should help people discern whether they have some
reasonable confidence that the Lord wants them to be part of our community be-
fore letting them make a long-term commitment to it.
There are some other key actions of God that can occur more than once and can occur
in any stage. There is deliverance from the work of evil spirits, healing of spiritually
crippling problems, charismatic empowerment. We seek to have them occur, to some de-
gree at least, early in the formation process. They can, however, occur in further ways at
different times. Often some special action of God is needed for a particular individual to
make progress at a certain point in his or her life of following the Lord.
We can help people receive the important actions of God they need: an initial experi-
ence of grace, being baptized in the Holy Spirit, enlightenment about God’s call, freedom
from the work of evil spirits and from other bondage.
We cannot automatically arrange for God to work with people so that his work hap-
pens at what we see as the right points in the formation initiations process (though we can
dispose people and so make it more likely to happen). We can, however, usually discern
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if something spiritual has in fact happened that will make it possible for them to move
forward in a good way.
Content focus. The third row is entitled “content focus”. In each stage we give a cer-
tain amount of instructional content and a certain pastoral care that helps people appro-
priate that content. Each stage, in other words, has a different focus.
We have a regular course of instruction that helps people move to initial conversion
and then to Christian maturity. This is a key piece in the formation process. In addition,
everyone needs help from others to grow in the Christian life, and we try to provide some
of that by regular contact with a pastoral worker. Individual personal attention is crucial
for a formation process (that is what connects the process well to the people). The pasto-
ral care we give is connected to the instruction we give and therefore it changes some-
what as we move through the process.
The goals of each stage. The fourth row is the goals of each stage. These are the deci-
sions that we want the new people to arrive at by the end of each stage. We want them, in
other words, to decide to move on to the next stage. That means we want them to be
ready to make the commitments that will allow them to go through that stage effectively.
We are not, however, looking for just verbal or formal decisions. We are looking for the
kind of decision that leads to change or at least that indicates we can rely on the person to
live in a certain way afterwards.
Some will have already made the decision we are looking for “in their heart”, even
perhaps before they begin a given stage. Some even begin the whole process knowing
they want to be community members. We want, however, to have each person make at
least three formal decisions: initial, underway, and public commitment.
Pastoral criteria to move on. The fifth row is the pastoral criteria to move on. One
difficult question is how we know that someone has made a genuine decision — to be a
Christian disciple, to be a member of our community, to be married in a lifelong com-
mitment, or whatever. The answer is: we can never be sure until they have been faithful
to that decision for a lengthy period of time in face of difficulties. Perhaps even then we
cannot, and only God knows.
Nonetheless, we do not want to try to give people formation that they are not ready
for or make requirements people are not in a good condition to meet. Moreover, we can
make a good judgment as to when people have probably reached the needed decision and
when they are ready to move on. In other words, we have pastoral criteria to use to de-
termine if a person is ready to move on, and if we use them, we can normally tell when
people are ready for more.
Evangelism, formation, initiations. There is no clearly accepted usage for these words
among Christians. We will do better at communicating with one another if we have a
common terminology, so we recommend the following usage. “Evangelism” or “evange-
lization” ends with initial conversion. “Initiations” is the process that leads to community
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membership. We most commonly refer to the first part of this process, which focuses on
full conversion and Christian maturity, as “formation (in Christian maturity)”, because
many people go through this stage in our outreaches and, although they want to receive
Christian formation, they are not yet ready to undergo a process of initiations into our
community. The second part is initiations proper, because it focuses on community mem-
bership, but we often speak of it as formation for community membership.
Being proactive. As leaders, we make much better progress if we are proactive. When
we are proactive, we do not just perform a set of activities or react to what happens, but
we see where we are going and what steps we need to take to get there. Then we take
those steps. As leaders in the process of evangelism and initiations, we need to be proac-
tive to be successful.
We may only be working with people in one stage. We may be working with people
in more than one stage. We need to be proactive to bring them to the goal of each stage,
and we need to be proactive to bring them all the way through. Getting the overview and
the goal of each stage clear is key to being able to be proactive as a pastoral worker in
evangelism, formation, and initiations.
Integrating the Process of Pastoral Care

We deal with many different situations in our formation work. Often there are points
at which the participants need to move from one situation to another. This most often oc-
curs because they begin their formation in an outreach context and then move to a com-
munity context. Sometimes, however, it occurs in a community context when they move
from initial formation, formation in Christian maturity, to the underway stage where they
receive formation in community life. These transitions can cause breaks in their connec-
tion with our work, and these then are often points where we lose people who were pre-
viously making good progress.
There are three common reasons for the breaks caused by transitions in our care of
new people. The first is relational. For instance, sometimes they were in a situation like
an outreach where they had developed good supportive relationships. Then they moved to
a new situation with new relationships and no regular contact with their previous rela-
tionships. They experienced a loss in some of the very things that were attracting them to
the formation process.
The second common reason is that their pastoral leader changed. This may even hap-
pen if there is no transition from one situation or program to another. In some outreaches,
for instance, it is common to put new people in a different group with a different leader
each year. That also can happen in community formation programs. When their pastoral
leader changes, new people sometimes get lost or at least have lost contact with someone
who was able to help them and knew what they needed to move on.
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A frequent (perhaps yearly) change in someone’s pastoral leader reduces the effec-
tiveness of the pastoral process considerably. It takes time for a pastoral relationship to
develop. Partly it takes time for the formation leader to get to know the people they are
working with, enough to have insight into what is going on with them. Partly it takes time
for trust to develop, so the new people will trust the input of the formation leaders and
will allow them to influence their decisions. Too frequent a change produces shallow pas-
toral care.
A third common reason is that the team responsible for the formation program chang-
es. Again this can happen when one team is responsible for an outreach and another for a
(community) formation program. Or it may happen when there are two different teams
for the two different stages of the formation program. If the team changes, especially
when it changes completely, those responsible for the process are not in a good place to
oversee it as an integrated process. In addition, they have a more difficult time keeping
track of those in the formation process and what they need, and they often have to begin
working with the new people with little knowledge of them or of what has happened to
them in the formation program.
The antidote to the problem of losing people in transitions is building continuities
from one situation to another. There needs to be integration from stage to stage so that the
process of pastoral formation works well despite certain transitions. We therefore need to
create overlaps between each transitional stage. That means:
• As much as possible, there should be relational overlaps, so that when new people
transit from one stage or environment to another, they continue to find themselves
in relationships that they are already familiar with. The easiest way for this to
happen is when there are overlaps between the environments.
• As much as possible the longer those in formation can have the same pastoral
leaders the better (at least if the relationship is working well). That usually means
that the pastoral leaders need to work on both side of the transition. For instance,
the pastoral leader of their outreach small group may work with them also in the
formation process, or at least at the beginning of it. Moreover, the pastoral leader
who worked with them in formation in Christian maturity should work with them
in the beginning of the underway stage or at least until they have made an under-
way commitment.
• The team of the leaders who work on the whole process of formation and initia-
tions should be integrated enough so that those working primarily in one stage in-
teract and take common concern with those working primarily in a different stage.
Ideally the same team should oversee the whole formation process.
The way we (usually a formation team) set up the men’s and women’s groups and
pastoral care structure can make a significant difference in the process of formation.
Some times a formation team rearranges the groups, even in a major way, on a regular
basis (commonly for young singles every time the school year changes). This should be
avoided if at all possible. Sometimes a community sets up the formation/initiations pro-
cess by outreach, so that, for instance, the pastoral workers in the outreach environment
do not work with people who have graduated and now are in a work environment and/or
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in the main community environment. This may be harder to avoid, but the process will
work better if this can be avoided.
One way to create a better transition in pastoral care is to have a given pastoral work-
er gradually add new members to his group each year or so and move those who have
been with him a longer time to another group and pastoral leader. This usually means that
at any given time, he is responsible for people in different years of formation and often in
different stages of formation. He has to learn how to work with the group in such a way
that all get the help they need. Fortunately it usually helps those who are farther along to
review what the newer people are working on, and they often can be helpful in the group
by giving input to the newer people. The chief benefit of gradually adding new people
and moving them on after a couple of years is that it allows a solider pastoral relationship
to develop.
Another way to create a better transition in pastoral care is to have a formation envi-
ronment that goes from the start of the formation program to the beginning of the “solo
flight” in the fourth stage. New people, especially young single people, do best in a peer
group with others receiving formation and not just indiscriminately mixed into a larger
community environment before they are ready. In a larger community, this often works
best by having a formation district. This allows the pastoral worker to work with people
for a longer period of time, and it also allows new people to be part of a community envi-
ronment that is easier for them to relate to. In a smaller community it can be structured as
a special formation program group within the larger community.
There is another approach that can strengthen the formation program. Often a for-
mation team works with the principle that they have to give everyone in the group what
they need as much as possible. This usually results in having the better pastoral workers
mainly working with the most needy new people, because those pastoral workers are the
ones who can give them the most help. The result is that they do not work as much with
those who have the greatest promise for leadership, and the promise of developing new
leaders who can help more people is retarded.
The formation team, especially the formation coordinator, should normally put those
who are discerned to have the most leadership promise with the pastoral workers who
have the most experience and ability to work with new people. At a certain point, the new
people should themselves be given responsibility for pastoral care (or other leadership if
they look more fitted for something else). Usually they begin by doing personal care in
the outreach. Then they are assigned to the pastoral worker who will train them to do pas-
toral care. He can have the new trainees be an assistant in his men’s or women’s group,
taking on some members for pastoral care. Eventually, the trainees can take a group they
has been working with and start another group on their own.
How a community can set up a formation process depends on its size and the re-
sources available. Smaller communities cannot always put together a formation process
in the ideal way. This manual does not deal with the various ways to structure a for-
mation process. Rather it is designed to help pastoral workers in formation and initiations
to do their service. It is enough here to recognize the need for as much relational and pas-
toral continuity as possible for helping new people make transitions from one stage or
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situation to another and to recognize the need to design the process we have in a way to
foster that continuity.
Help for structuring the formation process can be found in the pastoral approach (co-
ordinators resources) document “3.330 2005 Init Struct Design” on the Sword of the Spir-
it website.
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2.32 The Process: Some

Important Features
In this section we are going to talk about two important features of the process of
evangelism, formation and initiations, namely formation and instruction.
Formation
Formation is not teaching. People receive teaching when some content (information)
is being given to them that they can understand and remember. People are not receiving
formation, however, unless they are living by or acting in accord with what has been giv-
en to them. To return to a previous example, medical students have not been formed as
doctors unless they can handle a patient well, heal a reasonable proportion of those who
come to them, and not kill a patient inadvertently. If they can only remember information
or pass a written exam, but cannot work well with patients, they have not been formed as
a doctor. Most of us would not be happy if we got a doctor who passed with honors but
could not be relied on to not make his or her patients worse. Something similar is true of
those we work with when we give them Christian formation.
Our final goal is to bring many people to be living the Elements of Membership in
Good Standing by the end of their time in formation. In our outreaches, however, we
have a more limited goal. In the formation program of the outreaches we are normally
only looking for people to go partway through our whole process of formation but to
complete it, if at all, in the community. Of course, some may go on to complete all of the
formation we have for community membership while they are still participating in the
university outreach and environment. We are, however, normally only looking for all of
those in the university formation program to complete the initial stage of formation, at
least if they stay part of the university and part of us. We want them to reach a basic
Christian maturity so that they live a mature Christian life consistently, without constant-
ly falling back.
The apostle Paul speaks about the process of formation in Christian living and leader-
ship in 2 Timothy 2:20-21. First he describes the fundamental goal as becoming a valua-
ble disciple:
If anyone purifies himself from what is ignoble then he will be a vessel for noble use,
consecrated and useful to the master of the house, ready for any good work (2:20-21).
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Further on, Paul refers to his formation of Timothy in leading the Christian community
and Timothy’s responsibility to train others. There he says:
But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing
from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the
sacred writings which are able to instruct you in salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction
and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for
every good work” (2 Tim. 3:10-11, 14-17).
In this latter passage, Paul is saying that Timothy must see that the Christians in the
community he is responsible for become mature, equipped for every good work — and
that scripture is useful for getting that to happen. And Paul explains what Timothy needs
to do to accomplish this work: teach, reprove, correct, and train in righteousness. That list
is a standard set of ways that scripture gives us to help people come to maturity. We want
to focus here on what is described in the passage as “training in righteousness”. This
could be also translated as “formation in righteousness”, using the word we commonly
use to describe what happens in stage 3 of the process of evangelism and formation.
In the letter to the Colossians, the apostle Paul speaks about the way he works with
the communities he is developing. In doing so, he says something similar to what he said
to Timothy.
Him [Christ] we proclaim, admonishing [RSV: warning] every man and teaching every
man in all wisdom, that we may present every man mature in Christ. (Col. 1:28)
The apostle works with his original group on a one-to-one basis, and he admonishes and
gives them practical instruction. He does not stop until he can “present every man mature
in Christ”. In other words, he forms them into mature disciples.
Formation according to scripture. What is this scriptural concept of formation or

training that is important for grounding people in the Christian way of life and drawing
them into Christian service? The concept of formation tends to become merged in our
minds with the idea of teaching, but it is actually distinct.
The Hebrew and Greek words for formation are translated into English in various
ways — “formation”, “training”, “discipline”, “education”, “instruction”, and in certain
contexts “punishment” or “chastisement”. In Acts we learn that “Moses was instructed in
all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and he was mighty in word and deed” (7:22). Moses was
brought into the house of Pharaoh, and he was trained to be one of the rulers of Egypt.
“Wisdom” in this passage especially means knowledge of how to govern and handle re-
sponsibilities effectively.
Acts 22:3 relates that Paul said, “I am a Jew from Tarsus in Cilicia, brought up in the
city at the feet of Gamaliel, educated according to the strict manner of the law of our fa-
thers, being zealous for God as you all are this day.” The training of a rabbi, which Paul
is referring to, did not consist merely of handing on knowledge; it meant a formation that
prepared a man to live the Jewish way of life and to perform a set of functions having to
do with giving judgment and governing.
Paul told Titus, “The grace of God has appeared, training us to announce irreligion
and worldliness and to live sober, upright, and godly lives in this world” (Tit. 2:11-12).
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Surprising as it may sound, the grace of God has come to train us. In Christ, the grace of
God came to train us to stop being dominated by our passions and, to begin living godly
lives. This is the notion that we have just discussed — that the primary kind of formation
we are concerned with as Christians is formation or training in a way of life.
Luke 23:16 brings out another aspect of the word. Pilate says about Jesus, “I will
therefore chastise him and release him.” This is the same word elsewhere translated in-
struction, education, or training. What Pilate meant was that he was going to beat Jesus
and let him go free. This use of the word points to the fact that the concept of training in
scripture can include penalization. For example, a parent punishes a child to get him back
on the right track — “to teach him a lesson” would be a way of saying it.
Although “teach him a lesson” would be an idiomatic way of translating the term, in
this passage, however, it is actually important to distinguish between teaching and train-
ing. As we have seen, teaching most commonly refers to imparting knowledge and un-
derstanding to people. People need to understand many things; so Christian leaders do a
lot of teaching. But we have not trained somebody until they are actually doing what we
have taught them. We may give people all the knowledge they need, but if they are not
able to live the life or perform the service, they are not trained. Sometimes, even, we have
not trained people unless we “teach them a lesson”.
Other passages in scripture amplify the concept of formation or training in righteous-
ness:
– Describing someone in a certain amount of trouble, a proverb says, “He dies be-
cause of lack of training, and because of his great folly he is lost” (Prov. 5:23).
Training, in other words, can make the difference between life and death. It is
possible to train people so they can survive and be successful — or fail to do so.
– “He who ignores training despises himself” (Prov. 15:32). If people have a con-
cern for their honor, success, and good standing, they will not want to ignore
training, because training is the means to being able to do things well.
– A famous proverb says: “He who loves training loves knowledge, but he who
hates reproof is stupid” (Prov. 12:1). Again, if a person wants to succeed at being
the Lord’s man or woman and serving him in a way that pleases him, he or she
should love training.
– As we saw, Titus 2:11-12 teaches us that the grace of God has appeared to train
us. To speak of the grace, the favor, of God is to speak of a personal relationship
with God. One element of training someone is to establish a personal relationship
that has personal concern in it.
– In Revelation 3:19 the Lord Jesus says to the church at Laodicea, “Those whom I
love I reprove and chasten (train), so be zealous and repent.” The Lord is saying
that it is because he loves us and is committed to us that he is going to do what he
needs to do with us so that we can be in the right place in relation to him. The
process of training may thus include reproof and correction along with punish-
ment.
Some elements of formation. There is a set of elements that we can identify in for-
mation:
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1. Formation involves actually seeing if people do something well and, if they do

not, correcting them and showing them how. Formation, therefore, involves concrete be-
havioral goals. We need to know what we are trying to get people to do. We need to be
able to describe it to ourselves and to them in such a way that they and we know whether
they are doing it or not. And we need to make clear it to them if they are not.
Formation tends to happen a lot more in business and the military than in Christian
work. In business there is a bottom line, and everyone can see what it is. If we do not
make enough profit, we know we have failed. It is important to train people responsible
for a business operation so that the bottom line shows profit. In war, we either win or
lose. If we lose the war, we have unfortunate consequences to face. So there is a great
deal of motivation in such kinds of enterprises to form people so they actually can do
what they are supposed to do. But in religious situations there is not the same kind of
constant feedback. That is partly due to the inability to answer the question Are we suc-
ceeding or not, and can we tell whether we are or not? If we cannot answer the question,
we do not have concrete behavioral goals.
2. Formation involves authority. We live in a society where people do not like to be
told what to do, at least in their personal lives. But even so, people respond to opportuni-
ties to be trained to make a profit or to avoid getting defeated or killed in war. There is no
way to run a formation relationship, including a training program in how to conduct peo-
ple’s personal lives, without authority. We regularly have to tell people what to do. We
have to correct them with authority. They have to receive it. Otherwise they do not get
formed.
Of course, the person doing the formation has to know what he is forming the other
person to do. Having authority but no competence will not get us very far.
3. A formation relationship normally involves modeling and imitation. One of the
most effective methods of instruction is simply to show people how to do something —
whatever it is. Showing them involves not only demonstrating the method, but also show-
ing them the standard that determines when they have accomplished the task. They have
to know what is an acceptable or adequate way of doing the particular thing, and what is
not. When is clean, clean enough? When is exact, exact enough? And so on.
4. There must some degree of personal relationship. We cannot really form people
unless they can observe us and we can see how they are doing. The extent of the relation-
ship depends on whether we are forming people in how to carry out a narrowly defined
set of responsibilities or how to get their whole lives working right. In either case, how-
ever, formation involves some direct contact: This is a key difference between formation
and teaching. A teacher can put his message on video or in a book, and people can be
taught by it. But it is impossible to train that way.
There is no completely good alternative to actually seeing things directly for our-
selves. We can have people report to us with enough concreteness that we can tell some-
what well how they are doing. But there is no fully adequate substitute for seeing how
they are doing. A report is only as good as the person reporting knows how to make it. If
the person is not assimilating something in the formation, he or she is likely to miss it in
the report too.
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How We Give Formation
We Give Formation By:
1. Having new people participate in a group living

our way of life
2. Providing teaching that gives vision and basic un-

derstanding
3. Providing practical teaching with how-to discus-

sion and correction
4. Giving formative input
Having new people participation in a group living our way of life. Much formation
comes by a process of absorption from the environment that we are in. For an environ-
ment to be formative in a way of life, the core membership and the main leaders have to
be committed to that way of life and doing adequately well at living it. Those participat-
ing actively in an environment will have some of the way of life “rub off on them” the
longer they are in it. However, those in the environment usually do not internalize all of it
until they have made some decision (explicit or not) that they want to be formed and/or
take on the life of the group.
Providing teaching (and “preaching”) that gives vision and basic understanding: for
the most part the vision of and understanding of what we are trying to bring about cannot
be formed in someone apart from being actively presented to them by teaching and
preaching.
Such teaching and preaching is the normal vehicle for conversion in various areas of
someone’s life, and usually works most effectively when it can be reinforced by personal
testimony.
For teaching and preaching to be effective, there usually has to be repetition (re-
presentation). In other words, the vision and basic understanding has to be returned to
regularly.
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Providing practical teaching with how-to discussion and correction. A presupposition

for formative input is telling people the goal, what is involved in achieving the goal effec-
tively, and what steps they need to take so they can reach it. If they, as well as we, under-
stand that formation is designed to reach a goal, one they want to reach, and if they un-
derstand what we think they need to do to get there, they will be more motivated to re-
spond well to what we are giving them and will be more able to cooperate with the pro-
cess.
Practical teaching also needs to involve an ordered sequence of material that is ap-
propriated step by step.
Practical teaching has to be concrete. The content has to be explained in such a way
that people can tell when they are doing something or not doing it. Moreover, it almost
always has to be illustrated by some narrative, either a Biblical incident or a personal ex-
perience or some other recounted event or story).
Practical teaching should be worked through in discussion.
Giving formative input. To be formed, people need to do what they are told, or try to
do so. Their efforts need to take place under some supervision, with correction when they
fail to appropriate the instruction or fail to do so correctly. In these respects Christian
formation is analogous to forming people as doctors or nurses or carpenters or basketball
players or cooks.
If people try to train themselves, they will most likely leave out crucial elements or let
themselves “off the hook” without actually learning what they need to learn. Most people
who want to grow will be able to make some changes on their own, but they will be una-
ware of various ways in which they are not living what they want to live (or they will not
realize or accept the importance of some elements of what has been presented to them
and will omit or neglect them).
Practical teaching involves what we might call coaching. Coaches provide input when
trainees fail to appropriate the instruction they have been given or fail to do so correctly.
They also give input when trainees appropriate the instruction well so that they are en-
couraged to keep on doing what they have done. They also give input when trainees may
be doing adequately well, but could do better and accomplish more. The coach has to in-
struct and correct, but also has to impart confidence and hence often needs to give more
encouragement than correction.
Coaching and especially correction cannot happen without enough contact to observe
how those being formed handle situations. The ideal situation for helping someone in
Christian living is living together. If that is not possible, the more regular contact, espe-
cially informal contact, the better.
Those responsible for supervising people’s formation need to see that they make pro-
gress. If they are not making progress, they are not being formed, and the trainer needs to
do something. We therefore need to have indicators of whether the people being formed
are accepting the formation, that is, when those being formed have demonstrated change
or at least the attempt to change.
Those who are not receiving the formation should not continue in the process of for-
mation until they are ready to receive formation. If they are supposed to be in the process
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but are not changing, they will become inured to attempts to change them or become re-
sentful or both.
Some people are not capable of being formed in certain areas. This may be for a vari-
ety of reasons, many beyond their control. At times we have to accept the fact that some
who are doing well overall are not going to change in some area or another.
It would not be true to say that no one gets formed without direct formative input. On
the other hand, direct formative input makes the process much more effective and quick-
er. In addition, most people will not change in certain areas unless they are helped to do
so.
Our main vehicles of formation

The main vehicles that we have for formation are the essential elements of the for-
mation process — when they are used in a way that is intended to provide formation:
• participation in the community or an outreach that has a communal environment:
this is the main vehicle of formation
• participation in gatherings and retreats: these are the main ways we impart the
teaching that gives vision and understanding
• participation in courses: this is the main way we impart practical teaching but al-
so some of the teaching that gives vision and understanding
• participation in a men’s or women’s group with a pastoral leader who has been
trained to give formation, along with regular individual sessions with that pasto-
ral leader: this is the main way we give formative input as well as one of the
ways in which we supply the correction that needs to accompany practical teach-
ing. Note that in our communities and young singles outreaches we also provide
men’s and women’s groups for other purposes.
Each of the above vehicles of formation can function by itself. Combining them is
most effective. Formative input needs the other vehicles if it is used for anything more
than practical skills (practical skills like learning how to play basketball or learning how
to handle the sound system at a meeting). We are here primarily talking about personal
formation, not formation in practical skills.
In the formation process we cannot provide the most important things people need in
order to change. God needs to provide those things, or just experience of life, especially
life in a formative environment, needs to provide it. Therefore, we need to do what we
can to help those we are working with to be in an interactive relationship with God and
with brothers and sisters in Christ.
In addition, one of the main ways we help people is simply by being in the right kind
of relationship with them. If they have a basic confidence in us (at least as being able to
represent the outreach or community) and if we have a personal commitment to them that
they can experience, we can impart hope and confidence and desire to them, not so much
by what we say to them but simply by the relationship.
People will not change unless they want to change. Most of the people who will enter
our process of formation will want to change somewhat. They want to live some of our
life and receive certain kinds of help from community membership. Part of our concern is
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to bring them gradually to the point where they want to live as Christians consistently, in
all areas of their lives, and to take on the full community way of life.
Key Principle: Defined Commitments
Key Principle: Defined Commitments
There are defined commitments for each stage of our

formation process.
Those who make a commitment should know what they are
committing themselves to (what and why).
Those who have a commitment should keep it or drop out

of the process.
One of the distinctive features of our approach to formation and initiations is asking
people to make formal commitments as they go along. It can be one of the most effective
parts of the process. There are several reasons to do this.
1. We do this to emphasize the covenantal aspect of Christianity (with God and with
brothers and sisters). Having new people progressively make commitments allows
us to teach them how to make commitments and how to see Christianity as a mat-
ter of commitments. We are teaching them chesed, covenant faithfulness, and
teaching them how it can be a source of good relationship and spiritual blessing.
2. We do this to help them to make good decisions. We want them to decide to do
what we are inviting them to do. We want them to choose for it, not just be pres-
sured or persuaded, much less be carried away by their emotions or enticed by the
prospect of personal benefits. That means we want to help them to know what is
involved in each decision and see why it is worthwhile and so to decide that they
want it.
3. We also do this as a way of getting their agreement to let us give them formation.
When they say yes, they authorize us to help them the way we are proposing.
4. We do this because we need people to come regularly so that we can work with
them. Making definite commitments to do so contributes to people coming regu-
larly (although it does not guarantee it).
5. Finally we do this as a way of helping them to resolve to approach the new stage
in a good way. If they have to consider it seriously and then clearly state that this
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is what they are going to do, they will be more likely to approach it in a coopera-
tive spirit.
The main two commitments we want people to make in the process of formation and
initiations is the initial commitment and the underway commitment, temporary commit-
ment to committed Christian life. By the end of the whole process, we want people to
make a firm commitment to the covenant that they will live lifelong, or at least long-term.
That means that the full covenant commitment (the public commitment) should be clearly
understood and freely chosen.
Before new people make the public commitment, we want them to learn how to make
commitments well and keep them. We therefore have to work with them so they can, and
one of the main ways we do that is by helping them make the initial and underway com-
mitments well and keep them. These two commitments, therefore, should be done volun-
tarily on the basis of understanding what is involved and with good preparation. In other
words, these commitments should done much the same way we want people to make the
public commitment, although we can be freer about letting them make the commitments
if we and they are not sure whether they are ready, since either side can end the commit-
ment at any time.
Special Issue: Upholding Requirements

We have to deal with two special problems in getting people through formation: 1)
the hostility caused by any sort of perceived personal rejection or exclusion that is com-
mon among modern people 2) the desire among younger people, especially young people
who have been raised in the community, for an inclusive peer group.
We should try not to let those going through formation become an “elite group”. The
formation process should be a program that people can volunteer for. That does not mean
that we will take everyone who volunteers, but we should tell them that they can volun-
teer when they are ready.
Even though we have designed the formation process in terms of a continuous pro-
cess, we should let people begin when they are ready, drop out and return. We should
avoid creating the impression that all the participants have to go through formation in the
sequence of their years in the university.
The criteria for continuance are not very difficult. We are only expecting people to be
regular in attendance at certain activities and to talk certain things over with their pastoral
leader (both telling them what they are planning to do and reporting on how it went). We
are not requiring that they actually do what is said, although we recognize that consistent-
ly not doing it is an indicator that they should not continue in formation. We can, in other
words, be patient with those who are having difficulty doing well, but not with those who
are not interested in receiving formation. If we let those continue, we are undermining the
process of formation both for them and for others in the group.
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We cannot let people go through the process of formation without making any pro-
gress. We should not accept people who are not ready, and we should have people drop
out if they are not making process. The approach to maintaining the process should be:
You will not benefit from this unless you do what is involved. You ought to wait until
you are ready.
Key Principle: Indicators of Receiving Formation
Key Principle: Indicators of Receiving Formation
We need to have indicators that will tell us if someone

is receiving the formation we are giving.
Unless we can make use of some indicators that tell us if those in formation want to
receive formation and are receiving it, there will be little or no progress in formation. The
following are some helpful principles:
1. One indicator comes when we give those in formation an instruction that we ex-
pect them to do when what we are asking is practical enough that we can tell if
they are doing it, for instance, starting to take a daily prayer time.
– Such an indicator needs to concern something that is important to the life we
are living, something involved in the elements of good membership. While
getting people to do things of lesser importance may be useful for helping
them respond well to training, such things should not be criteria for moving
on.
2. Formation will often involve some confrontation and even conflict. The pastoral
leader doing formation will at times need to insist on some things to get change.
Formation is probably not effective without some “confrontation”. Whether there
is conflict or not depends on the submissiveness and personality of those being
formed and the skill of those doing the formation. This is one of the places where
the approach of men and women working in formation will differ somewhat.
3. An indicator is not being used as a criterion of discernment if someone can simply
fail to make the change and still go on in formation without ever improving.
4. We cannot come up with indicators of everything we want to give people for for-
mation. We want to give general growth in all the areas of our way of life, but
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much of this cannot be made concrete enough that we can tell if they are doing it
or not (e.g., are they more humble, zealous, etc.).
Most people will have problem areas related to their personality or character. We
have some minimum standards that they cannot fall below regularly, but we have to live
with some set of deficiencies in all our members. The Elements of Good Membership as
described in the Statement of Community Order and presented in the course Our Way of
Life gives us an orientation to what is allowable.
Pastoral workers do not themselves give all the formation, especially not the teaching.
They are usually not even the supervisors of the formation process. The initiations team
leader is. But they are the ones who need to work with the new people to help them move
forward, and they therefore need to see that they are making progress. They consequently
need to make use of indicators. If the new people are not making progress, the pastoral
worker, with the initiations team leader, needs to figure out what do about the situation.
One of the greater challenges to pastoral work in modern society is the ability for pas-
toral workers to be in the situation where they know with some confidence how someone
is doing. An advantage of working with young singles is that we can have young single
pastoral workers who can live with or spend informal time with those they are working
with. If we are not in that situation, we can get feedback from the ones we work with who
are. Sometimes, of course, we do not have all the resources we ideally could use, and in
that case we have to rely on having those we work with report to us and on getting as
much informal contact with them as we can manage.
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Instruction in the Formation Process

The importance of teaching
As we can see from considering what scripture says, “teaching” provides an irre-
placeable element in the formation process. As the Apostle Paul said,
To them [the saints] God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the
riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Him we pro-
claim, warning [admonishing] every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we
may present every man mature in Christ. (Col 1:27–28)
We proclaim Christ, but we have to do more than just proclaim him. We have to see that
everyone is instructed so that they might grow to maturity and be pleasing to the Lord. It
is not enough to proclaim the truth. It is not enough to stir the emotions and desires. It is
not enough to provide spiritual experiences that change people. We also have to provide
understanding of how to live so that new people can respond well to the Lord.
Christian teaching is not just passing on information. Nor it is just giving theoretical
understanding. Both those things can be important elements, but there is more to Chris-
tian teaching. It should first of all bring people to hear the word of the Lord. As it says in
First Timothy,
All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction,
and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for
every good work. (2 Tim 3:16–7)
In order for people to become complete and equipped, they need to hear the word of God,
because when they do God himself instructs us directly. But they do not just need to have
the scripture memorized or repeat scriptural information on a test. They need to be able to
understand what it says and actually do it.
When people receive teaching based on the word of God, it should impart spiritual
wisdom and understanding. As it is said in Colossians,
And so, from the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you
may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, to
lead a life worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and
increasing in the knowledge of God. (Col 1:9–10)
The Lord does not just provide instruction about the basic truths of reality and how to live
on that basis. He also provides spiritual light so those who believe in him and have re-
ceived the Holy Spirit can “see” the truth and the value of these things with spiritual eyes.
Paul puts this in a different way in Ephesians, where he says that we need to have a
renewed mind.
Now this I affirm and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do,
in the futility of their minds; they are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the
life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart; they
124
have become callous and have given themselves up to licentiousness, greedy to practice
every kind of uncleanness. You did not so learn Christ! — assuming that you have heard
about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus. Put off your old nature which
belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful lusts, and be re-
newed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new nature, created after the likeness of
God in true righteousness and holiness. (Eph 4:17–24)
A renewed mind is one that works in a spiritual way, and if we do not have it, we will not
be able to live lives of true righteousness and holiness.
As we saw when we were considering formation, we are concerned with two kinds of
teaching. The first is practical teaching. Practical teaching instructs people in how to live
the Christian life. For many Christians living the Christian life is something vague, often
a matter of sentiment. Or sometimes it is a matter of personal piety, having some kind of
devotion to the Lord. But we live life day in and day out, and we are not true disciples if
we do not handle daily life situations in the way the Lord commanded us. To be able to
do that, we need practical instruction, how-to-do-it instruction that shows us how to deal
with the circumstances of contemporary life. That is the heart of the formation process.
At the same time, practical teaching is not enough. We also need to have a vision of
Christian truth, the realities by which we live our life: God the Father, Son and Holy Spir-
it, the death, resurrection and second coming of Christ, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit,
the new life we are given in Christ. We also need to have a vision of what kind of people
we are supposed to be, what it is to be a Christian, a disciple, and why that is worthwhile.
We need to have an understanding of God’s plan and how we fit into it. Such understand-
ings allow us to live our daily life with purpose and to choose to live as disciples. Much
of this understanding comes to us outside the formation process: in community gather-
ings, conferences, retreats, etc. But some of the formation process is especially designed
to give that vision.
Teaching as formative input
Our goal is formation. We considered formation in the previous section. We are here
considering only the kind of teaching that results in Christian formation.
Ways people have their minds formed. As we said in the previous section, to under-
stand the specific contribution of teaching, we need to keep in mind that people in our
formation and initiations process reach the goal of formation by several means:
• by “absorption” through participation in a group living our way of life
• by receiving teaching (and “preaching”) that gives both vision and understanding
and that gives practical wisdom about how to live the Christian life
• by receiving formative input.
We do a significant amount of teaching during our community life. People attend
courses, listen to talks at gatherings, retreats, and conferences, and read or listen to in-
structive books, videos or audio recordings. If it is good teaching, all of that is helpful
and provides a certain amount of formation.
125
In this section, however, we are not looking at teaching in our community life in gen-
eral. We are specifically looking at teaching in our process of formation and initiations. If
we connect people to a formative environment, if we see that they get teaching (courses)
that gives vision and basic understanding, if we give them practical teaching with how-to-
do-it discussions, we have done a great deal to provide formation. But we will increase
the effect considerably if we also see that the teaching is received as formative input, and
that has to do with how we work with it.
How teaching becomes formative input. First of all, teaching becomes formative input
when it is given as part of a process of formation. That means that we have brought those
we are working with to the point where they enter the formation process well. If they do,
they understand that they will be receiving formation and agree to accept it as formation.
It also means that our formation process involves the key elements of formation de-
scribed in the previous section. But finally, the teaching itself needs to be supportive of a
formative process.
Earlier we saw that we work by stages in the formation process. That means that we
also have to give in each stage the teaching that is appropriate to that stage, that supports
people in the Christian growth they should get in that stage. Sometimes people try to
form new Christians by giving them courses in the scriptures or doctrine (theology).
Those can be valuable and they provide important help, especially for those who have
never had such input. However, they cannot substitute for teaching that is directed to the
stage of formation they are in and that helps them to make the progress we are aiming at
for that stage.
When we looked at the way we give formation, we saw that we need to “tell people
the goal, what is involved in achieving the goal effectively, and what steps they need to
take so they can reach it.” That can be done in a variety of ways, including individual in-
put or group exhortation. Much of it, though, should be built into the instruction we are
giving. We should explain what we are aiming at and why the instruction we are giving is
helpful for reaching that goal.
Our teaching should provide encouragement and vision. That helps the people we are
working with to have the motivation to receive the teaching we are giving. But in the
formation process, most of it should be practical instruction. We do need to explain to
people how to live in a new way, how to handle the challenging circumstances they face,
especially those presented by modern life, and why what we are telling them is important.
The importance of working with the courses in a formative process

Talks become more effective when they are worked with. Giving talks by itself is one
of the least effective means of formation. However, in a process that is put together well,
it is an irreplaceable element and can be very effective.
Some of what makes talks effective is the way they are given. Some of what makes
talks and courses effective is the dynamics of the sessions in which the courses are given.
126
Some of what makes talks and courses effective is how the pastoral workers work with
the courses during the process of formation. That is the subject here.
What the pastoral worker does. Initiations workers need to work with the material in
the courses. Sometimes they do that by working as discussion group leaders in the cours-
es. More importantly, they work with it in the formation groups they lead. They also
work with it in their individual pastoral care meetings.
In order for pastoral workers to work with the material effectively, they need to un-
derstand (1) the purpose of the community courses, (2) where the various courses fit into
the formation process, (3) which courses their people are taking (4) what they should do
with the material once their people have heard it. In the next section we will discuss the
community courses, courses that should be taken in the process of formation and given as
formative input.
As we already indicated (p. 109), it is easier to reinforce the course content with a
formation group when the members of the group are all in the same year of formation. It
is, however, very often not possible to set up the groups that way. Usually, in fact, it is
not the best way. The pastoral workers therefore need to keep in mind the various courses
their group members are taking and try to see that they all get discussed. Fortunately it
helps people to discuss again material they have already covered, and often the “veter-
ans” can be helpful to those who are going through it for the first time.
The principle of instruction before pastoral input. There is a very important principle
at work here: we should not normally give pastoral input without first giving instruction
that covers the matter. If someone needs help in sharing personally in a men’s or wom-
en’s group, for example, we ought to see that they hear an explanation of what it means
and why do it before talking to them about the fact they do not share very well.
As pastoral workers, we therefore should be clear on what teaching those we are
working with have had (not just the topic, but also the content), and we normally should
know when a topic is coming up, so we can wait for it in order to speak to the people we
are responsible for about that matter. The means to doing this is familiarity with the
courses.
If we have to deal with something before new people have received teaching on it, we
probably should try to give them a “mini-teaching” (usually in the course of conversation
or discussion). For that reason we ought to be familiar enough with the content of the
courses that we can pass the substance on if need be.
127
The Community Formation and Initiations Courses
The files “2.000 Overview of the Courses 2012” and “2.000.01 Overview of the
Courses Singles” contain two sections. The first section is entitled “Overview and Se-
quencing”. This is a description that covers the courses in the formation and initiations
process and the way they go together. It is followed by a listing of all the community
courses for the formation and initiations process. The first section is reproduced below
(for ready reference). The pastoral workers should be familiar with the overview and se-
quencing. They can use the file on the overview for a full listing of the courses and talks.
Overview and Sequencing

The courses are designed to follow an order, although the order is somewhat flexible.
Many courses build on other courses, and so should be given after the course they pre-
suppose. Also, people are in the initiations process over a period of 4 to 5 years. Some
material is important in the earlier stages of that process, while other material is not help-
ful until near the end. This section on sequencing gives an overview of the courses and
how they fit into the overall scheme.
Pre-Formation
Most new people are with us for a period of time before they are ready to begin for-
mation. We speak of this as the evangelism stage, as distinguished from the formation
and initiations stage. Many of the people are being evangelized to a commitment to
Christ. Many have some level of commitment to Christ but are being won to enter the
formation process so that they can come to complete conversion and mature Christian
living.
We have two courses that contain the required material for this stage. They do not
have to be given as courses. Some of the material may be given, for instance, in evange-
listic gatherings or in conferences. This material, however, should be given to all new
people before they enter formation, because it contains the basic orientation to our spirit-
uality – a charismatic, discipleship, communitarian spirituality. The following are the
courses:
Life in the Spirit Seminars: This is our beginning course that presents conversion to
Christ and the charismatic aspect of the Christian life. It leads to a personal com-
mitment to Christ and being baptized in the Spirit. Its companion booklet for par-
ticipants, Finding New Life in the Spirit, should be considered an important ingre-
dient in the course. Available at www.sos-nar.com/tabor.htm
128
Life in Christ: This contains part of what formerly was in Foundations Course 1. It
should be given before the formation process begins and should be approached as
an evangelistic course.
We have in addition two courses that are recommended: Christian Sexuality Seminar and
Two Kingdoms.
129
Chart: Sequence of Community Courses
Pre-Formation Courses
Life in the Spirit Seminar
Life in Christ
[Others]
Formation Courses
Personal Relationship Discipleship and Communi- Stages and States of Life
Courses ty Series Series
INITIAL COMMITMENT
Foundations Course 1
Christian Personal Relation- FC2 Community and Fami-

ships → ly
FC2 Couples /
↕ ↕ FC2 Single People
Emotions
in the Christian Life ↓ ↓
Fruit of the Spirit
UNDERWAY COMMITMENT
FC3 Our Call
←
↕ ↕↕ ↕ FC3 Church and Ecumen-
10
ical Relations
FC3 Our Way of Life
FC4 Living in Christian

Community
FULL COVENANT / PUBLIC COMMITMENT
10
. Formerly called FC3 Vision for Christian Community
130
Formation (Initiations)
When people are ready to receive formation in Christian discipleship – a discipleship
to be expressed in daily Christian living – they may enter the formation process. During
this time, they will receive three series of courses in a four- to five-year period: The Dis-
cipleship and Community Series, the Stages and States of Life Series, and the Personal
Relationship Courses. In addition, they will receive a course in Christian Doctrine, alt-
hough this may be given before they begin formation or after they complete it, or at any
time during it.
The Discipleship and Community Series
The Discipleship and Community Series – Foundations Courses 1, 2, 3, and 4 is in-

tended to be the master sequence or core curriculum for the formation process. Each year
that someone is in process towards joining the community, they should normally be tak-
ing one of these courses. Each course contains some of the content they need for living a
Christian life with a discipleship commitment and for being involved in Christian com-
munity. Each course will also instruct people about the sequence of courses of the for-
mation process and the internal orientation needed to make the best use of the material.
The four courses build on one another, each adding another piece to the foundation of
Christian discipleship in a person’s life. The courses are as follows:
Foundations Course 1 – Christian Maturity: This is the course for the first year of
formation. It treats important elements that allow people to live as disciples in the
modern world. It has four units.
1. Talks 1-3, the Entering Formation Seminar: This unit helps people move into
the formation process well and shows them how to make best use of it.
2. Talks 4-6, Dealing with Obstacles: This material treats the main obstacles to
the life of discipleship and leads toward prayer for healing and deliverance at
the end of the unit.
3. Talks 7-9, Christian Community: This unit presents the importance of Chris-
tian community and the basics of a communitarian approach to Christianity.
4. Talks 10-12, Faithfulness and Order: This material treats personal order and
personal priorities for those who are in earnest about living the Christian life.
For Foundations Course 2, see the Stages and States of Life Series.
Foundations Course 3 – Sword of the Spirit Community: This series of three courses
treats the life of our community and membership in it.
1. Foundations Course 3, Our Call: This course treats our call as a community
of communities – the call to be communities of disciples on mission.
131
2. Foundations Course 3, Church and Ecumenical Relations:11 This course treats

the nature of covenant community and how it relates to the churches.
3. Foundations Course 3, Our Way of Life: This course covers the “Elements of
Good Membership,” the membership requirements for being in our communi-
ties.
Foundations 3 also contains an optional course:
 Foundations Course 3, Completing Formation, which would come after
Foundations 3, Our Way of Life.
Foundations Course 4, Living in Christian Community: This course is our “good citi-
zenship” course, describing how to participate as a covenant member in our cor-
porate community life.
The Stages and States of Life Series
One of the most important areas of Christians’ lives is their getting established well in
their state of life (living a married life or a single life). We should also take a disciple’s
approach to our lives as we go through the various stages of life (childhood, adolescence,
adulthood, senior life). For people coming into the community, we need to provide in-
struction in Christian sexuality, marriage and family life, and choice of a state of life. The
instruction needed varies according to the state of life (single or married) of those who
enter and their current stage of life (childhood, adolescence, adulthood, senior life).
The courses for single people in this sequence are part of the Discipleship and Com-
munity Series and are essential for bringing the single people who are in the formation
process to full-life discipleship and community membership. The track for married cou-
ples (not included in the listing of courses with talks, below) has the same two goals for
its married participants. Single people, once they get married, will also be required to
take the Course for Married Couples, but for many this will be after they make the public
commitment. The Discipleship and Community Series continues with Foundations
Courses 3 and 4. There are further courses in The Stages and States of Life Series, but
they are not part of the initiations process.
Foundations 2 is divided into two tracks – one for married people and one for single
people. Some of it is also divided into tracks for men and for women. Members of the
community will need more instruction as they go on, but Foundations 2 provides the ba-
sics. The following are the tracks for Foundations 2. They need to be taken in sequence.
For All
Foundations 2, Community and Family: This is an introductory course giving our
vision for and approach to this area as a whole. Everyone coming into the
community, married or single, young or old, will begin Foundations 2 with
this course.
11
. Formerly called Foundations Course 3, Vision for Christian Community
132
The Married Couples’ Track (not included in the listing of courses with talks, below)
1. Foundations Course 2 for Married Couples: This course follows on from
Foundations 2 Community and Family. It treats the relationship between hus-
band and wife.
2. Foundations Course 2, Christian Parenting: This course treats the way par-
ents raise children.
3a. Foundations Course 2 for Married Men: This course covers how men live in
regard to sex and family.
3b. Foundations Course 2 for Married Women: This course covers how women
live in regard to sex and family.
The Single People’s Track
1. Foundations Course 2, Entering Your State of Life: This course follows on
from Foundations 2, Community and Family. It is given to all the young sin-
gle people together. The goal is to give the men and women together a com-
mon understanding of how the process of entering a state of life should work.
Care should be taken to direct older single people to the courses in Founda-
tions 2 that best suit their needs at this time in their lives.
2a. Foundations Course 2 for Single Men: This course covers how single men
live in regard to sex and personal relationships.
2b. Foundations Course 2 for Single Women: This course covers how single
women live in regard to sex and personal relationships.
Personal Relationship Courses
The heart of Christian community is the way we relate to one another. The Personal
Relationship Courses teach us how to treat one another well and how to become the kind
of people who can relate well – that is, how to be people of good Christian character. The
following courses do not have to be given in the following order, but this order is rec-
ommended. The courses can be given at any point in the initiations process, but it is help-
ful for people to hear them presented as early as possible.
Christian Personal Relationships: This course covers basic truths about how we
should relate to one another in daily life.
Emotions in the Christian Life: This course treats how we should relate to our emo-
tions in order to handle our personal relationships in a good way.
Fruit of the Spirit: This course treats the basic character traits that allow us to handle
the various situations in our lives in a good way.
Christian Doctrine Courses
The Christian Doctrine courses lay an important foundation for Christian living. They
are different in character from the other courses, because they do not need to be given in
a process in conjunction with formative pastoral care, but they do present essential under-
133
standing for being a Christian. They can be given before, during, or after the main for-
mation courses, but they need to be completed before full covenant / public commitment.
Two of the courses need to be given in order:
First, Christian Doctrine: This course presents the basics of Christian belief (the
creed), Christian morality (the commandments), and Christian worship.
Then, Doctrine and Ecumenism: This course presents not only the most important
differences among orthodox Christians, but also the convergent approaches to un-
derstanding those differences.
134
3. Special: Guide for Pas-

toral Workers With Young
Singles
135
Introduction to Part Three
This is the third part of the Leaders Manual. The first part provides an overview of all
our leaders formation. The second part describes the formation process and the principles
behind it. It provides an overview of what we do in formation and why we do it. This part
is a guide for the pastoral workers who work with young singles. It is designed to help
them know what to do with those they are working with.
We deal with many different circumstances in the formation process in our communi-
ties. A larger community with a number of people coming through the formation process
is very different from a smaller community with only a trickle. We cannot at this point
give an orientation tailored to every situation.
In what we follows, we are going to presuppose that you have a “regulation model”
formation and initiations process. We are going to presuppose that you have a two-stage
process, the first stage being formation in Christian maturity, the second stage being for-
mation in community life. We are going to presuppose that the courses are given regular-
ly and in the standard sequence. We are going to presuppose that you take in a number of
young singles each year and that you have several formation groups, each led by a pasto-
ral worker in initiations.
We are not going to presuppose that the formation process is given as a community
formation process, nor are we going to presuppose that part of it is given in the outreach
and part in the community context. We have some communities that work with a for-
mation program set up the first way, some with a formation program set up the second
way. The basics of what pastoral workers in formation and initiations need to do in both
situations is the same.
The material in this part of the manual does not contain requirements. Rather it is
wisdom on how to work in an effective way. The more of it we can put into practice, the
more effective we will be. Not all those who use this manual will have a “regulation
model” formation and initiations process. Those who do not will be able to put less of
this into practice than those who do. They will, however, be able to use much of it, and
the more they can use the better.
136
3.1 The Pastoral Worker

To the Pastoral Worker
From here on you will find a guide for how to more effectively do pastoral care of
those in formation. This is not a rulebook or a set of requirements. Think of it rather as a
compendium of pastoral wisdom. The more you can make use of the material here, the
more effective you will be.
Sometimes your circumstances will keep you from making use of what is here. Some-
times you will read something written here and will say to yourself, “I cannot do that. I
do not know how to make it work”, or “I do not have a personality that allows me to do
that” or “I cannot find the time to do that”. Hopefully your circumstances will change.
Hopefully you will grow as a pastoral worker and be able to do more. But in the mean-
time, read what is here and put as much into practice as you can. Then reread it later on
and put more into practice.
In between, remember that there is helpful material here, and if you do not know what
to do in some area, come back and read that section.
Let us encourage you, though, to work at becoming a better pastoral worker. You
have the chance to help new people to a better life. You may be the one who will be able
to give them some decisive help, decisive in their navigating their life in such a way that
they will be allowed to enter in when they die and stand before the “pearly gates”.
Do your best to learn, but also have patience with the process of learning. To do most
things well takes time.
The following material is primarily oriented to new pastoral workers, to help them to
learn how to care for young singles in the formation process. Many of those caring for
people going through the formations and initiations process have worked for several
years in formation. Often they are senior leaders (district heads, senior woman leaders) or
coordinators. If you are in this category and know the basics of your responsibility, you
will still probably find much of the material in here helpful for improving your pastoral
care of new people.
137
The Responsibility of the Pastoral Workers

in Initiations
Responsibilities
1. We lead the formation group meetings.
2. We meet with our brothers or sisters in one-on-one

sessions.
3. We see that they take the courses and help them apply
the material.
4. We see that they are well connected to the community

or the outreach as they move through the process.
5. We “keep an eye on them” in the formation process.
6. We meet with the formation team and with our su-

pervisor.
This is a basic list of the responsibilities of the pastoral worker in the formation pro-
cess. All pastoral workers working in formation should do these things. They may, how-
ever, have other responsibilities as well. They may be assigned to lead the music or to
handle the practical communications. But all pastoral workers working in formation have
a set of brothers or sisters that they work with during the process, and the above is a list
of the things they have to do regularly with all those brothers or sisters.
This is a good, but somewhat external list of the pastoral worker’s responsibilities. It
is not enough to just perform these activities. We need to do them with a pastoral process
orientation, with the goal and the sequencing in mind. Each of the above items needs to
be approached the right way.
1. We not only lead the formation group, but we also need to know what should
happen in the meetings as we go through the various stages of the formation pro-
cess (what we should be discussing and working on), and we need to see that it
138
happens. We also need to know enough about where our brothers and sisters are,
so that we can see that they share about the important things for them to share and
get input where they need it.
2. We not only meet with our brothers or sisters in one-on-one sessions, find out
how they are doing and handle the problems they bring up, but we also need to
know what steps they should be taking or getting ready to take and what they
need to do to be ready, and we need to work to get them there.
3. We not only need to see that they take the courses but we also need to help them
apply the material in the courses practically, both by working on the material in
formation groups but also by discussing personal application with them in one-on-
one sessions.
4. We not only see that they are well connected to the community or outreach as
they move through the process by seeing they attend gatherings and retreats and
have some service in the community, but we also need to take a concern for their
informal connections, especially by watching their relationships and see that they
are getting knitted in well.
5. We not only keep an eye on our brothers or sisters, but we do so in order to un-
derstand how to help them move forward.
6. We not only attend meetings with the formation team but we report on how our
brothers or sisters are doing, so that the team leader is in good contact with all
those going through the process so he or she can make it more effective with this
group of new people, but also so that we can get input in how to improve our
work.
We need to help our brothers or sisters to move forward, following the normal pro-
cess that everyone else follows. We, however, are the ones who take a concern that the
process as a whole meets their individual needs, especially when they need something
different than the normal help the process gives. We may need to get them special addi-
tional help. We may need to get the formation team head to make exceptions for some of
the standard requirements as we work towards changes in their circumstances (job, etc.).
We may need to tell them to wait before moving forward, because they are not yet ready
for what they are getting or will get. We are their advocate and responsible for working to
tailor the process to them.
As pastoral workers, we are not directly responsible for how the courses or how the
larger community or outreach chapter works (though we can give input). We are, howev-
er, responsible for how our brothers or our sisters make a good connection with these
events. Moreover, we are directly responsible for how the formation group meetings and
the one-on-one sessions work. We also have a joint responsibility with the senior pastoral
leader we work under for the formation program commitment our brothers or our sisters
make and for decisions on any exceptions or on suggesting to them that they drop out.
In short, although we work under a supervisor we have the primary responsibility for
how our brothers or sisters move along in the process. We have two main tools that we
can directly use, the formation group meeting and the one-on-one session. We also have
available outside resources that we work to get the new brothers or sisters to make use of
(primarily the courses and ordinary community or outreach life).
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We are, of course, not the main actors in all this. God is, and the brother or sister go-
ing through the process is. Both of them have more power over what happens than we do
and both of them get to make the key decisions. Sometimes it seems that all we can do is
“coax, wheedle and cajole”, as the saying goes. On the other hand, insofar as the for-
mation process is a pastoral process, we are the ones who get it to happen (along with the
initiations team head and/or our supervisor).
We cannot “make” someone go through to successful completion, but we can “make”
the formation process happen (at least as long as there are people to go through it). We
therefore need to take an active, responsible orientation; otherwise we will not make the
contribution that we uniquely can make (and no one else will likely make) to see that our
brothers or sisters are doing well. We can be, to use the words of Paul, “servants through
whom you [became Christians]” (1 Cor. 3:5).
There is a “Quick Reference Guide” for the Pastoral Worker in Formation. It contains
the material in bold in this section. We recommend that you make use of it, probably by
printing it out and referring to it, as you are learning to perform your service. It will help
you to avoid missing important pieces of what you should do. You will find it on the
Leaders Formation Material website in the page on Pastoral Approach Courses.
The material in this section covers the content of the Basic Skills 1 course.
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Formation Meetings: Formats
The Formation Group
The Formation Group
1. A time of prayer and worship
2. A time for personal sharing

– Including sharing on the formation courses when ap-
propriate
3. A time for input from the pastoral worker leading

the group
4. A time for handling practical concerns
5. Informal time afterwards
The formation group meeting. We are here going to presuppose that you have a
“regulation model” men’s or women’s group to lead. In other words, all the members of
the group are in the same stage of the formation process and have made the same com-
mitments. By “the same stage of the formation process”, we mean that they are all either
in the first part of the formation process or the second (underway) stage. If you are fortu-
nate, they are in the same year of the process, although it is more important to have the
right people together than to have people in the same year of formation together. For in-
stance, it is better to put together people with the potential for taking leadership but who
are in the different years than to put together all second year people. At the end of this
section, we will discuss how to approach formation if you cannot put together “regulation
model” groups.
The men’s and women’s groups are basic elements in our community life. They are
not just for the formation process. That means that during the formation process we hope
to form people in a practice that they will continue for the rest of their life. On the other
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hand, you will be leading a formation group, so you should be aware of the ways it
should be different than men’s and women’s groups for covenant members:
– The formation group is focused on formation, on learning to live a way of life.
Therefore there is a set of discussions that you will move through, and those in the
group should be sharing on how they are trying to live what they have learned in
the courses they are taking.
– You have experience with community life and know how the group should work
and the formation process should work. You therefore have to lead them through
it, not just be a moderator or facilitator.
– You have a responsibility to provide some formation and you therefore take a
more authoritative role in the group than you would if you were leading a group
of covenant members.
At the same time:
– There should be general sharing on how people are doing and the challenges they
are facing in life. It is not just a formation course discussion group.
– There should be a fraternal dynamic in it with people helping one another, not just
relying on you to help everyone with everything.
These are two of the features that we would especially like people to carry over from the
formation group to other men’s or women’s groups they will be part of.
The meetings should be two hours long at a minimum and should meet at a minimum
every two weeks. That is the bare minimum. We recommend more.
You are the one responsible to lead the meeting. Moreover, as the community pasto-
ral worker in the formation process, you are the “resident expert” (you may not know that
much yet, but hopefully you know more than they do). So preside firmly and be some-
what directive. You may, if you think it would be beneficial, have group members lead
some parts of the meeting, but almost never let them lead the sharing because that is
where you give formative input. You may at times take their suggestions as to what to do.
However the meeting is for a purpose, and you are the one who knows the purpose and
has the responsibility to get the group to accomplish it.
In general, you should call on people to share (and not just go around in a circle).
That will allow you to take a concern for who gets to share each week and for how long.
Especially when the group first begins to meet, you can instruct them how to partici-
pate and share and you can do so right during the meeting.
What should take place

1. A time of prayer and worship
This does not have to be lengthy but it could be if there is time.
You are looking for active worship, but you may need to stir it up when the group
first begins to meet or from time to time afterwards.
You may look at how they are praying (as they may look at you). It is not irreverent
to do that, although we all mainly should “have our eyes on the Lord”. You should, in
fact, sometimes look at how they are praying so that you will know if they need instruc-
tion or personal input for participating in group prayer.
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2. A time for personal sharing

This is the key part of the meeting. It is discussed below.
3. A time for input from the pastoral worker leading the group
You could give a short talk, probably an exhortation or admonition or general encour-
agement. You might feel the need to give some significant instruction, although you
probably should not normally do that if the courses are being given well.
You might use this time to keep them oriented to the formation process.
4. A time for handling practical concerns

Dates, events, announcements (e.g., reminders of upcoming community events)
If possible, make sure they know the time and place of the next meeting if there is an-
ything that will change.
5. Informal time afterwards

This can be one of the more important parts of the meeting, even though it is not offi-
cially part of the meeting.
If you want them to stay around, encourage it and do some things that facilitate it
(food, drink, etc.).
We can also (and ideally should also) do other things besides the meeting: have social
events together, work on a service project together, travel to the retreat together, etc. We
are here only concerned with the group meeting itself.
Normally you will have all you can do to get the essentials in. However, depending
on how the formation process goes, you may have some slack time. If this is the case,
having special discussions or sharings might be helpful.
The sharing. The kind of sharing we are most interested in is personal sharing, not in-
tellectual discussions on Christian teaching or “edifying sharing”, much less discussions
on current events, even if they have some Christian relevance (although from time to time
it is OK to allow such things if they serve a useful purpose). The heart of the group meet-
ing is helping one another with our personal lives, and for that to happen we need to share
personally.
Personal sharing is best when concrete. An example of a vague sharing is: I am hav-
ing a relationship problem with x (father, mother, roommate). An example of a concrete
sharing is: I regularly get into fights with x about y (with my roommate about how quiet
the room needs to be at night).
Personal sharing does not have to be feeling-oriented. It may be, depending on the
person and on what is being shared. It does, however, have to give everyone an idea of
what happened. Women’s sharings are more likely to be feeling-oriented than men’s. It is
fine for the women to speak more about how they felt and for men to speak less. Our
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sharing, however, is personal when it is about our personal lives, not only when we say
how we feel about what happened.
If you just have the bare minimum of meeting time, you will be lucky to accomplish
the most important sharings. If you meet more regularly or longer, you can allow the
sharing or discussion to be freer at times. Such interactions can be valuable in a variety of
ways.
You want to encourage some sharing about how the participants are doing in general
in their life (not just in regard to the formation program or their Christian lives). That is
one of the main ways you find out how they are doing overall. It also puts them in contact
with one another and allows them to take a personal concern for one another.
Often someone will have a significant challenge come up or be in the middle of an
ongoing challenge. You need to make room for that, although you should not let it derail
the meeting as a whole if you can help it.
You mainly want them to share how they are putting into practice the things that are
being focused on in this stage of the formation process. It is ideal if they are all taking the
same course and you can ask how they are appropriating that. Even if they are, from time
to time you should come back to the broader picture of overall progress they are making
in the life of discipleship.
Depending on the number of people in the group, you may not be able to have them
all share every time. If so, next time try to pick up the ones you missed.
You will undoubtedly have to deal with very reticent types and very “chatty” types.
We will give you help with this later on, but if someone is a major problem in your new
group, talk to your formation team leader about it.
The characteristics of a good group. Equally as important as the meeting is the group
itself and the way they learn to relate to you and one another. Much of that is brought
about by what happens in the meeting and by how you lead it. The chief characteristics of
a good formation group are:
• Brotherly/sisterly love
• Faithfulness to the meeting
• “Living in the Light”
• Confidentiality
• Mutual accountability
These will be explained to the members of your group in the course on “Entering For-
mation”. It would be helpful for you to review what is said there.
Preparation. You will probably not lead a good meeting unless you prepare for it.
You should have a meeting plan by the time the meeting begins. You should likely have
one written out, even if you do not stick to it. Some people can come up with a plan on
the spot, but for almost all of us the quality suffers if we do not prepare, and new pastoral
workers need to give the meeting plan some thought ahead of time — usually more
thought than they assume they need.
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The One-On-One Session
The One-On-One Session
1. You find out “where they are at”

a. How they are doing with the formation process
Almost always ask:
– How the process is going for them and how they are con-
necting with the community
– How they are receiving the course material and what they
are doing with it.
Regularly ask:
– how the group is going for them
– how their service is going for them.
b. How their life is going in general
2. You give them your input as their pastoral worker

a. Tell them what they need to do next.
b. Find out why they did not do something.
c. Give them personal input: counsel, correction,
warning, instruction.
d. Encourage them.
The nature of the one-on-one meeting. You are the one responsible for two elements
of the formation process: the men’s or women’s group (the formation group) and the one-
on-one session. The primary piece you are responsible for is the formation group meet-
ing. That is where you can do the most to help the new brothers or sisters. It is also the
most regular and probably longest meeting.
In addition, the main place where the new people get instructional input is in the
courses and other meetings.
The one-on-one session, then, is a place for a certain kind of supplemental help: the
place where you help them adjust well to formation process, where you tailor it to their
needs.
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It can be the case for some people that the one-on-one session will be the main place
they grow. It usually is the case for them all that at times the one-on-one session is the
most crucial source of help for getting them through some difficulty or making some im-
portant decision or transition. However, resist the tendency to the make those things the
norm. Some of us will have that tendency because we have been exposed to methods of
counseling. In the community formation process, the individual care component is not the
main means we use and it is normally not a type of counseling.
The pastoral worker courses will help you later on use the one-on-one session for
community pastoral counseling when that is needed. At this time, however, you should
focus on the main purpose for it: helping the new people make connection well with the
formation process.
We expect you to meet with each brother or sister you are responsible for at least
once a month. This is intended as a minimum, but we understand that you are limited in
time. If you have more time available, we would recommend meeting more often. Young
singles are especially changeable, and if you are working with them, it helps to “keep up
with” what is going on with them. We recommend that you meet with them at least for an
hour.
We highly recommend doing other things with them in addition to the one-on-one
meetings, (e.g., go out for lunch, play a game, take a walk, visit their family). Do those
for relationship building. They are probably best if they are not done in a formal or func-
tional way. We will talk about relationship building later on. The one-on-one session,
however, has a function that it needs to accomplish. It should be done in a purposive way,
although it is normally best done in as relaxed and fraternal a manner as possible and
does make a contribution to relationship building. The normal format should almost nev-
er be omitted for informal relationship building time, although some informal relationship
building is helpfully added on.
What to do in the session. We have already treated the role of pastoral worker above.
Here, however, it is helpful to emphasize that you have an important role with new peo-
ple that no one else has. You are the one who keeps track of them and who connects them
to the formation process and the community leaders in a good way. You do that primarily
in the men’s or women’s group meeting, but the one-on-one session is the place you “in-
dividualize” the connection, and it usually is what allows you to individualize the process
for them.
1. You find out “where they are at”

Your primary goal is to make an assessment. You want to determine how they are re-
sponding to the formation process and see if there is a problem they need to be helped
with or if they could receive some help that would allow them to make better progress.
You also give them input during the session, but the primary purpose is to find out where
they are.
You do this mostly by asking and listening. This means that the participants are prob-
ably the ones who will talk the most in the meeting (if you are doing a good job).
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You should lead the session so it accomplishes its purpose, but you can allow them
some initiative, especially if they have something on their mind and want to talk about it.
You want to find out:
a. Where they are with the formation process; how they are receiving the materi-
al; how they are growing in Christian discipleship and community relation-
ship; what is proving a challenge to them; what they do not agree with or find
hard to accept
b. How their life is going in general, especially what things are affecting their
ability to make progress through the formation process (e.g., job pressure, re-
lationship difficulties, scheduling challenges)
You also want to find out what they are like. You want to know this, because the
more you understand about them and where they are “coming from”; the more you will
be able to help them. In addition, asking about how they are doing helps create a personal
bond between you and them, especially if they perceive that you are taking a personal
interest in them and/or asking so that you can serve them better.
You will find out a lot of these things in the men’s or women’s group meeting and in
informal conversation with them. However, the one-on-one session is the place where
you can ask in a way that allows you to make sure you have all the important infor-
mation. It is also the place where they will often tell you something that they would not
talk about in a group setting or in a casual setting. At the beginning or at any point, you
can explicitly ask them questions about themselves. This is not a regular part of the for-
mat, but you can feel free to do it as often as you think it would be helpful.
To find out where they are in the formation process, there should be a set of questions
that you ask:
Almost always ask:
– How the process is going for them and how they are connecting with the
community
– How they are receiving the course material and what they are doing with it.
Regularly ask:
– How the group is going for them
– How their service is going for them.
Also, as you are going along, try to ascertain:
– How they are developing relationships with others in the community
– What might be coming up in their life that could derail them (a move, a heavy
course schedule) – the best way to do this is often just in casual or general
conversation about how their life is going, rather than asking them directly.
You also need to listen to them.
– Prov. 18:12:
If one gives answer before he hears,
it is his folly and shame.
– The prayer of St Francis:
Lord, make me not seek so much to be understood as to understand.
– Follow the practice of “echoing back” what they have said so that you can ascer-
tain if you have heard them.
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– Ask them questions about important things they said until you have confidence
you understand it.
b. You give them your input as their pastoral worker.

Tell them what they need to do next: attend a course, make a commitment, etc. Do
not rely on their hearing announcements and remembering them.
Unless it is a routine matter, give them some explanation of the reason why they are
expected to do what you are asking; e.g., this is where you learn how to do x.
Try to ascertain if they have understood you, especially if it is at all complicated.
Find out why they did not do something, especially something they were committed
to doing. If they failed to keep a commitment do not be disapproving in manner, but be
helpful or instructional; e.g., remind them that they had the commitment or explain the
importance of it.
Give them personal input: counsel, correction, warning, or instruction. This is usually
done better as a response to something they have said, but sometimes we have to bring a
matter up. This can often be done in the group meeting, but there are some things that go
better in the one-on-one session and some things that should never be brought up in the
group session (although often they can or should be responded to if brought up).
If you can help them with a need or a problem, do so. If you cannot, get them help. If
you do not know what to do, ask your initiations team head.
We will treat giving them individual input more fully further on.
Encourage them. They almost always need it.
Some helpful orientations. You want to develop a good relationship with those you
are working with. That takes some time. If all goes well, you can do more with them later
on in the relationship than you can at first.
You will be tempted to meet with the cooperative or the ones whose personalities you
like and avoid the others (or meet with them less). Resist the temptation. You do not have
to “click with” people to be a big help to them.
Just meeting with the new people is important. You are the personal representative of
the community, taking a concern for them. If you do nothing else but listen to them, you
will have made a contribution.
You need to do two simple things in the one-on-one session: find out where they are
at with the formation process and tell them things they need to know to go through it.
You can do quite a bit more, but if you just do these two things adequately, you have
done the essentials.
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Formation Team Meetings
What to Report On
1. The formation group meeting

• A general update
• Problems you are having getting it to work well
2. The brothers or sisters you are responsible for

• The progress they are making as you go
through the formation process
• The things they are having a hard time with or
resisting
• Notable changes (or upcoming changes) in their
lives: crises, challenges, problems, life transi-
tions for them or their families
3. Your work
• Results of initiatives you have taken, be they
successes or failures
• Your plans for leading the group
• Your plans for working with individuals
• Challenges you foresee
4. Things you do not know how to handle so you can

get advice
5. The areas in your personal life you should keep

your team leader current on
• Your use of time
• How your service is going
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The above items can be reported on in the formation team meeting or in the one-on-
one session with the formation team leader at the formation team leaders’ discretion.
Being a pastoral worker in a formation process involves an active working relation-

ship with the formation team leader. Together you are trying to figure out how to get the
process to work the best for those going through it, and often trying to figure out who is
the best person, your leader or yourself, to handle something with someone you are re-
sponsible for or how some situation or problem would be best handled. For that reason,
your work is less independent than it would be in most other kinds of service.
In addition, at this point your formation team leaders are training you to be a for-
mation worker. Part of that means that they will gradually entrust more to you as they
have confidence you know what to do, but they need the freedom to have you not do
something.
Working on the formation team. Formation is a team effort in the community. We

work together on the whole process. Men and women work separately when helping the
new people individually, but they work together on the group as a whole and the for-
mation process. There is a team leader who is responsible for the work as a whole.
The focus in the formation work is not primarily on the common activities but on the
individuals and how they are doing. That means that each new person has a pastoral
worker (you) and that pastoral workers work together with a formation team leader to
help the new people they are responsible for.
As you know, we expect you to go regularly to a formation team meeting, normally to
a men’s or women’s team meeting but also at times to a joint meeting of the whole for-
mation team. We expect you also to have a one-on-one meeting regularly with your su-
pervisor. In these meetings you will discuss how your service is going, both with the
formation group meeting you lead and with the individuals you are responsible for. You
will also discuss, mainly in the team meeting, how the process as a whole is going and
will be part of the planning for common events.
The leader of the formation team you are working on is your service leader. Your ser-
vice leaders not only direct your work, but they are actively involved with those you are
responsible for. They may handle some of the items on your responsibility sheet with
specific individuals (e.g., for various possible reasons, they may decide they would be the
best one to invite some of those you are responsible for to make a commitment). One of
the advantages of the team arrangement is that often someone else, especially someone
older than you, can get some things to happen that you might not be able to. That does
not mean you have not done a good job.
The call in all such matters belongs to your formation team leaders. You can, howev-
er, ask to have them handle something or ask to do it yourself even if they originally had
a different plan. You can also ask them to reconsider their decision later if some new fac-
tor comes to light.
Your formation team leader is also there to help you in your service. Because you are
a new pastoral worker, your formation team leader is like a coach. You will get instruc-
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tion from pastoral worker courses or this manual, but your formation team leaders are the
one who helps you put the material into practice effectively. Bring things to them.
From the community point of view, the coordinator responsible for the formation
process (who likely is your formation team leader) has the ultimate responsibility over
the brothers or sisters that you are caring for. As their personal pastoral leader, you have
the immediate responsibility to keep an eye on them, to keep current with them, and to
give them the help you can.
What to report on (in the team meeting or in your one-on-one meeting). The above
are things that you could talk about either in the service team meeting or in your one-on-
one meeting with your formation team leader. The more the item is common to the group
(like helping those you are responsible for to appropriate the material in the current
course), the more it is appropriate to bring up in the service team meeting). You can al-
ways ask where to handle it.
You are reporting for yourself, so you can get direction and help in your work. You
are, however, also reporting for your service team leaders so they can keep up on what is
happening and take a real responsibility for the process and the people in it. In the team
meeting you are also reporting to some extent for the others on the team so they can keep
up with what is happening.
While the formation team head determines what happens in the meeting and gives
much of the input, especially with new pastoral workers needing training, meeting with
others in a service team meeting allows us to:
– learn from one another’s experience
– learn from one another’s approach and good ideas
– support one another by giving input in the meeting and often by helping with
those someone else is responsible for (being careful not to interfere by giving di-
rections)
– assess together what is happening with the group of those going through the for-
mation process
– work in the formation process with a unified effort.
You need to be conscious of the need to report things to your service team leader.
You should prepare before the meetings so you do not forget important things. Review
the list of things to report on in “The Responsibility of the Pastoral Workers in Initia-
tions” (p. 138) and make a note of things you should not forget to mention either in the
team meeting or the one-on-one meeting or both.
You should discuss your personal life with your the formation team leaders — for the
most part mainly how your service affects your personal life — unless they are also your
personal pastoral leader, in which case you should discuss more than just your service.
You normally will not do this in the formation team meeting, but in your one-on-one
meeting with them.
You should feel free to give them your own personal evaluation of how you are doing
or to ask them for their input.
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How to share. A constant challenge is when to share about something and when not
to. To some degree we have this question because of time constraints. But we also have
the problem because of the sensitivity of the topic.
You need to protect the confidentiality of sensitive information that may have been
shared with you, but that does not usually mean you cannot share it at all.
Some things may not need to be shared in the service meeting but can be shared in
your one-on-one meeting with your supervisor.
Reporting works differently when we are dealing with new people and when we are
dealing with mature community members. For the latter, the information is more sensi-
tive and we need to take concern for their reputation in the community. We also need to
be concerned for the reputation of those who have grown up in the community whom we
might be responsible for.
For new people who have not grown up in the community, many things are not the
same kind of problem. For instance, many new people are open about being in sexual re-
lationships that are immoral from the point of view of Christian teaching, and few young-
er people nowadays feel very bad about discussing their past sexual sins and may be
somewhat proud of them. This is almost never the case with community members who
currently are involved in immoral sexual relationships.
You may need the permission of the brother or sister to share something.
If a major sin is involved and the situation is current, you do need to report it to your
service team leader. You often should tell the brother or sister concerned that you are go-
ing to do that.
We will treat the issue of confidentiality more fully later on.
If you do not know how to handle something, save the matter for the one-on-one
meeting with your supervisor and ask what to do about reporting it. You can begin with
raising the matter generally; e.g., how should I report to you if I find out that a brother
has been living with his girlfriend?
You may find yourself not reporting on things you think are important. You should
ask yourself what may be blocking you. You may not be sharing important things be-
cause you are (often subconsciously or semiconsciously):
– protecting or shielding those you are responsible for from your service team lead-
er (“the Authorities”)
– hiding their difficulties or problems, usually out of the desire to be a good brother
or sister (siblings often cover for one another)
– trying to look good as a pastoral worker and trying to appear to have a group in
which everything is going well
– reporting only what you believe your formation team leader would want to hear or
what would please him or her.
Do not withhold information about your group. You need to put your formation team
leaders in touch with it so they can also take responsibility. They are not trying to “catch
him” or “catch you”. They are trying to figure out how to help them, and if you do not
give them the needed information, you may be preventing the people you are responsible
for from getting help. Think of it as if you brought people to the emergency room of the
152
hospital but did not want to tell the doctor that the reason you brought them was that they
had taken an overdose of sleeping pills or heroin.
Some advice. View yourself as a learner. There is a lot to be learned. You need to be
eager to seek and to get help from your service team leader as well as to learn from your
co-workers. This is especially important, because we can make a significant difference in
people’s lives if we learn well. We even have the possibility to cause notable harm if we
do not learn what we need to. If it is important to apply ourselves in school or a training
course so we can make a living, it is even more important to learn how to do pastoral care
well.
Learn to develop a “pastoral eye”. By this we mean the ability to see things from a
pastoral perspective, to detect the particular matters in someone’s life that affect their life
or growth in the Lord and as a community member, matters that should be looked into or
places where help should be given.
As a community pastoral worker, you are not an independent agent, a spiritual entre-
preneur or a personal guru. You are a worker in a team that is itself part of a corporate
endeavor. We therefore need to understand how to take our part in a larger whole. We
also need to learn to pass on what the community promises it will pass on, not our own
opinions.
Having a team leader over your service is also your own protection against a number
of problems that can often be avoided:
– being the cause of disunity in pastoral care: being under supervision is a major
help in ensuring that we all follow and live by the same teachings and guidelines,
allowing all of us in the community to grow and stay united as one body
– falling prey to the deceit and the wiles of the enemy: often our supervisor may
spot that when we cannot
– being burdened unnecessarily: it allows you to keep the needs and concerns of
those you are responsible for in the right perspective; it gives you someone you
can fall back on for help
– pride: having someone over your service is a help in remembering that you are but
an instrument in the Lord’s service, not the Lord or guru of others.
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Application to Men and Women Pastoral

Workers
In our formation program, we have formation groups for men and formation groups
for women. We have pastoral workers for men and pastoral workers for women. We in
addition have some courses separated by men and women and regular events separated
(men’s and women’s nights, retreats, etc.). We do this because we have found that such
an approach is more effective, because the needs of men and women and they way they
respond are significantly different. At the same time we seek to maintain a common envi-
ronment in our formation program (as in our evangelistic work), so that men and women
relate together and serve together.
Men and women do pastoral work somewhat differently. This is rooted in their nature
as men and women, and we should respect that. The previous section has been written so
that it works well for men pastoral workers. Women leaders will make some adaptations
so that it also works well for women workers.
First of all, women go through the formation process best when they experience it as
personalized to them. They have more difficulty with it when it seems mainly structured
and objective. Because, in fact, a formation process is a personal matter, not just a matter
of mastering tasks, the personal relationship aspect is more significant, even for the men,
but it normally needs to take a still higher profile for the women — without making the
mistake of missing a structure that will allow the process to reach the goal for women as
for men.
There are two aspects of the process that need special attention for women. The first
is their relationship with the pastoral workers working with them. Those need to be
warm, affirming and encouraging. The more the participants in the formation process can
experience a positive relationship with those working with them, the better.
Women often need to be able to have more than one person working with them, espe-
cially in cases of conflict. Sometimes they can get help by going to the supervisor of the
pastoral worker leading their group. Sometimes they find that it works better when the
woman who is working with them individually is different from the leader of their for-
mation group. If they do not feel comfortable handling certain kinds of things with one of
them, they often will be able to do so with the other.
The balance of sharing works differently with men and women. Men can usually han-
dle sharing more in the formation group, especially sharing personal matters that involve
shame or regret, than women can. In fact, if there is camaraderie in the group and a sense
of being a team together, that can be a very congenial place for them to talk with one an-
other about difficulties. Women, however, tend to look to a one-on-one situation to share
such things. They do not expect those things to become “public” in the group setting.
Pastoral input for women, then, usually needs to be given more in the one-on-one session.
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The second aspect of the process that differs is the relationship with other women in
the formation process. It is more difficult to get a woman’s group to work well together
than to get a men’s group to work well. That usually indicates that the group has to be set
up by paying greater attention to how well the group members relate and by avoiding put-
ting those together who have personality conflicts. The group should be sisterly and sup-
portive.
There is a temptation at times to want to make the formation group be a mixed group.
This works better for the women than the men, although it is not ideal for women either.
Being in mixed groups is fatal for getting the men to share personally. Moreover, one of
the main functions of the formation group — to help the men relate in Christian brotherly
way with other men and to help the women relate in a Christian sisterly and supportive
way with other women — will become impossible. In addition, mixing the sexes in the
group will often introduce the problems of attractions between individuals that will make
the group work less well for many of the members, both men and women.
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3.2 Before Formation

Most young singles who come to us are not ready to take part in the formation pro-
gram in Christian maturity at the outset. Each of our outreaches, whether organized sepa-
rately or organized as part of a community, should therefore have a program which gives
new young singles input and evangelizes them to reach the kind of initial conversion
where they are ready to go on and receive formation in Christian maturity.
This document concerns the formation of young singles. It is therefore concerned
with stages 3 and 4 of the process of evangelism and formation. This section of the doc-
ument simply describes what we want to see happen for young singles previous to begin-
ning formation in stage 2 of the process. Strictly speaking, stage 2 is not one of the stages
of the formation process, although we should be giving young singles important for-
mation during it. It is sometimes referred to as pre-formation.
We get three kinds of young singles who come to us: those who have never been con-
nected to us but were evangelized by one of our outreaches, those who have been brought
up in one of our communities, and those who were evangelized by those who were
brought up in a community (usually before they begin tertiary school) and have some
kind of community connection. All of them normally need some time in the outreach be-
fore beginning formation, even if they have a real measure of personal conversion.
Most of those who have been brought up in a community should not enter formation
immediately upon graduation from secondary school. Their next step should be active
involvement in the local outreach chapter and regional youth program activities. This al-
lows them to adjust to their new circumstances in life, gives them somewhat more free-
dom to explore the world around them, and makes it clearer to them that they personally
need to make the step to enter the formation process and receive the formation that is giv-
en to them.
The involvement in the pre-formation program for those brought up in the community
should be active, if they are ready for it. They should quickly become part of a small
group (discipleship group) and have an outreach worker responsible for them who meets
with them with some regularity. They should see themselves as taking the normal next
step and acquiring the prerequisites for the formation program.
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Goals Before Formation
Goals Before Formation
1. Initial commitment to Christ
2. Pastoral criteria to begin formation

a. They do not live in serious sin.
They believe the essentials.
b. They are baptized in the Spirit.
c. They live as an active Christian (the wheel).
d. They are in some way committed to us
– With an initial acceptance of our spirituality
(including charismatic, communitarian)
3. Practical target: decision to enter formation
Each of the main sections of the manual from here on will begin with the goals to be
accomplished in each stage.
The overview of our pastoral formation process is given in the section “The Process:
The Key Principles” p. 98. If you have not already done so, you should read that section
before working on this one.
There is a reference section at the end of the manual with many of the materials used
in the formation process, including “Our Spirituality”.
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Key Principle: Readiness to Move On
Readiness to Move On
We move people on when they are ready to receive what

we will give them.
People need to be prepared to make the formation commitment and enter the for-
mation process. In this respect, our formation process is like most courses in school (at
least scientific or technical ones, although not necessarily those in the humanities nowa-
days). Someone without Latin 1 will find it a frustrating experience trying to take Latin 2.
You can “pass out of” something like Latin 1, but the person who allows you to do that, if
he or she is being responsible, should ascertain you actually have what you need to learn
Latin 2, or, as it is often put, that you have the prerequisites for Latin 2.
We therefore should not let people enter formation unless they are ready, otherwise
they will not be able to receive much of what will be given to them. This is a basic truth
that is often ignored and explains the ineffectiveness of many efforts at formation. An old
(humorous) line makes the point by saying, “Don’t try to teach a pig to sing. All you will
do is annoy the pig — and waste your time.” We can make the same point in a different
way by saying, “Don’t try to teach a new-born baby to talk or walk. Wait until the baby is
old enough.” In other words, wait until babies have developed enough that they can actu-
ally do what you are trying to get them to do. Readiness to take a step is crucial for your
efforts to succeed.
There is, however, another side to this. We also often need to win people to take the
next step. While we do not want people in the formation process who are not yet ready,
we do want those who are. Therefore we need to do what we can to help such people de-
cide to enter formation.
Some new people are just uncertain or nervous, or they do not see how to navigate the
practical difficulties, often especially the time investment. Some, however, know that to
make the step is to give something to the Lord they have not yet given. In order to help
them move forward, we need to be convinced of the value of living a full Christian life.
We need to see receiving formation as a step that they should take, a step that will make a
notable difference to how worthwhile their life is — to the Lord, but also to them. With
such a conviction, we should seek to win them to the decision to take the next step if they
give indication that they are or could be ready.
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Readiness to Enter Formation

The goals before formation summarize what needs to be in place before new people
are ready to enter formation. The most important one is initial conversion. If they have
not turned to the Lord, if they do not have a personal connection with the Lord, they will
not be able to receive formation in the Christian life. A second is that they meet the pasto-
ral criteria. This goal gives us the indicators that tell us they have the spiritual ability to
live a Christian life in a good way. The third is that they actually decide to enter for-
mation.
Initial conversion. In order for people to be ready for the initial commitment, the
commitment to formation, they need to have reached initial conversion (see the section
on “Full Conversion and Christian Maturity” (p. 76).
Conversion to the Lord has two sides: the Lord’s action and the person’s response of
commitment to him. We should expect those who enter formation to have had an initial
experience of grace and perhaps been baptized by the Spirit. We also should expect them
to have made a genuine commitment to him as the Lord of their lives. We are looking for
a genuine decision, but we are not looking for a merely human decision. We are looking
for a spiritual conversion.
We are ultimately looking for a decision to enter formation, but, as we have said, new
people need initial conversion first. In the section on “Full Conversion and Christian Ma-
turity” initial conversion was described as follows:
There is a direct connection between initial conversion and full conversion. Initial con-
version should lead to full conversion. When people have turned to the Lord in a genuine
way, they should want all of what it takes to be a good Christian. If they want to have
him as their Lord, they should want to obey him, and the sign of that being the case is the
desire to find out what they need to do to obey him and to live a life fully pleasing to him
(Col 1:10).
Not everyone who professes a commitment to Christ or Christianity has actually
reached initial conversion. Not everyone who has had some spiritual experience or has
some desire for spiritual things or Christian things has actually reached initial conversion.
If the people we work with do not yet want to go on and receive formation in how to ac-
tually live in a way that is pleasing to the Lord they have not reached even genuine initial
conversion. Hunger is a sign that babies are alive and spiritual hunger is a sign of being
alive as a Christian.
A key sign, then, of initial conversion is the desire to know how to live the Christian
life and to receive help in doing so. This does not mean that new people actually live the
Christian life completely or keep all the commandments. It does mean, though, that at
some level they want to, even though they may have to go through some serious chal-
lenges before they will get there. Again, the parable of the sower (see Mark 4:1-20), gives
us a picture of this.
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The pastoral criteria. The second goal is meeting what we call “the pastoral criteria”.
On the chart The Process of Evangelism and Formation the row entitled “Pastoral Crite-
ria to Move On” lets us know what the prerequisites are for taking the next step at each
stage of the process. These criteria briefly summarize what needs to be in place in peo-
ple’s lives in order to enter formation or the next step in formation in a good way. The
role of such criteria is treated in the section above “Key Principle: Goals and Criteria” (p.
101).
True Christian conversion should be manifested in some things people do, before we
should invite them to begin formation. If people say they are converted or even think they
are but show no signs of it in how they live, they are not converted. The standard does not
need to be high, but there should be some good indicators.
As pastoral workers we need to look for indicators in the lives of those we are work-
ing with to know whether an initial spiritual conversion has happened. This is where the
pastoral criteria come in. The criteria listed in the chart is a good list:
• They do not live in serious sin.
They believe the essentials.
• They are baptized in the Spirit.
• They live as active Christians (the wheel).
• They are in some way committed to us.
These may not be infallible signs of a spiritual conversion, but they are usually good
enough indicators that we will rarely go far wrong if we rely on them.
The first indicator is that they do not live in serious sin. The basic proclamation of
John the Baptist and of Christ himself was “repent and believe the gospel”. People need
to repent, that is, to turn away from what is forbidden by God, and to believe the gospel,
that is, to turn towards the real savior, Christ. Both go together.
For young singles, the most common issue for repentance nowadays is sexual morali-
ty (usually fornication and pornography), but there is sometimes serious financial immo-
rality and sometimes serious drinking or drug abuse problems. Again, at this point we are
not looking for a very high standard. We are mainly looking for freedom from the most
serious difficulties and a general willingness to change. In the sexual area, we do not
want to take someone who is unmarried but who is engaged in a regular sexual relation-
ship or relationships into the formation process, although we do not want to rule out those
with occasional falls. We do not want to take people who regularly look at (hard) pornog-
raphy, unless they express a sincere desire to get free from it.
We do not want to say that if someone has had some experience of grace and begun
to turn to the Lord, but still has some serious sin areas, that they have not converted at all.
But they are not yet in a condition to receive formation in Christian living successfully.
The first indicator also means that the new people believe the essentials of Christiani-
ty. The creed (the Nicene or Apostles Creed) gives us a handy summary of the Christian
essentials. We therefore should ascertain that they believe the creed.
When we deal with people who have genuinely been raised as Christians, we can
usually count on at least notional acceptance of the doctrinal essentials. At this point in
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the process we only have to pay attention to whether that acceptance has been corrupted
by something like New Age religion or Eastern spirituality or some kind of liberal theol-
ogy. We do not have to look for a high level of doctrinal understanding or impeccable
orthodoxy, but we do need to see that the candidates for formation are connecting to the
real Lord and they believe in a real redemption through what Christ did for them.
The main way in which we normally bring new people to meet these two criteria is by
having them receive some basic instruction in Christianity with us. They should normally
have gone through the Life in the Spirit Seminars, Life in Christ, and Christian Sexuality
Seminar or their equivalents. When we engage with them in discussions in these contexts,
we should come to an understanding of where they are with the first two pastoral criteria.
The second pastoral indicator for determining if new people are ready to enter for-
mation is that they are baptized in the Spirit. Practically speaking, this normally means
that they have gone through the Life in the Spirit Seminars. The result should be that they
experience the presence of the Holy Spirit in their life and have some confidence that
they do. Normally this also means that they can pray in tongues. If they do not, we should
help them to do so. Some who have been prayed over in the Life in the Spirit Seminars
have difficulty having confidence that they have been baptized in the Spirit. If they have
repented of serious sin, want to experience the full gift of the Spirit, and want to enter the
formation process we should accept them and work with them during the process.
The third pastoral indicator for determining if new people are ready to enter for-
mation is that they live as active Christians. In some ways this is the most important crite-
rion for when to start formation. This means that they are serious about Christianity, seri-
ous enough to make a real investment in it. In other words, we are looking to see whether
they have begun to put “the wheel” into their lives (see below p. 221).
Regularity with the Wheel
• Faithfulness to daily prayer

– regular (usually therefore scheduled)
– with a simple approach (structure)
– awareness of and use of a method of scripture
reading/meditation
• Scripture reading and study
• Community (fellowship) — regular attendance at:

a. Outreach or community meeting
b. Men’s or women’s group
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c. Church services
• Service: regular service
We use “the wheel” illustration for our basic teaching on Christian growth in the ear-
lier stages of the process of evangelism and formation. We present it initially in the last
part of the Life in the Spirit Seminars (see p. 186). We seek to get people to follow it dur-
ing our work with new people before formation. We then seek to ensure that it is formed
in them as a consistent regular practice in the first year of formation. We are looking for
faithfulness to the wheel long-term, although before formation we mainly encourage it
and do not require it.
We are not looking for perfect regularity in doing these things before formation, but
we are looking for enough regularity to see that some effort is being made. Before begin-
ning formation, the new people should show signs of regular personal investment in liv-
ing a committed Christian life.
The fourth pastoral indicator for determining if new people are ready to enter for-
mation is whether they are in some way committed to us. This is not so much an indica-
tion of whether they have an initial conversion or not. They could have an initial conver-
sion and be committed to another group or to an incompatible movement. This criterion
is more an indicator of whether we can work with them effectively. If they are not
enough part of us, or willing to be, we will not get very far with them. We therefore need
to look at:
• active participation in our corporate prayer
• spending time with brothers or sisters in our outreach or community outside of
formal events
• willingness to serve in our outreach or community.
We are also looking for some level of acceptance of our approaches and some level of
trust in our leadership. If new people do not have it they will not be able to receive for-
mation successfully. We sometimes have young people who are willing to get involved
with us, but are suspicious for some reason, usually because they are involved in some-
thing else Christian and are not so sure about us. We are not “charismatic enough” or
“evangelical enough” or “Catholic enough” or “Orthodox enough” or whatever it might
be. We do not need a blank check from new people, but we do need enough trust that
they will be willing to take much of what we say.
Here the key concern is most often our spirituality (for a presentation of our spirituali-
ty, see p. 222). Those who do not accept certain elements of our spirituality will not make
progress in Christian living with us. Most commonly the issue is over the charismatic as-
pect of our spirituality. New people can be resistant to charismatic prayer and the gifts of
the Spirit. That resistance often goes away when they are baptized in the Spirit. Going
through the Life in the Spirit Seminars, if done well, usually will bring them to a charis-
matic experience.
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Sometimes the issue with our spirituality is over the communitarian aspect. Young
people in modern society are often very individualistic and self-fulfillment oriented. We
cannot expect that to change completely before they enter formation. We can, however,
look for some understanding and appreciation of Christian community, especially valuing
regular fellowship with other Christians and showing a willingness to try to support oth-
ers in the Christian life. The experience of a men’s group or women’s group and regular
involvement in the outreach will usually produce an openness to community.
At times the problem arises with those who are so concerned about their church or
denominational identity that they cannot accept help from those who do not share it or
who do not emphasize it the way they do (usually a traditionalist form of their church tra-
dition). This often goes along with a resistance to ecumenical openness and a suspicion of
an ecumenical orientation. If the community or outreach is church-related, this is usually
less of a concern, but it is still often present. The experience of being with others who
live our spirituality and are active church members will usually produce a change in atti-
tude over time.
Normally we should not invite people to enter the formation process unless they have
been with us for a year (or school year). This will give them enough time to be familiar
with us, but also to be familiar with being in a small group and having a relationship with
an outreach worker. They will also have some experience of and familiarity with the
main elements of our spirituality. As a result they will be in a position to decide to enter
formation with some idea of what they are getting into.
Decision to enter formation. The practical target we are working towards is having
new people actually decide to enter the formation program. This should be more than a
decision to enter the formation program, but it should also be a decision to receive for-
mation. There are a variety of reasons why people might be willing to enter the formation
program without wanting to receive formation. They might just view it as the next step.
They might do it because their friends in the outreach are doing it. If they grew up in the
community, they might do it because they think their parents want them to. They might
do it because they are reluctant to say no to the leader who spoke to them about it. In the
section on initial decision we will consider good ways of helping people to make the de-
cision. Here it is enough to note that it is one of the criteria for someone moving on —
they have to decide to do so. The Entering Formation Seminar, the first part of Founda-
tions Course 1 is designed to help them make the decision to enter formation in a good
way.
A good judgment. We do not want many people in formation or in a particular for-

mation group who are not there to receive formation (whatever troubles they may be hav-
ing in actually receiving some of it). That will affect the spirit of the group going through
formation and the climate of the formation group meetings. If the climate is not one of
seriousness about formation, the participants will receive much less formation.
Some of the possible candidates for formation will be clearly ready. Some will be
clearly not ready. Some, however, we will not be able to make a clearly good judgment
about. They will have some of the criteria in place but not all. We should make our best
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judgment about whether to have them in the formation program, asking the Lord’s help.
We also should discuss the situation in our team meeting, getting input from our supervi-
sor or from the other brothers or sisters in our team.
An important element in working evangelistically with young singles is watching for
when they are ready to take another step and then moving them forward at that point.
That readiness is likely to go away if they do not take a step forward when they are ready.
That indicates that sometimes we should take a risk with young people who may not meet
all the criteria, so that we can work with them when they are ready.
The above are the criteria we should use in inviting people to enter formation. We
now need to bring them to a decision that they will do so.
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3.3 Initial Formation

Initial formation is the first part of the formation program, in which we seek to bring
those we are working with to basic Christian maturity and applied discipleship.
The first two years of the formation program are the crucial time for most young sin-
gles. That is the point at which they are most ready to come to full conversion. If we miss
that opportunity with them, the odds of their ever reaching full conversion are much low-
er.
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Goals of Initial Formation
Pastoral Goals of Initial Formation
1. Maturity in daily Christian living
2. Conversion to “applied discipleship”
3. Experience of and understanding of communitari-

an Christianity
– in a [our] community context
4. Practical target: going underway or transition to

another good Christian option.
Our formation program has a practical aim — to form people in living as mature
Christian disciples and, for those who go on to community membership, to form them in
our life. We are not mainly interested in teaching Christian doctrine or scripture, although
we do that and think it important. Rather the formation program is designed to help peo-
ple change so that they can be the kind of people the Lord wants them to be, and we need
to keep that practical purpose constantly in mind.
While we introduce people to Christian community from the outset of our work with
them, we do not begin to form them in membership in our communities until the second
part of the formation process. The initial stage is formation in Christian maturity and dis-
cipleship. It is therefore a formation in a commitment to the Lord and his kingdom and to
living life as his disciples.
In the initial stage, we seek to make clear that Christianity is communitarian, and
therefore that those we are working with need a long-term spiritual home that is a com-
munity of some kind. Our community is likely the best candidate for most of them. But in
the first stage of the formation, our focus is primarily on Christian maturity and disciple-
ship, not on membership in our community.
The first stage of our formation program reaches the goals in three “years”. This does
not mean that we have to take three literal calendar years, although the process needs
some amount of time like that. Rather, this means that there are three periods of work,
166
each building on the previous, and each with its own primary focus. The process will be
described below in the sections on the three years.
To understand what it means to speak about “maturity in daily Christian living”, see
the section of the first part of this manual entitled “Full Conversion and Christian Maturi-
ty” (p. 76). This is the basic formation we seek to give. To understand what it means to
speak about “Conversion to ‘Applied Discipleship’”, see “A Discipleship Commitment”
(p. 78). We do as much as we can in this stage to bring people to applied discipleship and
to help them learn how to make discipleship decisions.
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The Initial Commitment
The first pastoral step in the formation process is to bring the new people to make an
initial commitment to formation. The initial commitment is the commitment people make
to participate in the first stage of the initiations process, what we have termed formation
in Christian maturity or basic formation.
The Elements
1. Attending the formation group meeting when it

meets
2. Taking the courses for those in formation groups
3. Meeting with a formation leader regularly
4. Attending community/outreach gatherings and re-

treats regularly
5. Contributing financially to the community/out-

reach
6. Doing some service for community/outreach
7. Taking a time for daily personal prayer and scrip-

ture reading or study and attending church regu-
larly [if they belong to one].
The formation commitment can be found on p. 226 and p. 227.The elements of the
commitment are explained in the section “2. What is Involved in the Formation Pro-
gram?” in Talk 1 of the Entering Formation Seminar (Part 1 of Foundations Course 1).
You may find it helpful to review that.
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The elements are listed roughly in order of priority, except for item #7, which strictly
speaking is not an element of the formation process but an element of Christian maturity.
The defined requirements are the first two. These are the time requirements that new
people need to make for the process to work well. For the rest they are encouraged to
regularity. How these commitments should be approached pastorally is discussed in Year
1 below.
Nature of the commitment. It should be clearly understood that those making the
commitment can end it at any time they choose, and we can have them stop being in for-
mation any time we choose. Either side, in other words, can end the commitment, but un-
til one side does, both are committed to the formation process.
This commitment can be made much more lightly than a full covenant commitment.
On the other hand, once people have made it, they should keep it while they have it. This
is a way of learning the meaning of Christian faithfulness.
Sometimes the commitment is renewed (or ended) each year.
Making the initial commitment. The initial commitment, like the underway and public
commitments, should be made in a formal way. There probably should be no ceremony
attached to it, but those making the commitment should state externally, at least to us,
that they are definitely agreeing to the commitment. This follows the Heart-Lips Principle
(Romans 10:10). For human beings to make a decision, they should state it externally
(not just hold it hidden in their hearts). That makes it humanly real and more definite.
Preparation
1. The commitment should be explained to them well.

– Probably in the Entering Formation Seminar (FC1)
– If they are making the affiliate commitment: in a Commu-
nity Day or Community Weekend
• A pastoral worker should discuss it practically

with them, especially the time needed.
The process. Moving into formation is an important step for the new people, and
some effort should be put into helping them.
There should be one pastoral worker responsible to help new people with the process.
Ideally it should be the same pastoral worker who worked with them the previous year
and will work with them in the year to come. If the pastoral workers have already worked
169
with them, they will understand better how to help them. If they will work with them in
the year to come, they will be able to help them participate better in the formation pro-
gram, because they will have understood how they entered it.
To understand what they will be involved in the new people should go through the
Entering Formation Seminar. In this seminar formation and the formation process is de-
scribed, and the new people are given a practical understanding of what will be involved
in participating in the program. Ideally the seminar should be given in one day. Often,
however, that will not be possible practically, so it will be given on a weekly basis. The
discussion leader should be the pastoral worker responsible for helping the participants
with the process of entering formation, unless that is not possible.
The pastoral worker responsible should have a one-on-one session after the seminar
to talk with the new people and to get their commitment to the formation commitment. It
is also valuable to discuss the commitment in the first formation group meeting after eve-
ryone has made it so that the group as a whole is clear that all its members are there to
receive formation and have made a commitment to the elements of the program.
If someone is going to make an affiliate commitment to the community, they should
be given an additional explanation of the community. This is usually done in a communi-
ty day or sometimes a community weekend. This does not have to happen at the begin-
ning of the formation process. In fact, it is common for this to happen some weeks or
months later.
We should maintain the principle: “While members may seek and receive counsel and
advice on any matter, pastoral care is only authoritative when calling members to live up
to the level of community life to which they have voluntarily committed themselves.” We
should apply this principle to the formation group commitment and the affiliate commit-
ment. The outreach is not community life in the full sense but the formation commitment
is a real commitment and involves a commitment to Christian relationships. It is a some-
what lower commitment than would be involved in full community life, but if new people
are to learn commitment and faithfulness they need to keep it.
Pastoral workers in the initiations process should not approach the formation com-
mitment as a mechanical step that can be handled externally and will work well. It should
be approached throughout as a pastoral process. We not only need to invite new people to
make the commitments, but we also need to see if they are ready to benefit from for-
mation before they make the commitment. In addition, we need to see that they under-
stand what they are committing themselves to before they do it. We also keep an eye on
whether they keep the commitments afterwards, and if they are not keeping them, or any
part of them, we try to understand why and what can be done about it.
We and they should have reasonable confidence that they can live out the covenant
they are making. It is not good, sometimes not even moral, to make a promise we cannot
keep. This has traditionally been known as a rash promise. In this case the actual com-
mitment is not so hard to keep, but new people can still say yes without being able to
keep it. For instance, they may not actually have cleared the time to do it (especially if
they need to be free a particular evening), because they may not be used to thinking
ahead before making commitments. That will be something they will need to learn in the
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process of formation. We should make sure that we discuss with them what they have to
do so that they know they can do it before committing themselves to it.
We have two handouts that we give out in Foundations Course 1 to describe the ini-
tial commitment: They can be found in the appendices to this document: “The Formation
Commitment” (p. 226), and “The Formation Commitment (Affiliates)” (p. 227). They
explain how the formation commitment should function. Each community or outreach
may re-write the commitments to fit their circumstances.
Formation and affiliate commitments. When the first stage of formation is given in
the outreach context, there is commonly more than one option for making a commitment
to the formation program: the formation and the affiliate commitments. The two com-
mitments provide more flexibility. If the new people are not ready to engage the commu-
nity for reasons of time or other reasons, they can begin by simply being part of the for-
mation program.
The affiliate commitment should be seen as a commitment to explore community life
while in the outreach, not a definite intention to move towards joining our community.
The main additional commitment is the commitment to attend community gatherings and
events and not just outreach ones.
If students are ready to make an affiliate commitment and if we think our community
is likely the right place for them, we should try to get them to do so. If they are not will-
ing to make an affiliate commitment but are willing to make a formation commitment,
they should commit themselves to the formation program, and we should work to eventu-
ally get them to make an affiliate commitment. Sometimes we can approach the affiliate
status still more gradually by inviting people in the formation program to community
events until they are ready to take a further step.
In our outreaches we will care for those who do not want to move towards the com-
munity as long as they are willing to fulfill the criteria for the formation relationship. Af-
ter the initial formation period is over we will seek to help those who do not want to be
part of the community (or whom we do not think should be) to get located in another
Christian “home” where they can grow, or at least maintain what they got with us.
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Year 1
What Should Happen in Year 1

Follow-up
1. Continuation and solidification of what was
reached before formation:
– strengthening of commitment to Christ
– strengthening of the active relationship with
Christ summarized in the wheel.
Involvement in the Program

2. Participation in men’s and women’s groups and
meetings with a pastoral leader
3. Attending Foundations Course 1 and appropriat-

ing the material in it
Personal change
4. A “deliverance session” with follow-up
5. Work on learning basic time management
6. Work on controlled intake of media
There are certain things that should happen in the first year. These set the context for
what you do as a pastoral worker. You contribute to getting these things to happen, but
you are only responsible for some of them. You do, however, need to keep in mind what
is happening during the whole program.
First, there needs to be a continuation and solidification of what was reached before
formation. Those in formation should be participating in the outreach meetings, and those
meetings should have an evangelistic focus. There the new people should receive a steady
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strengthening of their relationship with Christ and the basic elements that go into that re-
lationship (the wheel). Moreover, the formation program itself provides regular input that
also contributes to this goal through the courses and pastoral meetings. In addition, since
the group meets together in some context (community, formation district or sub-district,
outreach), those meetings should provide help.
Second, those in formation need to be participating in the meetings that are elements
of the formation program. They should especially be participating in men’s and women’s
groups and meeting with a formation leader. These are the places where they get personal
attention and help in working the content of the first year into their lives. This is your
main area of responsibility.
Third, they should be attending Foundations Course 1: Christian Maturity. This pro-
vides the main content of the year and the background for what you should be working on
with them. Foundations Course 1 will be treated more fully below.
Fourth, most should participate in a serious deliverance session (some time after the
Overcoming Obstacles session of Foundations Course 1). What emerges from that should
also be the subject of the individual pastoral care sessions and perhaps the men or wom-
en’s group. If the session works well, it should put the formation leader in a position to
help the new people to understand their personal obstacles to a discipleship life and will
provide a basis for ongoing personal pastoral care and encouragement. Sometimes the
session needs to be repeated, either during this year or later. This will be treated more ful-
ly below.
Fifth, they should begin working on basic time management. Most young singles
need this. Moreover, it is a key to their consistent participation in the formation program
and their appropriation of the content. Our recommended approach to time management
is presented in the last section of Foundations Course 1.
Sixth, they should begin to work on their use of the media. You should try to have a
significant discussion of this area in the men’s or women’s group and if possible work
concretely with those you are responsible for on following the recommended criteria.
“The Christian Use of Media”, the handout uses in Foundations Course 1, can be found
on p. 228.
It is one thing to have the formation program set up to cover all the bases. It is some-
thing else to see that the participants understand and take in what they should and begin a
process of change. In large part, that is the work of the pastoral worker, and it certainly
should be the main focus of the pastoral worker.
You therefore need what we call pastoral goals. A pastoral goal is a goal for getting
change in the life of someone we are responsible for. If we work with such goals in mind,
we will be much more effective in serving our brothers or sisters. The pastoral goals al-
low us to set a strategy for our work as pastoral workers during the first year of for-
mation. These are the changes we should be trying to reach in the lives of those we are
responsible. Fortunately some of them will have been already reached with most of those
we are working with.
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Pastoral Goals for Year 1
1. Daily/weekly consistency with “the wheel”
2. Regular attendance at the events they have a

commitment to
3. Working through a schedule with a pastoral leader

(us)
4. Receiving important personal input seriously along

with an initial recognition of personal challenges
and growth in confidence in handling them well
5. Beginning to be restricted in approach to media
Each of the pastoral goals relates to the things that should happen in year 1. They
state, however, what you should aim at to get year 1 to work well. There are three main
kinds of things that should happen and that you should work on:
1. The participants in the formation program should grow into consistency in their
personal relationship with the Lord.
2. The participants should attend regularly those events that are part of the formation
program, especially the formation courses, their men’s or women’s group and
their meeting with you, their formation leader.
3. The participants should begin a process of personal change, including growth in
personal discipline and ability to recognize and handle personal challenges.
Consistency with the Wheel

The first goal for year one is consistency with the Wheel. Working on this should be a
continuation of the work already done before the formation program. The real goal is
consistency in the brothers and sisters personal relationship with the Lord, but if they do
not do some things to keep contact with the Lord and strengthen their relationship with
174
him, they will not maintain a good Christian commitment. This goal is developed as fol-
lows:
Daily/Weekly Consistency with the Wheel
• Faithfulness to daily prayer (15-20 minutes)

a. scheduled
b. with a simple approach (structure)
c. awareness of and use of a method of scripture
reading/meditation
• Scripture reading and study (30 minutes a week)
• Community (fellowship) — regular attendance at:

a. Outreach or community meeting
b. Men’s or women’s group
c. Church services
• Service: a regular ongoing service commitment
In the above presentation of the Wheel, some items are underlined. These are the ones
that should change during this year from the approach we took before formation. We
could summarize the change by saying that before formation, we mainly encouraged the
practices in the Wheel. Now we should work to get those we are working with to be more
disciplined in their approach (if they are not already disciplined).
We should seek to get everyone to take 15-20 minutes of daily prayer and at least a
half hour of regular scripture reading or study. We should teach them the importance of
scheduling these things so they happen regularly, if not the same time each day, usually
the same time each day of the week. This is, of course, a minimum. It would be good if
they would do more, but they will be in a much better place if they are disciplined enough
to have a regular pattern.
We also should seek to get them involved in some regular service. It should take a
limited amount of time this year. They should know what it is (not just do things as they
are asked, but have a defined responsibility). They should learn to be faithful to it. The
service should normally be either in the outreach or the community, so that they come to
understand that part of being in Christian community (in the outreach or covenant com-
munity form) is contributing to it.
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This year is also the time to work with them on church participation. There is a sec-
tion below on this.
Helping Those We Are Responsible for to Change
We are dealing with many young singles, from the time they leave secondary school
(in many cultures the legal and often de facto age of maturity) to the time they get estab-
lished in life by marrying and having a regular occupation. We are therefore dealing with
a range of personal maturity, partly due to the age of those we are working with. Often
because of the way formation/initiations works in many communities, we are mainly
dealing with a younger age group, usually those of university age that have come in
through a university outreach. Sometimes, the group is older and then we have the whole
range.
Almost all of those we are working with are in need of Christian maturity. We occa-
sionally work with some who are fairly mature Christians, but who recognize the need for
support and help in their Christian lives, and so have come to us. Most often, however,
even those who are older and somewhat humanly mature, are not very mature in their
Christian lives. They have reached an initial conversion in the last year or two, and now
need to change if they going to live a mature Christian life.
If we are going to help those we are working with to live a mature Christian life, and
especially if we are going to help them live a life in our community, we need to help
them form certain patterns in their lives. Usually the younger they are, the longer it takes
for them to become consistent. Moreover, certain personality types will take longer. We
need to have patience with those we are helping, but we should work at making progress
in Year 1.
Four main patterns for everyone. Year 1, then, is the time to begin to establish certain
patterns of Christian discipline in the new people’s lives. The process of establishing the-
se patterns will go on throughout the formation time, but by the end of Year 1 the new
people should have accepted that these need to be part of their lives.
1. The first pattern to be established is regular attendance. This requires a certain
minimal level of personal discipline. Without some discipline new people do not have
enough personal maturity to successfully receive formation. Moreover, if they are not
regular in attendance at the vehicles of formation, they will not receive the formation we
give. Since we can observe basic attendance, this is a useful initial indicator of the kind of
progress we are making with them. We should note whether and how well the brothers or
sisters we are responsible for are participating the events they should be in, and encour-
age them to do better if needed. We are looking to reach a point during this stage where
they have few failings in attendance without a good reason (and those they should report
so we can discuss it with them if we do not think they had a good reason). The vehicles of
formation they need to be regular in are:
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– a time of daily prayer and regular scripture reading and study (treated above)
– gatherings and courses
– men’s/women’s groups
– the meeting with the formation leader.
2. The second pattern is beginning to develop habits of time management, especially
at this point working through a schedule with their pastoral leader (during formation this
is their formation leader). This involves getting from them a proposed schedule, discuss-
ing it with them, coming to an agreement as to what it will be, and then later their report-
ing on how they are following it. The schedule is a vehicle that allows us to work with
their process of change (use of time) and to help them come up with an approach to mak-
ing room for community life. Work on the schedule also enables us to have discussions
on how they live their daily lives. It is unrealistic, especially for younger students, to re-
quire them to simply keep the schedule, but we should see some progress. More im-
portant, we are interested in forming in them an attitude of working with their formation
leader on their personal lives, and this is a practical vehicle for getting that to happen.
3. The third pattern is receiving important personal input seriously and making use
of men’s or women’s groups and pastoral care sessions to make progress with personal
change. This is not an easy pattern to learn, but this is the stage to begin learning it (or for
some who have already started, growing in it). The deliverance session is usually the con-
text for beginning to learn this. They should prepare for the session with prayer and
thought and then discuss the input afterwards with their formation leader, coming to a
decision about how to respond to it, and then reporting on progress either in the men’s or
women’s group or pastoral care session.
Year 1 is the time to begin the process of helping the new people to “know them-
selves” and so to begin to recognize their personality strengths and weaknesses and their
abilities and limitations, and to handle those well. For almost everyone this involves
some recognition of the way they function psychologically and some growth in confi-
dence in their ability to make progress with things they have not been able to handle be-
fore. The formation process is not the place for psychological counseling, although some
people who come to us should perhaps be referred to counselors for help. It is, however, a
place to make progress in the kind of self-knowledge everyone needs to move forward in
Christian maturity. For young people in the formation program, this is also a period of
their life when they are moving into basic human maturity, and the formation program
can give them significant help in this process, especially help to develop in a good Chris-
tian way.
The deliverance session can be a major help in the process, partly because it gives the
new people a secure environment in which to begin to look at the personal challenges
they face, partly because it is an opportunity for the Lord to work with them in a direct
way to help them change. This is likely the best time to begin to give the new people per-
sonal input about their lives and helping them to receive it well. Moreover, if it works
well, they should finish with an overview of the personal things they need to work on,
some of which they were aware of, some of which are probably new to them. Finally, if it
works well, it should give them confidence that with the Lord’s help they can actually
change (to some degree). Ideally, the formation leader should continue the process of
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helping them receive input, recognize personal challenges, and grow in confidence in
handling them well.
If you are new to being a pastoral worker in formation, this is the area in which you
probably need to learn the most. In general, the rule should be to do what you can but not
try to solve problems or make changes when you are not confident you know what you
are doing. This is a major place to get help from your supervisor.
4. The fourth pattern is beginning to restrict the use of media. For most young peo-
ple nowadays, the use of media is out of control. It affects their use of time and money in
a harmful way. The media they use is also often undermining of their Christian life, espe-
cially in the area of sexual self-control, but also in their values. The first year of for-
mation is the time to begin talking about this and encourage a more disciplined approach
to the media. There is a talk in the last section of Foundations Course 1 which discusses
the use of media. The media guidelines are in the appendix (p. 228).
If we let problems in these four areas go, sooner or later they will undermine the
brothers and sisters we are working with. On the other hand, with many if not most of
those we are working with, we cannot make major changes in the course of the first year.
We need a pastoral strategy for each of those we are working with, one that allows us to
get started this year but looks to working with them for some time to come. We should
work out a pastoral plan with our supervisor usually a few weeks after the deliverance
session.
Romantic relating. Year 2 is the time we should work the most intensely on this area.
It is the time when we make it a major concern to teach and work pastorally to get some
changes. At the same time, we often have to deal with the area in Year 1, because it is a
major challenge for many if not most of those we work with. Many of them will want to
begin a romantic relationship during this time. If they have received the Christian Sexual-
ity Seminar or some similar presentation, they may be willing to hold off, but many will
not. We talk to them in the last section of Foundations Course 1 about waiting until we
can help them move forward in the area in the second year of formation. We may, how-
ever, need to work with some of them in a special way to try to keep them from getting
into a romantic relationship. We may need to try to have some of them break off (or put
on “hold”) a relationship they are already in. If you are new to working on this area, you
should get help from your supervisor.
Special area: sexual self-control: Many of those we are working with, especially the
young men, will have a serious problem with sexual self-control, usually with masturba-
tion and pornography, and it will undermine their commitment and confidence. This will
often surface in the deliverance session. We try to give them significant help in this area
in Year 2. Nonetheless, we may need to start helping them right away. This is another
place where you should get help from your supervisor if you are new to helping someone
in this area.
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Foundations Course 1. This course plays an important role in the first year. The
teaching gives the background understanding for what should be happening with the par-
ticipants. As in all teaching, the participants will not be able to grasp or remember all of it
as a result of the talks. If, however, the presentations are discussed afterwards in discus-
sion groups during the talks and if the key parts of them are worked through in the pasto-
ral care groups, they will retain a great deal of the material. Even more important, the
teaching provides the background, and in a certain way the authorization, that allows the
pastoral workers to work on the areas covered by the material with those they are respon-
sible for. The pastoral workers, then, should see themselves as partly responsible to help
the new people apply the material in Foundations 1.
Each unit of Foundations 1 plays a distinct role in giving the participants the for-
mation that they need. As summarized in the goals for this course:
1. Unit 1 prepares the participants for taking part in a formation program by
understanding its purpose, what goes into it, and what they need to do to
go through it successfully.
2. Unit 2 helps them to understand the personal obstacles they deal with in
living the Christian life and gives them an initial orientation to handling
those successfully.
3. Unit 3 gives them a vision of the importance of the communitarian dimen-
sion of Christianity so that they will want to live Christian community in
an initial way.
4. Unit 4 helps them to put order into their personal lives so that they can live
what they are being taught.
Of all the courses, Foundations 1 is the course that should be most closely tied to
what happens in the formation groups and in pastoral care. This is the year to make a se-
rious change in how the young singles live their lives. If this change does not occur, it
will be much more difficult for them to live a discipleship life and to become good com-
munity members.
There are five main things that need to happen while the course is going on. Normally
they happen in connection with the formation group, not with the discussion groups in the
course, which are mainly oriented to understanding the material presented in the talk:
1. In connection with unit 1 (the Entering Formation Seminar) the formation leaders
should discuss with the participants how the formation group works and how pas-
toral care works. They should also work with them to participate in both of these
well. This help should be going on over much of the course, although the most in-
tense time will be at the beginning.
2. After unit 1, the formation leaders should get those they are responsible for to
make an initial (formation) commitment.
3. After unit 2 (Dealing With Personal Obstacles), the formation leaders will need to
have those they are responsible for go through a deliverance session. They will
need to meet with them beforehand to see that they are prepared. They will need
to meet with some of them more than once. They may need to meet with some of
them shortly afterwards to help them respond well to what happened in the deliv-
179
erance session, although for the most part this can be done adequately in the for-
mation group meeting or in the pastoral care meeting.
4. During unit 4 (Faithfulness and Order), the formation leaders should work with all
those they are responsible for to develop a personal schedule.
5. After talk 12 (Family and State of Life) the formation leaders should discuss in
their one-on-one pastoral sessions the recommendation to postpone moving for-
ward with vocational decisions and postpone entering into a romantic relation-
ship. This is not the year to work on this area seriously, but it will be important to
try to secure acceptance of the recommendations given in the talk.
Our influence as pastoral leaders. To help young people to change, having a clearly
structured program, with good teaching about what changes are needed and helpful in-
struction about how to change is a great help. So is a supportive environment with activi-
ties that aid in motivating the new people to change. Moreover, if we do our basic work
well as pastoral leaders, we will make a significant contribution to the process. The more
we learn about what we need to know and the more experience we have the better.
We also can have a significant personal impact on some of those we work with. If we
can gain a relationship of respect and trust with those we are working with, we will find
that our relationship with them will be a significant factor in their ability to grow in the
Lord.
Those we work with will respect us if we do our service well, if we know what we are
talking about (especially in regard to the Christian life), if we live what we are trying to
teach them in a consistent way, if we show commitment to what we are trying to lead
them into. They will trust us if we take a genuine interest in them, if we try to get to know
them, if we consistently try to help them if we can.
We will be able to help those we are working with more, if we can work with them
over a period of, longer than a year, because trust builds. We will get to know them better
so we will be able to give input better, more on target. They will trust us more over time
if they find us interested in them and consistent in our care for them. There are a variety
of reasons why we end up only working with some people for short period of time, but
we will be more effective if our relationship with them can last for a while.
Moving on. If we have not made much progress with the goals of Year 1, we should
ask the question as to whether someone should continue. The answer is normally yes,
since many will make progress in the second year who did not make much in Year 1, but
sometimes the pattern of failure indicates a serious problem that will preclude much pro-
gress for now. Those, whoever, who do not attend formation meetings (course and for-
mation group), enough to get most of what is being given to them, should probably be
dropped or asked to start over.
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Church Participation
We are an international community of communities. Some of our communities are
church-related, and some of our communities are ecumenical. Some of them are in secu-
lar countries, some in predominantly Catholic or Orthodox or Protestant countries, some
in predominantly Muslim or Hindu or Buddhist countries. In addition, our communities
have somewhat different approaches to how they encourage church participation, alt-
hough all of them encourage their members to belong to churches. Perhaps more im-
portantly, those who come to us have different relationship to churches, from being Pa-
gans without church connection to active church members.
First of all, many of those who come to us are active church members. Once they
come to us, they normally just continue in the church they come from, because they are in
an environment of church members, and because as communities we try to support new
people in their church membership. Generally speaking, we do not have to make church
participation a pastoral concern for most of those we work with.
Second, many of those who come to us are not active church members. They are ei-
ther nominal Christians or non-Christians (sometimes just secular, sometimes Pagans).
These we need to help in the course of the formation program to find a church to belong
to. If they are not baptized, we will often need to begin discussing baptism with them
(and therefore often church membership) even before formation begins. If they are bap-
tized, we should probably wait until they are in the formation process.
For pastoral reasons, it is better to begin focusing on Christian maturity in a Christian
community context, and therefore put our initial efforts into helping new people make a
strong connection with our formation process. This is the most effective way for them to
grow in discipleship. Most will not grow much as Christian disciples in a local parish or
congregation. They of course cannot get all they need in the community context, and they
especially need some doctrinal teaching and sacramental participation in the church con-
text, but pastorally speaking that is usually not the first things we should focus on. Con-
version comes first.
How we work with those who are not active members will also depend on the nature
of the community. Our church-related communities will probably want to bring them to
membership in the church of the community members and will be most helpful to them in
that way.
In our ecumenical communities, the situation is more complicated. As a general prin-
ciple, if the new people come from a certain church background, we look first to re-
connect them to that church. Sometimes that is not always helpful for a variety of rea-
sons, and we have to do what we can to help them figure out the best church connection
for them. There are more comments in this regard below.
Pastoral workers can sometimes help new members who are not active church mem-
bers, but often they cannot because to do so takes some theological and pastoral under-
standing. This is an important area to discuss with your supervisor and figure out what
you should do or not do, and whether there is someone who would be better to help them.
181
To some extent the way we help new people in the area of church participation de-
pends on the church tradition they come from. Each main tradition provides different
challenges.
Catholics: For most Catholics who come to us, the general advice above is adequate.
There are, however, some special factors depending on the community. Most of our
Catholic communities follow a normal Catholic approach. Some, however, have their
own special emphases to Catholic life. Usually new pastoral workers will understand the
community approach, because they have been formed in it.
Some of the currents of Catholic life, however, can be problematic for participation in
our communities. There are a variety of reasons for this, but the main one has to do with
our spirituality. Many Catholic currents are traditionalist and negative on ecumenism and
charismatic life (even though both are endorsed by the Catholic Church). They can pre-
sent us with two challenges in working with new people.
In some situations where we have community members there are strong Catholic
movements or even parishes that undercut our approach. We need to take concern that
our new people do not get drawn into them.
Sometimes there are people, usually outside the community or sometimes inside the
community who are into more traditionalist and devotional approaches that put great em-
phasis on Catholic externals and do not recognize the priority of growth in Christian ma-
turity (according to a sound Catholic spirituality). New people who are recently convert-
ed to an active or zealous Christianity often are attracted to anything that seems strongly
spiritual, and so those newly connected to us are often attracted to such influences. Pasto-
ral workers need to pay attention to whether such a thing might be happening and help
orient the new people to what the formation program is seeking to focus them on.
For a basic statement of our Catholic Spirituality, see p. 224.
We also need to recognize that some groups that identify themselves as Catholic (par-
ishes or communities or movements) are not orthodox in the theology or morality they
teach or promote a secular approach to Christian life. We do not support community
members belonging to such groups.
Orthodox: While the situation with new people who come to us who are Orthodox
(Eastern or Oriental Orthodox) has some special features, in general the same pastoral
orientations to Catholics applies to Orthodox.
Since many Orthodox who come to join us belong to ecumenical communities, the
help we give them has to normally come from Orthodox members of the community, or
at the very least someone who is familiar with Orthodox church life.
Protestants: In pastoral care of new people who come to us who are Protestants, a
major challenge is the variety of Protestant churches and groups. All we can do here is
give some general principles.
First, we are open to membership by people who belong to or want to belong to the
full range of Protestant traditions that are orthodox Christians (e.g., who accept the con-
182
tent of the Nicene Creed, and do not belong to a sect like the Mormons or the Jehovah’s
Witnesses).
Second, we need to recognize that certain groups that identify themselves as
Protestants (congregations or movements or sometimes denominations) are not orthodox
in the theology or morality they teach or promote a secular approach to Christian life. We
do not support community members belonging to such groups.
Third, we have a pastoral document on Ecumenical Growth (on the SOS website). In
it is there is some helpful advice about working with new people who are Protestants. The
following is particularly important:
“When we bring people to Christian conversion, we should be careful about connect-
ing them to vibrant renewed churches since those churches are attempting to do many
of the same sorts of things we do. The sequence is too often: (1) we evangelize the
un-churched, (2) they come alive spiritually, (3) they reconnect with some vibrant
Evangelical or Pentecostal church (with our encouragement) and (4) they then leave
us for church life. It does not work to be part of a church that is attempting to be a
community and do evangelistic outreach and to participate in one of our communities
as well, at least for time reasons. We need to find a way first to connect new people to
us and then to find a church situation that will allow them to remain members of our
communities.”
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State of Life
Goals
Purpose
To help young single people find the place in life

where they can most fully live for the Lord and con-
tribute to the advancement of his kingdom.
• To help many to live single for the Lord in the

community.
• To help most to get married in a way that opti-

mizes their chances to have a good marriage as
well as live a dedicated Christian single life.
One of our main tasks in the formation program is to help the young singles we work
with to enter upon a state of life in a good way. This too has to involve a pastoral process.
Perhaps the key steps occur in the first part of the formation process.
This is a crucial area for us. It is partly a crucial area for us because it is an integral
part of our way of life.12 In terms of formation it is also crucial because this is perhaps
the most difficult point of our way of life in regard to difference from the prevailing cul-
ture. If we cannot make some progress here, we probably cannot expect those going
through formation to live in a counter-cultural way.
Our approach is described at some length in the courses we teach in the formation
program. Formation leaders should be familiar with the material in those courses, prefer-
ably by reading over the teachers’ materials for the following:
• Foundations Course 1, Talk 12
• Foundations Course 2: Community and Family, Talk 6
12 According to the SCO, the following are the criteria of membership in regard to single people:
a. Relates as a brother or sister to members of the opposite sex.
b. Approaches pairing off and courtship according to community instruction.
They are both starred items. The SCO also says, “New members should be living out the criteria for good
community membership in a good spirit for a period of time before being allowed to commit themselves to
the community covenant.”
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• Foundations Course 2: Entering Your State of Life

The pastoral process is most fully written up in:
3.2 The Courtship Handbook
The Progression
Our main approach to this area should be to win the younger people to our approach,
not to require it of them. However, at a certain point, we need them to accept it so that
they can enter the community. We should try to bring them to that point before they take
steps that will affect their lives long-term.
For those who come to us by a process of evangelism, our approach will be new, and
we will begin to speak to them about before they enter formation. For those who have
been raised in community families, we would hope that many will have been won to the
approach by a) their parents b) the community youth group c) the regional youth pro-
gram, even before coming into the university outreach.
In the pre-formation period we should use persuasion (and the impact of an environ-
ment in which people are mainly following our approach) to take a no hanging out/dating
approach for now. The Christian Sexuality Seminar is the chief means of persuasion and
should be given as early as it would be effective.
In Year 1 of formation, we should request them in the talk “State of Life and
Men/Women Relationships” to wait until they go through Foundations Course 2 to come
up with a longer term approach. We should supplement that with individual discussions
with their pastoral leader.
Our approach to helping people with the area who are already in the formation pro-
cess is described in Year 2 (below).
Our approach to the process of entering marriage (courtship ) is diagramed in the fol-
lowing chart:
Leaders Manual Formation Charts/EM Process Chart.doc
185
Year 2

Ongoing Involvement in the Formation Program
reached in year 1
2. Continued participation in the formation program
New Elements in the Formation Program

– Normally going through initial state of life dis-
cernment meditations
4. Work on learning basic financial management
Years 2 and 3 are part of the initial formation stage of the process of evangelism and
formation and so fundamentally continue the same approaches outlined for Year 1. There
are, however, some special features. These are due to the fact that the primary place we
tackle questions of sexuality and vocation is in Year 2 and also that we tackle questions
of financial management when we work with young people in Year 2, whereas we do that
with older people in Year 1.
While these things are happening, the pastoral worker should be working to achieve
the following pastoral goals.
1. Further progress in Year 1 goals
186
2. Progress in “chaste single life”

• Basic sexual discipline
• Relating appropriately to the opposite sex
3. Acceptance of our approach to entering a state of

life
4. Initial state of life discernment
5. Working through a budget with a pastoral leader
Year 2 is the time for working on state of life approach, and at the same time working
on the sexual area more seriously.
For our strategy for state of life decisions in the formation process, see p. 184
The main goal of Year 2 is to have new people take on and follow a Christian disci-
pleship approach to marriage, courtship and sexuality. We want to continue to encourage
and perhaps work on the patterns of regular spiritual disciplines (the wheel), use of time
(scheduling), and use of media. Our primary attention, however, should go into the mar-
riage, courtship and sexuality area. We are therefore looking to establish two main pat-
terns in the course of Year 2, patterns we can build on in the future:
1. Truthful discussion of their situation and especially presenting their decisions to
get input in advance of important decisions
2. Progress in sexual self-control and appropriate behavior with the opposite sex.
State of life (courtship). As we have seen, Foundations Course 2 presents our ap-
proach to entering upon a state of life and to marriage at several points. All three of the
courses (Community and Family Course, Entering Our State of Life, and the courses for
single men and women) treat the area. In Entering Our State of Life, the participants are
asked to make an initial discernment of direction. After the conclusion of the course,
most of them should have a tentative plan for how to move forward.
Those who are open to considering living single for the Lord (consecrated celibacy)
should begin making an effort to understand what it would be like, usually connecting to
those in our community of communities who are doing it. Those who expect to move to-
wards marriage especially need an estimate of when they would be ready to begin the
process. We want those who should be community members to do this under pastoral
oversight. They should take the Courtship Seminar before starting to actively move to-
wards marriage, but for almost all of them, that should be a ways in the future.
The formation leaders need to take a concern to see that those they are responsible for
are taking Foundations Course 2. It is important to monitor how they are responding to it
187
as they go through it. This is an area where there are often serious personal reactions and
insecurities that the new people need to be helped with. The formation leaders should al-
so be involved in helping people with initial state of life discernment. Normally that
should happen in connection with Foundations Course 2, but it is sometimes wise to de-
fer it for some people until later in the formation process.
We expect single people to follow our approach in this area after the second year of
formation. If they are unwilling to do so they should not continue in the formation pro-
cess for very long after it is clear that they are not going to accept our approach. If they
do not continue formation, they should not be considered as moving forward in the com-
munity initiations track until they change their mind or until they get married and their
marriage has stabilized.
The formation leader is the one who should take the primary responsibility to ascer-
tain if those they are responsible for are accepting our approach to entering a state of life.
Some will accept it without too much work, especially if they have gotten enough helpful
input in pre-formation and Year 1 of formation. Some will not. The sticking point will
often be the desire to start a romantic relationship (or continue a romantic relationship
they have already started). By the end of Foundations Course 2, if it was given well, they
should have good reasons before them to accept our approach.
Those who are resistant to accepting our approach will need some further help. Some-
times the pastoral workers who are their formation leader can give them the needed help.
Sometimes, especially if the pastoral workers are new, they cannot do that successfully
by themselves. Pastoral workers should discuss with their supervisor, either in the for-
mation team meeting or one-on-one, what to do with each individual. Very often an older
pastoral leader, perhaps the initiations coordinator or main senior woman leader, should
be the one to help the new person who is resistant.
With those who are already in a romantic relationship, our normal strategy should be
to have them leave the relationship behind. They probably did not get into it on a good
basis and there are likely some poor dynamics in the relationship that will undermine the
marriage relationship and good family life. Sometimes, however, they feel obligated to
one another and because of that they are unwilling to simply leave the relationship be-
hind. In such a case, the best strategy is simply to try to get them to separate for now and
come back to it in the future if they are convinced they should. We should encourage
them to take the Courtship Seminar before going back to the relationship.
To make progress with this area, we also have to make progress in helping them ac-
quire a readiness to submit major life questions to pastoral oversight. This should build
on the progress made in during Year 1 in receiving important personal input seriously and
making use of men’s or women’s groups and pastoral care sessions to make progress with
personal change. We do not necessarily expect them to accept all the input we give them
(although rejecting it all or the most important parts of it is problematic), but to be willing
to work it through in a good process. They should accept our direction about the process
of courtship (and we should be careful to only give direction where we are authorized to).
They should also take our input seriously about the actual decisions about who to court
and who to marry, although they are not obligated to follow it.
188
The sexual self-control area. This is the year in which we should work more seriously
on basic sexual discipline (include “romantic discipline” for the girls). Some will have
more resistant difficulties in this area, and we may need to give them special attention,
including a special deliverance session. While we do not want people in the formation
process to be fornicating, much less living with their girlfriend or boyfriend, we expect
many of them to still have sexual control problems of one degree or another. Some pasto-
ral workers should just encourage them to do better and help them not to be personally
discouraged when they are working on the area. Some can make a significant effort with
one or more of them to help them get free.
We are, however, also looking for some other kinds of progress in this area. We first
of all want them to behave well with the opposite sex, if they do not yet have that area
working well. Not only do we want them to avoid having a romantic relationship for
now, we also want them to avoid “dating”, “hanging around” or “flirting” with someone
they are not courting. These things lead to developing a romantic relationship, even
though young people frequently think they can engage in them and not get romantically
attached.
We also would like them to make some decisions on growing in manly or womanly
character and work on it afterwards either in the men or women’s groups or the pastoral
care sessions. Most of those who come to us will need some improvement in this area.
Foundations Course 2 will likely be the first time they have seriously considered it.
Finances. Foundations Course 2 contains a talk on financial management. In it we

encourage new people to have financial discipline in their lives and to review their ap-
proach to finances in the light of their discipleship commitment. We also give them a
simplified budget worksheet that should help them to put order and planning into the way
they handle their finances. This is not a great deal of help to deal with a complicated area,
and it especially does not provide much help for long range planning. However, for many
if not most of those taking the course, this is at least a start in an area they may not have
taken very seriously.
The formation leaders should take some concern to help those they are responsible for
to grow in this area. If possible, they should work with them to fill out the budget work-
sheet and to find time in their schedule for financial work. For those who have discipline
problems in other area of their Christian life, this will be a further area for discipline
problems. The formation leader may have to gradually work towards doing something
about financial responsibility with some of those they are responsible for. This is another
place where it is important to work with your supervisor on an approach to those having
discipline difficulties.
Most formation leaders will find it helpful to listen again to the talk “Faithfulness:
Managing Our Finances” or read the presentation of the content and comments section in
the teachers materials.
Other helps. All communities should be giving the basic community courses for for-
mation and initiations. Pastoral workers in initiations should be able to count on them and
189
mainly learn how to work with the courses in a good way. Many communities have other
resources. The most common are:
• Common state of life discernment meditations
• Financial management workshops
• Choice of occupation workshops
• Special workshops or accountability groups for sexual self-control
Where these are available, the formation leader should try to connect those they are
working with to them. If they are done well, the leaders of them should have added abil-
ity or training to work with new people in the area. Formation leaders should go through
these workshops themselves if they have not already, at least to understand how they
work. They should try to work with those they are responsible for as they are going
through these workshops.
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Year 3

reached in Years 1 and 2
3. Attending the remaining courses for initial for-

mation
Year 3 is mainly a continuation of Years 1 and 2. Most communities need a third year
to complete the formation in Christian maturity courses. Also, many of the people in the
program need more time to be ready for the underway commitment and to make adequate
progress in some of the personal changes they need to make.
There does not need to be three full years to complete the initial part of the formation
process, but there usually needs to be more than two.
While these things are happening, the pastoral worker should be working to achieve
the following pastoral goals.
1. Greater solidity in Christian living
2. Decision to begin underway formation
191
For most formation leaders, the pastoral goals for this year are the same as those in
Years 1 and 2. Some of those you are responsible for will just move through the for-
mation process without much difficulty. Most, however, will need ongoing work and en-
couragement.
The next section of this manual will begin the discussion of helping people to begin
underway formation.
192
Criteria to Go Underway
Criteria to Go Underway
1. They have taken the formation courses in Chris-

tian living (applied discipleship):
• Foundations Course 1
• Foundations Course 2
• Christian Personal Relationships and Emotions and the
Christian Life
– If possible also Fruit of the Spirit
2. They live the Christian life well.

a. They have reasonable self-discipline.
b. They accept our approach to entering a state of life and
have an initial plan for moving towards a state of life
and occupation.
c. They have good mutually supportive relationships in
the outreach or community and have found a good
place of service.
3. They have a desire to consider our community.

• Based on a good relational connection
• Based on a broad acceptance of our approaches and
trust in the community and its leaders
4. They have an understanding of the underway

commitment and have decided to make it.
Partway through the formation and initiations process, the new people need to make
an underway commitment. This is a temporary commitment to the community covenant.
We ask them, in short, to live the covenant for a period of time if they are interested in
becoming community members and use that time to discern if this is the right decision for
them to make.
193
The primary way we give the basic understanding for underway covenant commit-
ment is Foundations Course 3. Therefore new people should not be invited to take Foun-
dations 3 unless they meet most of the criteria for underway membership, and we think
they would be good community members.
The underway commitment may be placed at a variety of points within the process of
underway formation. It should not, however, be placed before the Our Call unit of Foun-
dations Course 3. It probably would work best after Church and Ecumenical Relations,
or after Our Way of Life.
It is common for people to change formation leaders when they change between the
stage of initial formation and the underway stage. This often occurs because the new
people leave the university and when that happens they often leave the outreach and
move into regular community life. If that is the case, the formation leader who worked
with them during the initial formation stage should be the primary one to get them to
make the transition to the new formation group and Foundations Course 3.
The criteria. Before people make the underway commitment we have to prepare them
so that they can make it well. There are two main things involved in this, as we can see in
pastoral criteria for moving on from stage 3. The first is that we have to help them to live
the Christian life well, that is, live as Christian disciples with reasonable consistency.
This means we need to help them to have basic Christian discipline (Christian order in
their spiritual disciplines, schedule and finances). We also need to help them to relate
well to other people in general, but especially in a Christian community context.
The key criteria for living the Christian life well are those expressed in the following
paragraph of SCO IV, 4: “For those who go through initiations, the process should nor-
mally last until the new members demonstrate ongoing faithfulness to the life of the
community and its order, and a stability and consistency in their Christian living. This
stability involves an ability to relate in a loving way with others, especially those they
live with and are close to, an ability to be faithful to responsibilities, and a regular prayer
life.”
By reasonable discipline, we understand the following elements as part of their daily,
weekly and yearly pattern of life:
• regularity in attendance at gatherings and courses, men’s/women’s groups, the
meeting with the pastoral leader
• having a daily time of personal prayer and scripture study
• a regular practice of making a schedule and budget with some discussion with
their pastoral leader and some effort to follow the schedule and budget.
A special area to be concerned about is their state of life. If they are single they
should have a good community approach to their state of life by the end of this period.
They should also be approaching their relationships with the opposite sex in a good way.
Normally they should have an initial state of life direction as well.
Second, they need to be ready to consider the community. Before the underway
commitment, we have only asked for seriousness about Christian formation. To make this
new step, we need to ask them to take a serious interest in community membership. After
194
being underway for a while they can still say it is not for them. We do, however, want
them to show serious interest in our community before they take this step. If they are not
sure or think they might want to join another group after they graduate or something of
the sort, we should let them remain in the formation process or move to the associate
commitment. We do not have to drop them, but we only want them to make an underway
commitment if they have a serious interest in our community because the underway peri-
od is designed to be a time of preparation to be part of it. If they are wavering, we can
have them go through Our Call and maybe Church and Ecumenical Relations, if the
cause of their uncertainty is church-related.
Those who move to an underway commitment should do so for good reasons. Some
will say they want to because it is the next step, but there should be more to it than that.
We should look at their involvement in the community and see if they have good rela-
tionships in the community and a place of fruitful service. They also should have a basic
acceptance of and trust in the community and its leadership. If they are not making a rea-
sonably good connection with the community, we should not have them take the next
step.
Some of those who are receiving formation with us will not want to go on. There may
be various reasons for that, some good and some bad. Some of them, especially those
who are with us during their university years, will be moving to a different location.
There are two other criteria in the list above. The first is that they have completed the
courses for the initial formation stage. This means that they should have a basic under-
standing of what goes into being a mature Christian disciple. This should normally be
accomplished before we recommend them for the underway stage. The second is that
they understand the underway commitment. This should happen at the beginning of the
underway stage. It will be treated more fully in the next section.
In line with the basic overview of the process of evangelism and formation, by the
time new people make the underway commitment, they should be a good ways towards
the final goal. They should be living a life of discipleship and be reasonably good com-
munity members if they are going to be ready to seriously consider committing them-
selves to our community in a long-term way and prepare for doing so well. This means
that they should have received most of the basic Christian formation we give even before
they begin the underway time.
Our work during Year 3 is to see that new people are ready to make the underway
commitment or if not help them to find another place to live as a Christian (or possibly to
become an associate member). Most of that is a matter of bringing them through the for-
mation process step by step. Part of it, however, is helping them make the right personal
decisions to move on to Christian discipleship and making good community connections
for them.
195
3.4 Underway Formation

The second stage of the initiations process is what we have termed the underway
stage, meaning that people in it are formally underway to community membership. In it
we orient them to our community and its way of life so that they can decide if they want
to live it. In the course of this stage, we ask them to make a temporary commitment to the
community covenant. We ask them, in short, to begin to live the covenant for a period of
time if they are interested in becoming community members and use that time to discern
if this is the right decision for them to make.
The underway stage is the time, then, in which we complete the formation process.
The main work of formation should have come in the previous stage. In this last stage, we
see that they get formation in our life as a community, enough to know what they will be
doing if they make the public commitment, and we complete anything left over from the
previous stage (usually some courses that they were not able to complete and some pasto-
ral tasks that need more work).
Once we are confident that they are ready to be members and once they have tenta-
tively agreed that they want to, we “hand them off” for their “solo flight”. In other words,
we transfer them to the main community pastoral care system so that we and they see if
they can live the life of our community without the special helps of the initiations pro-
cess. We also keep some regular informal contact with them afterwards to see if they are
continuing to do well. We are often in the best position to figure that out since we are the
ones who know them best.
Partway through the underway stage, usually by the end of the first year of being in it,
we expect them to be living the elements of good membership or at least moving towards
it. Those are explained to them in Our Way of Life (FC3). We do not expect them to live
all the elements of good membership at the beginning of the course or at the point they
make the underway commitment, but to live them more fully as they understand what is
involved.
• They should, however, normally be attending community events the same as full
members from the time of making the underway commitment.
• They should be moving towards full tithing by the time of making underway
commitment, even though it may take them some time to arrive there.
We expect them to be living all the elements at least by the last year of their under-
way period. This criterion is stated in SCO, IV, 4:
New members should also be living out the criteria for good community membership…in
a good spirit for a period of time before being allowed to commit themselves to the com-
munity covenant. These are the elements of our way of life as a community with the call
196
and mission we have. New members should likewise accept our vision and mission…as
part of their personal call and should seek to live their lives in support of it.
The underway members may be allowed exceptions to living some of the elements of
good membership for practical reasons, but they should not be given exceptions to living
them for reasons of neglect of them or disagreement with them.
Solo flight. The last period of people’s time underway should be their “solo flight” af-
ter having finished formation. They should be in a normal men’s or women’s group re-
ceiving the normal pastoral care. This means that there is a significant transition in their
life in the community at this point. This usually means that all except those who remain
in the outreach (formation district), usually because they are serving there, will have a
change in pastoral leader and men’s or women’s group.
197
Goals of the Underway Stage
Goals of the Underway Stage

Completing instruction
1. Completion of required instruction
Discipleship
2. A desire to be a dedicated disciple
Wanting to be a member of the community
3. Understanding and acceptance of our call, spiritu-
ality, and way of life (FC 3)
4. A decision to join our community or relocate to a

place where they can live a discipleship commit-
ment
Living the community life
5. Living reasonably well the covenant, the daily life
ideal, and the Elements of Good Membership – with
a communal spirit.
The underway period is a time of preparation for community membership. The focus
is understanding what we are (a community of disciples on mission in an international
community of communities) and what our way of life is. We want those who should be in
our community to decide to join and make a covenant commitment. We do not want
those who should not be to join anyway.
The underway period should be a time of further conversion to Christian discipleship.
Many will already be dedicated disciples as a result of initial formation. Some even came
to us that way. But many will need a further step, especially a deepening decision to “sell
all” for the sake of the Lord.
198
The underway period should be a time of instruction. The primary instruction is in the
nature of our community life (the material in Foundations Course 3) and in the way our
community life is conducted and how a full member should participate to be a “good citi-
zen” (the material in Foundations Course 4). Some of those underway will also need to
complete some of the instruction that they did not get in initial formation. Others will
profit from beginning to take some of the mini-courses on Stages and States of Life.
Finally, the underway period is a time of decision. It is a time of decision for the new
people as to whether they want to and are willing to commit themselves to the communi-
ty covenant and all that is involved in it. It is also a time of decision on the part of the
community pastoral leadership, as to whether the new people will live the community life
well. A major concern of the formation leaders working with people in the underway
process is seeking to get the decision-making process to work well.
For the required instruction, see p. 128. The items referred to above under living the
community life can be found in Community Membership. The covenant refers to the local
community covenant. For each community this is somewhat different, but there is a core
covenant for all communities in the SOS. This can be found in the Statement of Commu-
nity Order or in Community Membership.
The commitment. Our ultimate goal is full covenant membership in the community,
therefore getting people to make the public commitment (or failing that, getting people to
be part of something else or even be associates in the community). Once that happens the
initiations process ends and all of our responsibilities as initiations workers cease. We
have attained the goal for which we were working.
The commitment, however, is not an end in itself. People should not make the com-
mitment until they are ready (and able) to live it. The goal, then, is actually to help some-
one be a mature Christian disciple who is a responsible member of a community of disci-
ples on mission in an international community of communities (ours) and who takes an
active role in that life and mission — and is willing to commit himself or herself to do
that.
We should also keep in mind that our goal involves helping those in the underway
stage to come to a decision, one that they will then live out. We are looking for them to
make a voluntary commitment to be responsible members in our community. But we
want it to be a good decision. That means that they need to know what it means and
choose to do it. We do not want them to make that choice unless they are ready to live it.
That is why we are also looking to see that they live the covenant and criteria of member-
ship for a period of time before they make the commitment. That is the indicator they
know what they are doing and can do it.
As a broad outline, we can say that we are working toward having people reach the
point of being:
• Orthodox, moral Christians
• Christians with a strong personal relationship to the Lord
• Good members of our community
• Community members who are stable in their “state of life” commitments, living
those as good community members
199
• Strong Christian disciples who can keep their bearings in modern society.
Only if they are all these things can they live a Christian life effectively and happily be
part of a community of disciples on mission.
A short summary statement is not enough to go on in order to know the criteria for
completing a process of formation adequately. We need one that is more developed so we
can see more concretely what has to be present for the goal to have been reached. We can
look at The Elements of Good Membership to see the full description of what goes into it
(see the next section). Our goal is to get the people we are responsible for to fulfill those
criteria so that they can take the “solo flight”. At that point our active work as initiations
workers ceases, although we should be ready to help the people we have been responsible
for go through the process of deciding on the public commitment.
We should, then, keep people from making the public commitment if they are not
ready for it or if for any reason it is not right for them. Our goal is not to automatically
get everyone into the community — even the ones the Lord does not want there! In the
stage of initial formation, we should normally presuppose that our goal is to bring the
people we are working with to the community. In the underway stage our concern shifts
to being sure they really should be committed members.
200
The Elements of Good Membership

One of the more important tools for pastoral leaders, whether coordinators, senior
leaders, pastoral workers with covenanted members, or pastoral workers in initiations is
The Elements of Good Membership. The Elements gives us a summary of what it means
to be a good member of The Sword of the Spirit. It therefore gives us a summary of what
we should be aiming at in our pastoral care.
We go through the content of The Elements of Good Membership in Foundations
Course 3: Our Way of Life. That is the place where formation leaders can look to be clear
on the individual provisions, if they need further help. If pastoral workers in initiations
are beginning to work with people in the underway stage, they would be wise to listen to
the course again. Even better, they would be wise to read through the teacher’s materials
for the course, because that contains an approved explanation of the items in the course
and helpful pastoral comments.
In 1995–6, we asked the question: what is our way of life? What can we agree on as
integral to how we should live if we are going to be faithful to the call the Lord has given
us? The International Council at that time, now the International Assembly, drew up a
statement, The Elements of Good Membership, that summarized our way of life, and it
was passed in a referendum of all the community members in all the communities almost
unanimously. That statement can be found in the Statement of Community Order section
“Community Membership” and in Community Membership, the pamphlet that contains
our basics of membership that was approved by the 2006 International Assembly. Ac-
cording to the decision of that same Assembly, it should be taught to all new community
members.
The Elements of Good Membership has a number of important uses. It first of all is
useful to the community members. It tells new community members what they should be
doing if they want to join the community and live our life. It also tells covenanted mem-
bers what they should be doing to live our life well. If all community members under-
stand The Elements, the work of pastoral leaders should be easier, because both members
and leaders will have the same understanding of what we all should be doing.
The Elements of Good Membership is also useful for pastoral leaders. First of all, it is
a tool for determining if someone is ready to make the public commitment. New people
should be living the Elements before they commit themselves to the community cove-
nant. It therefore gives us a summary of things we need to be concerned with in the initia-
tions process.
The Elements also is a tool that can be used to help in pastoral care of covenanted
members, because it gives pastoral leaders a way of reviewing what they should take a
concern for. We do not have to take a concern for whether someone is getting adequate
exercise, although fraternal encouragement to do so would not be out of place, but we do
have to take a concern for whether someone attends the community gatherings. Finally, it
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is a tool that allows us to tell if people may no longer be living the life of the community
adequately and so need to change to remain in the community.
Our way of life contains much that is simply basic Christianity, because we are a
Christian community. To be a member of the community, for instance, we have to be-
lieve the creed and keep the commandments. Much of The Elements of Good Member-
ship, then, all Christians would subscribe to. But the Elements contains other things as
well. For instance, to be a good member of the community we have to be part of a men or
women’s group. We can hunt the scriptures or church history, and we will not find any-
one holding that people need to be part of a men or women’s group to be good Christians.
That is special to our community commitment.
We do not include participation in men and women’s groups in The Elements of Good
Membership because we are trying to add things to Christianity. Rather we include it be-
cause we are a people who are determined to live our Christianity effectively in the mod-
ern world. Most of us do not live in a society where our environment supports us in living
our Christianity. Moreover, we live in a rapidly changing technological society that
makes it harder to live any pattern of life, including a Christian one. As a result, if we are
going to be consistent disciples, disciples who live all of Christianity in an ongoing way,
we need some helps, helps that Christians in the past did not always need in the same
way.
First, we need some teaching and practices that allow us to live Christianity effective-
ly in our modern circumstances. Our teaching on family life is an example of the kind of
teaching we need. Participating in men and women’s groups is an example of the kind of
practices we need.
Second, we need stable relationships. We need other people with whom we can live
our Christian lives, because Christianity is communal, not individualistic like most of the
society around us. To be good Christians, we are supposed to love our brothers and sis-
ters in the Lord. We also need other Christians for support, Christians who understand the
importance of supporting one another and know how to do it.
Third, we need a group of people with whom we can do outreach for effective Chris-
tian service. If we are going to be a missionary people, we normally need to work with
others. Moreover, if we are going to be effective in mission, those people have to want to
work for the same things we want to work for and be willing to work together.
All these are things all Christians who want to be consistent disciples of Christ need,
even if they do not know it. In fact, there are other communities and community-like
groups that provide the same things. We are, however, in addition a people who have
been called by God to be and do something in the world today, “in a time like this”. In
order to fulfill that call, there are some things we need to do that other Christians with a
different call do not need to do, and the most important of those are included in our Ele-
ments of Good Membership.
We have two kinds of elements of good membership. One is our basics of member-
ship and the other is our community norms. The basics of membership state the things we
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need to do to be a member of the community. They boil down to the fact that we need to
be Christians (orthodox, moral, converted, ecumenical Christians) and that that we need
to participate in our community the way it is set up to function. The community norms
state what we need to do to live our way of life, the way of life taught in our initiations
courses and hopefully lived out in our lives.
Both our basics of membership and our community norms are important. If we want
to be good members of our community, we should do both. We can, in fact, make excep-
tions for many items in both of them for good reasons. We cannot make exceptions to
orthodoxy or morality, but we can make exceptions for attending community gatherings
— for health reasons, for instance. Nonetheless, we are committed to doing all of them if
we can.
In the Statement of Community Order we have guidance for pastoral leaders about the
relative importance of various elements — which ones, for instance, are so important that
people just need to do them or they cannot stay in the community. We also have guidance
for when and how to make exceptions and how to work with various situations where
members are not living all the elements, sometimes for good reasons. We also have a use-
ful write-up on Applying the Elements of Good Membership. Senior leaders should be
familiar with these; ideally all pastoral leaders should. The Elements is a tool for pastoral
work, but a tool we need some skill in using well, so that we can help all the members of
the community live our way of life as fully as they can in the circumstances they are in.
The Elements of Good Membership, then, is important to our work as pastoral leaders.
In a certain way, it authorizes our pastoral care. We have all committed ourselves volun-
tary to being members of our community and doing what is involved in that membership.
We therefore can call one another on to live our life, including all the elements. Every
member can call any other member on (and hopefully we do so in our men and women’s
groups), but pastoral leaders have a special responsibility to try to help those they are re-
sponsible for to live our way of life. When we make our underway or public commit-
ment, we ask for such help.
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The Underway Commitment
The underway commitment is the foundation for the underway stage of the formation
and initiations process. It is intended to clarify for those who enter the underway stage
what is expected of them. It is the occasion for new people to make a solid decision to
enter into a period of discernment as to whether they should make a commitment to full
membership.
The Underway Commitment
1. A commitment to the community covenant —

community membership on a temporary basis.
2. Gradually implementing all the Elements of Good

Membership.
The timing of the commitment. In order for new people to make the underway com-
mitment in a good way, they should understand what they are being asked to do. They
should not be asked to make the commitment before they have gone through Our Call,
the first of the courses in Foundations Course 3. When this is given in a retreat format, it
can be a very powerful experience and lead to a conviction about moving towards com-
munity membership. Many communities do not ask new people to make the commitment
until they have completed all of Foundations Course 3. At that point, they should under-
stand more fully the basics of what they are expected to do.
The nature of the commitment. The nature of the commitment does not change from
the initial commitment. Underway members can end the commitment at any time they
choose, and we can have them stop being in formation any time we choose. Both sides,
however, are entering upon this period with the expectation that this is likely the first step
to a long-term commitment. The commitment is explained fully in the talk “Entering Un-
derway Membership” (see 2.180.2 FC3 Our Way of Life, Teachers).
The approach to gradual implementation of the Elements is explained in the section
on Underway Formation above (p. 196).
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Preparation for making the commitment. Previous to making the commitment, new
people should have been given a vision of what it is to be a committed community mem-
ber, a disciple on mission. As stated above, this means they should at least have gone
through Our Call and maybe all of Foundations Course 3.
The pastoral worker responsible should have discussed with them the nature of the
underway commitment, especially:
– that they are expected to be seriously interested in being a member of the commu-
nity long-term, although they do not have to have decided that they intend to be
– that they are expected to approach the teaching of the community as something
they will put into practice, partly so that they can experience what it will be to be
a community member.
The commitment itself. The actual covenant of the local community can be used as the
underway commitment. If that is done, the statement of covenant commitment should in-
clude the phrase “while underway” or something similar. A special underway commit-
ment could be written instead.
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Underway A
What Should Happen in Underway A

Ongoing Involvement in the Formation Program
reached in initial formation
New Elements in the Formation Program

Underway A is a period of active formation. It should take as long as is needed, usu-

ally at least a year.
The change in the dynamics of the formation program should not be major. The con-
text, however, at times changes. In some communities the people in the underway process
move from the outreach context to the community context when they go underway. Of-
ten, however, they have moved into a formation district or have begun to attend commu-
nity events even before starting the underway period. In this case, the change in context
will not be as major. This latter approach is preferable if it can be arranged well practical-
ly. The more overlap there is in environment and relationship, the more likely it is that
the new people will make the transition well.
The chief change in the formation program is a change in the focus of the instruction.
Formation in Christian Maturity should have been completed (for most). Now Formation
in Community Life has begun.
During this time, the formation leader should be working to achieve the following
pastoral goals.
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Pastoral Goals for Underway A
1. A desire to be a dedicated disciple
2. Understanding and acceptance of our call, spiritu-

ality, and way of life (FC3)
3. Living reasonably well the covenant, the daily life

ideal, and the Elements of Good Membership – with
a communal spirit.
The underway period is intended to be a time for personal formation for living the
rest of life in our community. In some ways it will seem to the new people primarily as a
time of learning and coming to grips with our way of life. However, the process of for-
mation in the underway period should be based on a growth in dedicated discipleship.
The foundation for commitment to a life of discipleship should have been laid in the
period of initial formation. With the course on Our Call, the call to discipleship should be
emphasized and taught in a new way. We are a community that is serious about living as
disciples. The formation leaders will tend to find his main attention drawn to the specifics
of living our way of life. They should not, however, fail to focus on the discipleship
commitment as well.
Perhaps the chief vehicle for pastoral care in discipleship during this period is disci-
pleship decisions. Underway members should be going through a time of vocation deci-
sion and orientation. This began in the stage of initial formation, especially in Founda-
tions Course 2, but many decisions become final during the underway stage, not only the
decision about community commitment, but also the decisions involved in state of life
and occupation.
As underway members work through various personal issues, especially those pre-
sented in Our Way of Life, they need to make practical discipleship decisions. In various
areas of life, they need to decide whether living for the advancement of Christ’s kingdom
is the chief determinant of their lives or whether they simply will settle for “adding the
pearl of great price to their pearl collection”. The more the formation leader can perceive
when such a decision has become a focus for growth in discipleship, the better chance
they have to help the underway member perceive what the personal issue is at root and
encourage them to choose for full discipleship.
Underway members during this period are often ready to make long-term decisions,
both in the state of life area and the occupation area. If they are going to move towards
marriage, the formation leader should help them decide when they are ready to start. If
207
they are ready, he should discuss with his supervisor the best option for the underway
member to begin the courtship seminar. If they are in the process of making occupational
decisions, he should help them to determine the effect of the decision on community
membership and on Christian discipleship. Often an older community member in the oc-
cupational field the underway members are considering with be the best person to give
them counsel about the decisions they need to make.
In terms of time, perhaps the bulk of our pastoral care will and should go to under-
standing our life, especially our way of life, and implementing it. Here is one of the plac-
es where the men’s and women’s group and the one-on-one session needs to involve
practical discussion about whether and how the underway members are putting into prac-
tice what they are being taught. Most of it will not be new to them. But many if not most
will have settled into an approach to areas like regular prayer, financial contribution, re-
lating to the opposite sex that is not up to covenant standards.
When new people are in initial formation, pastoral leaders are often inclined to be
more easygoing with good standards of how to live as a Christian, usually because their
chief concern was to win the new people to a dedicated Christian life and eventually to
community membership. In the underway period a new approach is appropriate. The
formation leaders still need to be concerned to win the underway members to the kind of
Christian commitment they should be living, but they also need to work with them to ful-
fill all the standards. Most likely they will continue to live at the level that they attained
during the underway period for the rest of their life in the community. For some, that is
what has been described as “ongoing deficiency”.
Underway A is also the time when the underway members should reach a decision to
move to community membership or not. For many it will be an easy decision to move
forward. For some it will not. This is a place where the formation leader will need to in-
vest some personal care, sometimes a substantial amount. The underway members are,
after all, deciding what the rest of their life will be like.
Our goal as pastoral leaders is not simply to get people to join the community. Our
goal is also to help those who will not join to find a place where they can get the support
they need to live as dedicated a Christian life as possible. Often they will be more san-
guine about getting that to happen than is realistic, especially if they tend to think “a good
parish” or “a good church” will do the job. The formation leader, therefore, should try to
go over with them the options they are seriously considering and help them to judge
whether they will get what is needed.
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Underway B
What Should Happen in Underway B

reached in underway A
2. Moving from the formation program to regular

community care (beginning the “solo flight”)

4. Deciding to be a full community member
Underway B begins when underway members move out of the formation program to
ordinary community care, and begin to live community membership. It is notably also the
time when formation leaders have finished their work, and a new pastoral worker, a pas-
toral worker for covenanted members, begins to work with the new person. It is in addi-
tion the time when the underway member finally decides to become a full community
member and make the public commitment, or decides to do something else.
We speak of last period of their time underway as the underway member’s “solo
flight” after having finished formation. They should be in a normal men or women’s
group receiving the normal pastoral care. They should, in other words, “fly the plane” by
themselves, without a formation leader next to them.
We recommend that the underway member’s last formation leader keep informal con-
tact with the new member. The last formation leader is probably the best person to pick
up whether the transition to ordinary community life is going well and also is probably
the best person to help if the underway member is having difficulty in making the com-
mitment.
There usually will be a number of people who have completed their formation but
stay in the formation district in order to serve in the formation process. For them it helps
if their men’s and women’s groups are with others in the same position. In addition, their
pastoral leaders need to help them with the Underway B stage.
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During this time, the pastoral workers should be working to achieve the following
pastoral goals:
Pastoral Goals for Underway B
1. Establishment in normal community membership
2. Completion of all required instruction that has not

yet been completed
– Beginning to take the appropriate mini-courses for
stages and state of life
3. Acceptance of our approach to governing commu-

nity life (presented in Foundations Course 4)
4. Personal preparation for public commitment
The transition to normal community membership. For the pastoral worker in initia-
tions, the formation leader, the Underway B period is mainly a matter of transition to a
new pastoral worker and a new environment. The formation leader needs to effectively
“pass the baton” in a good way. As in a relay race, that means not letting the baton go
without being confident that it is securely in the hand of the person receiving the baton.
In the case of the pastoral transition, that means not letting go of responsibility for those
we have been working with until we are confident that the new relationship is going well.
Sometimes, there is a gap left between the time the formation leader is taking respon-
sibility for the new person and the time the pastoral worker for covenant members begins
to take it on. This is a notable mistake. The formation leader should see that the men’s or
women’s group and the one-on-one pastoral session is ready to begin before letting the
new person go.
The formation leader and the new pastoral worker should both make sure that they
have time to communicate about the person being transferred. The new pastoral worker
should know where the new person is in the process of moving forward and what still
needs to happen. The two pastoral workers should probably meet close to the time of
transition, ideally a bit before, and then again after the new pastoral worker has gotten to
know the underway member. Only after working with the new people for a while will the
new pastoral workers understand well what is being said about the person.
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The difference between the pastoral care given in the formation process and that giv-
en in the normal community context is described in the section on the kinds of pastoral
care we give (p. 47). Both the formation leader and the pastoral worker for covenanted
members should be familiar with the difference. They should review this section of the
manual (or read it for the first time), so that they can help the new person adapt to the
change in approach.
Completing required instruction. It is up to the new pastoral workers to complete the

process of initiations. Hopefully they will not need to make up missing personal for-
mation. On the other hand, often the new people have not completed all the required in-
struction, and the new pastoral workers need to see that they do so. In addition, if the new
people have completed the required instruction, it would be good to get them to start tak-
ing the stages and states of life mini-courses that would help them in the stage of single
life or family life that they are in.
There is one final piece of required instruction that is not supposed to be given until
Underway B, usually towards the end of it, namely, Foundations Course 4, Living in
Christian Community. The new pastoral worker needs to keep in contact with how well
the underway members are going through it. For some of the underway members, most of
it will not be new, and they will have already accepted how things are done in the com-
munity. For some, however, it will raise some issues, and either the pastoral workers
should work through them with the ones they are responsible for, or discuss with their
supervisor how to get any needed help.
Preparation for public commitment. The last pastoral goal is helping the new people
prepare for public commitment. This should be a spiritual preparation, so they make the
public commitment in a spirit of offering their lives to the Lord as his disciples. Some
people make a retreat at this point. Some go through a series of meditations. Many com-
munities have a special approach.
Normally after public commitment the new people keep the same pastoral worker
they had in Underway B and the same men’s and women’s group.
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Criteria for Public Commitment
Criteria for Public Commitment
1. They want to live (1) a dedicated Christian life (2) as a

member of the community.
2. They should have lived the covenant and the Elements

of Good Membership for at least a year.
3. They should have completed all the initiations

courses.
For practical reasons (usually either the inability of the community to give all the
courses in a timely manner or the complexities of their schedule), those desiring to make
a public commitment may be allowed by exception to take some of the courses after the
commitment.
The indicators of readiness.

1. The basic statement in the SCO (IV, 4) that describes the criteria is as follows:
“Those who are brought into the community must leave a life which involves serious
sin and enter into a life of following Christ. Before they can be fully received as part
of the community and fully responsible members of it, they should:
• have come to genuine faith in Christ and in his work in their life;
• have turned away from all serious wrongdoing and turned to obedience in
Christ;
• have been delivered from all serious bondage to evil spirits;
• have been baptized, dying and rising in Christ, and have been sealed in the
Holy Spirit;
• have come to a genuine experience of the presence and power and gifts of the
Holy Spirit in their life;
• have been taught a basic understanding of Christian truth and Christian life;
• have been led to an ongoing life of prayer and communion with God;
• have been led to a righteousness of life, and to a maturity of Christian charac-
ter;
212
• have been brought into a living relationship with the community, showing a
genuine love and service towards their brothers and sisters;
• have been brought to a loyalty to the body and an appropriate submission to
those over them in the body.
“New members should also be living out the criteria for good community mem-
bership…in a good spirit for a period of time before being allowed to commit them-
selves to the community covenant. These are the elements of our way of life as a
community with the call and mission we have. New members should likewise accept
our vision and mission…as part of their personal call and should seek to live their
lives in support of it.”
For those who go through initiations, the process should normally last until the
new members demonstrate ongoing faithfulness to the life of the community and its
order, and a stability and consistency in their Christian living. This stability involves
an ability to relate in a loving way with others, especially those they live with and are
close to, an ability to be faithful to responsibilities, and a regular prayer life.
2. We are looking for a steadiness of conviction that indicates future faithfulness. The
best indicator is steadiness in living as a member of the community for more than a
year previous to deciding to make the public commitment. Some nervousness about
making the commitment is to be expected, but if someone is truly unsettled about
making the commitment, they should not make it. If someone has decided not to
make it during the underway period and then has decided to, they should have re-
solved that uncertainty in an appropriate way.
3. We do not, however, have to invite people if we think they are not ready, even though
they meet the criteria objectively. Normally the coordinator responsible, their current
pastoral leader (and sharing group leader) and the pastoral leader who completed their
formation should be in agreement that they are ready.
Preparation for Making the Public Commitment

1. Those preparing to make the public commitment should have the commitment
well explained to them by going through the Living in Christian Community
course.
2. They should also take a period of final discernment (a week or so) in which they
prayerfully consider the decision they have already made.
3. Their coordinator should discuss with them the commitment, ascertaining if they
desire to live the covenant, including all the elements of good membership.
– Unless the initial discussion reveals no significant problems or questions, he
should meet with them at least twice. At the end of the first interview he
should tell them anything he thinks they should consider, and in the second
one he should discuss with them their response to his input.
– They should be sharing about the upcoming commitment and the process of
preparation in their men’s group or women’s group. The leader of the group
should see that they get a chance in the meetings to do so and to receive fra-
ternal input. The leader should also try to ascertain if they have conveyed ade-
213
quately to the coordinator where they are in regard to the commitment (state
of readiness, interior acceptance) and if not encourage them to do so.
– If their pastoral leader is different than the leader of their men’s or women’s
group, he or she should also discuss the commitment with them and especially
pay attention to whether the person making the commitment has communicat-
ed adequately to the coordinator.
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3.5 Covenant Membership

In order to become a full community member, new members should make the public
commitment by giving a verbal commitment to the covenant at a gathering of the whole
community. The public commitment is a promise to the whole community to live as one
of them. In receiving them into the covenant commitment, the current community mem-
bers are themselves making a commitment to relate to the new members in terms of the
common covenant.
The elements of the covenant commitment are stated in the community covenant.
They are explicated in the Elements of Good Membership.
Nature of the commitment. Our commitment together is a serious commitment, in-

tended to create a stable relationship among brothers and sisters in the Lord. We therefore
desire to have it be a lifelong commitment. At the same time, we recognize that it is not
always possible to maintain a permanent commitment in communities like ours in the
modern world. In other words, while recognizing that good reasons may come up for end-
ing the commitment, those making the public commitment should do so with the inten-
tion of its being lifelong.
The responsibility for allowing someone to make a public commitment rests with the
Community Council, although the community coordinator responsible for those making
the commitment needs to recommend them.
215
Public commitment
This ends the formation and initiations process.
216
The Real Goal
One goal guides all that we do. We want a community of disciples on mission, and
we want as many people to be part of it as are willing and able to give their lives to Lord
as disciples on mission in our community.
To be good initiations workers, we need zeal for God’s kingdom. We want God to
fully reign in the people we are responsible for and we want them to give their lives for
the advancement of God’s kingdom. We are not just doing a job. We are not even just
improving the world or helping people. We are working to fulfill our daily prayer, “Thy
kingdom come!”
The real ultimate goal is not here on earth. It is God being all in all, everything to
everyone (1 Cor 15:28). It is having people on Christ’s right hand when he comes in glo-
ry (Matt 25:31–34). It probably will include the side benefit of joy at the realization that
we contributed to some of them being there.
217
4. Special: Guide for Pas-

toral Workers With Mar-
ried People in Formation
To be completed
218
5. Guide for Pastoral

Workers With Covenanted
Members
To be completed
See section “1.2 The Personal Care We Give” (on p. 44 above) for some help for this
area of pastoral care. At the moment (2015) the main resources are in the pastoral ap-
proach courses.
219
Reference: Common Materials
220
The Wheel
The wheel represents your life as a Christian.13

The rim of the wheel represents your daily life. As the rim revolves
around the hub. you move forward.
The hub of the wheel is Christ. The hub of a wheel is the source of
power and direction for the whole wheel. Christ is the source of power and
direction for your life.
Spokes transmit the power and direction from the hub to the rim. As
long as the rim is in contact with the hub through the spokes, it can move
forward. Some spokes for your Christian life are:
prayer
study (of God’s word)
community (life shared with other Chris-
tians)
service
Growth comes from Christ. who gives you a new life. But you need to
do things which will keep you in contact with him:
pray every day
study God’s word regularly
meet with other Christians for prayer and
sharing regularly
find a means of Christian service, espe-
cially find a way to share the life you
have been given
13
The above comes from Finding New Life in the Spirit.
221
Appendix: Our Spirituality

As disciples of the Lord, we seek to live orthodox Christianity in its fullness. In re-
sponse to our call and our covenant commitment, we live our Christian lives in a way that
expresses our call and vision and makes them effective in our circumstances. We there-
fore have a spirituality that expresses the life the Lord has called us to live in the world
today.
Our Spirituality (Ecumenical)
Ours is:
Characteristics Drawn from Our Identity
• A Discipleship Spirituality
We have given our lives fully to God and radically follow our Lord
Jesus Christ, so that all we are and do might be for the glory of
God and further his kingdom.
• A Communitarian Spirituality
We live our Christian lives in covenant with and for Christian
brothers and sisters.
• A Missionary Spirituality
We seek to live our Christian lives in the way that most promotes
the advancement of the kingdom of God and the salvation of all
people.
Other Foundational Characteristics
• A God-centered Trinitarian Spirituality

We seek to have our lives centered on God the Father by living
under the lordship of Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit.
We do so by praising and worshipping him, by living in obedience
to him, and by serving to extend his kingdom.
222
• A Scriptural and Orthodox Spirituality

We seek to have our lives formed by the word of God in scripture
so that we believe it and do it in the way orthodox Christian
churches have understood it through the centuries.
• A Charismatic Spirituality
We seek to live for God and to worship in a way that is formed by
his word but also empowered by his Spirit, who gives us the ability
to live what we are called to and who equips us for worship and
service.
• A “Lay” Spirituality
We seek to live our Christian life with Christian character all day
long in all the circumstances of life and to be a leaven for the
world; and we seek to do so according to the vocation the Lord has
given us, young or old, male or female, married or single, lay or
clerical.
• An Ecumenically Convergent Spirituality

We seek to live our Christian life in a way that will further the uni-
ty of God’s people, seeking to find a convergent way of expressing
our Christian life in harmony with our church identity.
223
Our Spirituality
As disciples of the Lord, we seek to live orthodox Christianity in its Catholic fullness.
In response to our call and our covenant commitment, we live our Christian lives in a
way that expresses our call and vision and makes them effective in our circumstances.
We therefore have a spirituality that expresses the life the Lord has called us to live in the
world today.
Our Spirituality (Catholic)
Ours is:
Characteristics Drawn from Our Identity
• A Discipleship Spirituality
We have given our lives fully to God and radically follow our Lord
Jesus Christ, so that all we are and do might be for the glory of
God and further his kingdom.
• A Communitarian Spirituality
We live our Christian lives in covenant with and for Christian
brothers and sisters.
• A Missionary Spirituality
We seek to live our Christian lives in the way that most promotes
the advancement of the kingdom of God and the salvation of all
people.
Other Foundational Characteristics
• A God-centered Trinitarian Spirituality

We seek to have our lives centered on God the Father by living
under the lordship of Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit.
We do so by praising and worshipping him, by living in obedience
to him, and by serving to extend his kingdom.
224
• A Scriptural and Orthodox Spirituality

We seek to have our lives formed by the word of God in scripture
so that we believe it and do it in the way the Catholic Church has
interpreted it through the centuries.
• A Charismatic Spirituality
We seek to live for God and to worship in a way that is formed by
his word but also empowered by his Spirit, who gives us the ability
to live what we are called to and who equips us for worship and
service.
• A “Lay” Spirituality
We seek to live our Christian life with Christian character all day
long in all the circumstances of life and to be a leaven for the
world; and we seek to do so according to the vocation the Lord has
given us, young or old, male or female, married or single, lay or
clerical.
• An Ecumenically Convergent Spirituality

We seek to live our Christian life in a way that will further the uni-
ty of God’s people, seeking to find a convergent way of expressing
our Christian life in harmony with our Catholic identity.
• A Liturgical Spirituality
We seek to pray and worship God in accord with the liturgy of the
church and to draw spiritual life from celebration of the liturgy.
225
The Formation Commitment
Over the years we have learned that the formation program will not be very ef-
fective and you will not be able to consider belonging to the community unless you
do certain things while you are in formation. The following are the things we are
asking you to commit yourself to:
1. Attend the formation group meeting when it meets
2. Take the courses for those in formation groups
3. Meet with a formation leader (mentor) regularly
4. Attend outreach gatherings and retreats regularly
5. Contribute financially to the outreach
6. Do some service for the outreach
7. Take a time for daily personal prayer and scripture reading or

study, and attend church regularly if you belong to one.
Some of the things on the above list are a matter of participation in the for-
mation program itself. Others are things we ask for so that you take an active part
in the outreach. Much of the benefit of the formation program will come from par-
ticipating in the life of the outreach and learning how to do that well.
You are free at any point to stop being part of the formation program. We only
ask that you tell us when you decide that. In the meantime, however, we are asking
you to do the above things faithfully.
226
The Formation Commitment (Affiliate)
Over the years we have found that the formation program will not be very effec-
tive and you will not be able to consider belonging to the community unless you do
certain things while you are in formation. The following are the things we are asking
you to commit yourself to:
1. Attend the formation group meeting when it meets
2. Take the courses for those in formation groups
3. Meet with a formation leader (mentor) regularly
4. Attend outreach gatherings and retreats regularly

Attend one community gathering a month and major events as
able
5. Contribute financially to the outreach or the community
6. Do some service for the outreach or the community
7. Take a time for daily personal prayer and scripture reading or

study, and attend church regularly if you belong to one.
Some of the things on the above list are a matter of participation in the for-
mation program itself. Others are things we ask for so that you take an active part
in the outreach and the community. Much of the benefit of the formation program
will come from participating in the life of the outreach and the community and
learning how to do that well.
You are free at any point to stop being part of the formation program. We only
ask that you tell us when you decide that. In the meantime, however, we are asking
you to do the above things faithfully.
227
The Christian Use of Media

Finally, brothers whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure,
whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable — if anything is excellent or praiseworthy — think
about such things (Phil. 4:8).
I will walk with integrity of heart within my house; I will not set before my eyes anything
that is base (Ps. 101:2-3).
...Present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God... and do not be con-
formed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove
what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect (Rom. 12:1-2).
Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up (1 Cor. 8:1b).
Media. “Media” means “means of communication” (e.g., television, radio, newspa-

pers, websites, etc.). Here we are not concerned with use of our own media (producing a
movie, web page, etc.), but with media that someone else produces for us to use, especial-
ly products that are made available commercially.
General view. The use of media is an important area for Christians to handle well to-
day. While media has a potential for good and can be used for Christian purposes, it also
has a great potential for damage or simply disorientation. Media in all its forms has an
impact on us, and none of it is “neutral”. It therefore needs to be approached with Chris-
tian wisdom.
Some of the difficulty the media causes comes from its content. Much of it is immor-
al, worldly, and ideologically loaded. It often motivates us to do wrong or to live less
dedicated Christian lives, or it shapes our outlook on life in a way that leads away from a
Christian vision and perspective. This is compounded by the fact that the media normally
has a high impact.
Much media has sexually or romantically stimulating material. It arouses us sexually
or moves us romantically more or less automatically. Such media therefore needs to be
avoided by those who wish to live in Christian chastity.
Media can also induce irrational fear and anxiety. News media can often develop such
fear, because it tends to report on crime, violence, accidents, and possible dangers. The
“horror genre” contributes as well.
The media, however, also causes difficulty because of the time it absorbs, the way it
can interrupt social activities, the way it can substitute passive entertainment for active
entertainment, and the way it can intrude on our lives, inducing us to use or be affected
by it without our conscious decision to do so. It is also expensive, absorbing much of our
resources that could be put to other uses.
Approach. We wish to take an approach to media and entertainment that maximizes

the benefits and minimizes the harms to our Christian life. Our use of media should be
228
guided by good Christian purposes. It should also be moderate in extent. We need to

practice temperance and self-control in media use. Our approach to the media should be
shaped by a few general principles:
1) We should, as much as possible, relate to the media by conscious decision and not
fall into using it indiscriminately.
2) We should use media for good reasons: for education, information, and appropri-
ate entertainment.
3) If possible, we should avoid media that is immoral or harmful. We should only
use media that we have a reasonable confidence will be acceptable unless we have
a good reason to take a risk.
4) We should limit our use of media to times when it would be helpful to use for ed-
ucation, information, or entertainment.
5) We should stay within our budget for purchase of media and entertainment.
Special situations. Families with older children who are coming into the community
or are in a community that has recently decided to take a more careful approach to media
should be slower in moving toward a more moderate use of media, not changing all at
once.
Some people are addicted to media in general or certain kinds of media and need help
to free themselves. The addiction often takes the form of “being in the know about” or
“being up on” specific things (current events, sports, fashions, the latest entertainment,
etc.).
Media and children. Media can have a significant effect on children. Visual experi-
ences can imprint themselves on the minds of children and can produce lasting effects.
Media can also give them a sense of life and of how people relate to one another that is
unreal or unhealthy.
Parents should monitor what comes into the house or what their children are watching
and listening to. They should discuss the media with their children, helping them to eval-
uate the content well and to approach their use of it wisely.
Parents should limit their children’s use of media and should not yield to the tempta-
tion to use it too often as a babysitter.
Parents should be proactive, seeking to find good media for their children. They
should read good literature to their children. They should also encourage them to read,
and to read books that are educational and not just entertaining.
Recommendations for Some Uses of Media

Entertainment
• Entertainment can be helpful for social interaction, a way to motivate and educate
ourselves and others, a means of rest and recreation, and media can contribute to
these goals. Alternate forms of socializing or recreation are often possible and
should be considered before automatically deciding on using media.
229
• Entertainment can be excessive (more than is helpful) or can be an escape from

relationships or responsibility. Much of the need we feel for relaxation can often
be handled by change of pace, unpressured work, exercise, social interaction,
prayer, spiritual or other helpful reading.
• We should avoid problematic entertainment, entertainment that is immoral, ideo-
logically slanted, or that is depressing, anxiety producing, anger producing, stimu-
lating of worldly and unhelpful desires.
• Common entertainment is best, although there can be a legitimate need in modern
society for “time off” from people.
• It is worth investing some effort in finding good entertainment. Sometimes this
involves learning how to use or appreciate particular kinds of entertainment.
When possible, entertainment should accomplish other good purposes: spiritual,
educational, cultural.
• When we eliminate problematic entertainment, we should seek to replace it with
constructive use of time. This can involve more positive, helpful entertainment,
but can also involve using time for purposes other than entertainment.
Information
• The needs of individuals for news vary according to situation in life. Because of
such factors as employment, service, evangelism, etc., some of us need more
news, some less.
• It is better not to get into the habit of constant news intake. It can be addictive.
We should limit the frequency of intake.
• We have to be aware that news is often unreliable and ideologically slanted. We
are being propagandized by it and can be affected without realizing it.
• We should avoid following special dramatic events in the news, partly because
they can take over our time and attention without our realizing it and partly be-
cause they can induce us to slacken our discipline on use of media.
Christian media
• Christian as well as secular media can be problematic. Some Christian media is
unorthodox, and some actually encourages immorality. More commonly, Chris-
tian media is often affected by secular influences, and those influences can be
harder to spot, because they come in a Christian cloak.
• Christian media has the same drawbacks as secular media in the time it absorbs,
the way it interrupts social activities, the way it substitutes passive entertainment
for active entertainment, and the way it intrudes on our lives without our noticing
it.
Recommendations for Various Kinds of Media

Television, radio and some internet
• Television, radio, and some internet provide steady programming. If we turn them
on and leave them on, we are receiving a steady stream of material without mak-
ing a choice about what we are taking in.
230
• We should only watch television or listen to the radio in limited quantity (so many
hours per week). We would do better to watch or listen only when there is a good
reason to do so. It is fine to never watch television or listen to radio.
• We should select shows based on their particular merits, especially those that are
educational or that motivate us to live in a better way.
• When television can be eliminated in a home without causing worse difficulties,
doing so should be considered, because it is difficult to handle. Only using VCRs
or DVDs is another alternative that can be considered, because they are more easi-
ly used in a limited and selective way.
• Relational uses are best (i.e., when a group of people can watch something to-
gether and interact about it).
• In avoiding objectionable material, we should pay attention to commercials as
well.
Magazines
• Magazines are much like television and radio in that they provide a steady stream
of material.
• We should have a limited supply of magazines in our homes, and they should be
ones that can be relied upon to be free from objectionable material.
• News magazines have an advantage over news on the television or radio, because
the news input is easier to limit and because we can more easily select the maga-
zine by the approach to the news that it contains.
Music: CDs, DVDs, tapes, radio

• Various forms of media allow us to have music playing constantly. Such music
presents difficulties because of content, but music itself can have various effects
on us (it can affect our emotional states or our ability to control ourselves or our
thoughts).
• Popular music is constantly changing, and so it is hard to keep up with. In addi-
tion, to keep up with it often involves listening to objectionable material. Classical
music, especially older classical music, is easier to handle, although it is not prob-
lem-free.
• We should not have music playing all the time.
• We should not listen to much modern popular secular music (the lyrics are hard to
forget and they often have spiritually bad effects).
• We should not let radio or players interfere with relational time (e.g., we should
not play the car radio or stereo instead of talking with someone else in the car).
• We should be selective. We should play tapes and records we pick out rather than
listen to whatever is available. We should find stations or programs that are pre-
dominantly good or acceptable.
Books
• We should select books on their merits. We should only read acceptable books
(morally and religiously), unless a book is necessary to read for some purpose.
We should not normally read a book unless we know in advance that it is appro-
231
priate and worthwhile, usually on the recommendation of reviewers or friends we

trust.
• We should not read a book for entertainment unless we have a reasonable expec-
tation that it does not contain immoral or harmful material. We should put away
books when we discover objectionable content in them (even if we want to know
“how it came out”).
• Reading for entertainment (as distinguished from reading for education or needed
information) should be limited and not replace relational activities.
Movies and audio presentations

• The guidelines here are similar to those for books.
Video games
• The guidelines here are similar to books and movies. Video games can have ob-
jectionable content (focusing us on sex, violence, occult), stimulating greed, etc.
They can also be harder to control in regard to the way they take our time.
Internet
• The internet can be helpful in many ways, including giving us access to Christian
helps that we could not easily get otherwise, but it can be addictive and can be a
source of bad materials.
• We should avoid indiscriminate browsing.
• Computers at home should be in a public place, where others can notice what is
on the screen.
• Particular areas that need watching: personal email, chat rooms, pornography.
• Parents should get a good server-based filter.
232

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The Leaders Manual

Pastoral Approach Document

A System of Elements ...................................................................................................... 87

Our Spirituality (Ecumenical) ........................................................................................ 222

© 2015 by The Sword of the Spirit

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any

The Leaders Manual:

1.1 Leaders Formation:

1.11 Elements of Leaders

1. Positions with “job descriptions”: when someone is asked to be a leader of

6. Personal formation: they need to have a basic formation as a Christian and as

Being a Christian leader is not just an individualistic affair. We belong to a community

1.12 The Leaders For-

The Leaders Formation Macroschema covers the following categories of leaders in

1.13 Our Call / Our Pur-

in local communities and in an international community of communities

In Unity With All Christians

1.2 What is Community

1.21 What is Christian Com-

A Common Way of Life

From the statement “Our Call”:

1.22 Community and Kinds of

A distinct grouping. A Christian community is a distinct grouping of people. A Chris-

Christian Community: If a community is a Christian community, the mutual support

Kinds of Christian Communities

• Commitment to activities of the group and contributions needed to sustain the

The Kinds of Communities We Work With

Groups we work with outside of the SOS

Groups we work with inside the SOS

Special SOS groups

Groups We Work With Outside the SOS

Our Communities and Groups

The Movement Groups

The Single Unit Communities9

The Multi Unit Communities

The Small Single Unit Communities

Special SOS Groups

1.3 The Personal Care

1.31 The Pastoral System

1.32 Kinds of Personal Care

Kinds of Pastoral Care

Some of our leadership positions are primarily oriented to task-effectiveness, to get-

To summarize, pastoral workers in initiations, have a somewhat different role than

Evangelistic Personal Care

them to commitment. We need to bring people to a step of commitment — the commit-

Men and Women in Personal Care

2. Guide for Pastoral

Introduction to Part Two

2.01 The Basic Principle

Every community needs a formation and initiations process to

We can help many others towards mature Christian living and

2.02 Reference: Terms for the Formation

2.1 Formation: Our

2.11 Overall Principles

A Goal-Oriented, Process-Oriented Ap-

The problem-oriented approach. We need to be able to handle problems, and when

The activities-oriented approach. Activities are essential to a community or evange-

The goal-oriented, process-oriented approach. As workers in evangelism, formation

More to it. Construction managers have a goal-oriented, process-oriented approach.

An Environmental Pastoral Approach

As we have seen, we are not unique in having a goal-oriented, process-oriented ap-

An environmental approach. An environmental approach is one that places great im-

A pastoral approach. We work with evangelistic and formative environments to bring