You are being formed.
Right now.
Whether you want to be or not.
Every conversation you have, every headline you skim, every podcast or show you half-listen to while folding laundry it’s shaping you. There are multi-billion dollar industries meant to form your sexuality with porn, to form your desires with consumerism, to form your families with their agendas, you get it…
The question isn’t if you’re being formed. The question is who or what is doing the forming.
At Missio, we talk a lot about being “formed by God.” A Formation that isn’t by accident, or coincidental, but with intentional.
I’m going to be honest, It’s slow work most of the time. Embarrassingly slow, for us Americans. It’s definitely not flashy. And it can’t be accomplished in 60 minutes on a Sunday. When we say it we are talking thousands of small, surrendered, Holy Spirit orchestrated moments stacked together over time.
Formation is more a process and less an event. It’s a journey, not just a destination. And we are all on it.
But here’s the thing:
You won’t do it alone.
Formation is always a community project.
God designed his church — the real, messy, stumbling-toward-Jesus-together kind of church — to be a people who help each other stay awake to what He’s doing in the world and in their lives. We each submit to the Spirit who is guiding all of us and joyfully take up the work of being formed in the likeness of Jesus.
We remind each other who we are.
We call each other back when we drift.
We hold up the mirror when we can’t see ourselves clearly.
We love fiercely.
We live collectively.
We remind each other of the True Story and our place in that unfolding drama.
You will be formed by something.
Let’s choose to be formed by Him.