Imago Christi

PHILOSOPHY OF MINISTRY

 

DEFINITION:

By Spiritual Formation we mean the life-long transformation of the believer toward love of God, the character of Christ, and daily obedience to His Spirit’s leading that takes place as God draws her/him into greater loving intimacy with the Trinity.

It affirms both the earlier stages of discipleship development and the later stages of growth, moving toward maturity. It impacts character development, but it is more than any character trait or skill. It encompasses the believer’s whole-life response to the Triune God.

 

MISSION: 

Provide an interdisciplinary CRM Team and cross-cultural groups of Christian leaders, who demonstrate a commitment to a deepening love for God and personal transformation, for the beautification of the Church and the maturation of its leaders:

• to study and develop spiritual formation resources,
• to facilitate communication about spiritual formation in CRM and the leadership development community,
• to coach CRM and other Christian leaders and churches to enhance their life-long spiritual formation,
• to multiply such missional spiritual formation learning communities for Christian leaders, worldwide,

so that leaders might lead out of personal and corporate intimacy with the Trinity, that the Church may be made beautiful for her Bridegroom and accomplish her mission to expand the Kingdom of God.

NOTE: Spiritual formation is the core of all of CRM ministries. Therefore, Imago Christi is formed to help resource, learn from, facilitate, and support all the ministries of CRM, not to replace the spiritual formation dimension of those ministries.

 

VISION:

The Church comprised of men and women who have become so one with the Trinity that they follow Christ in loving obedience; Christian leaders, who lead lifestyles of continual spiritual transformation and growth through intentional cooperation with the Holy Spirit; spiritual formation centers for those that God adds to their number: a church made beautiful as a Bride for her Bridegroom, so that Christ’s name may be renowned among the nations.

 

GUIDING CONVICTIONS:

1. The goal of spiritual formation is a mature love relationship with God. Personal holiness, ministry effectiveness, and personal wholeness are all results of a transforming union with God.
2. The process of spiritual formation is accomplished by the work of the Holy Spirit within the believer in conjunction with the believer’s intentional cooperation.
3. Spiritual formation happens best in an actual community. A community of trust, truth and clear expectations fosters the courage to be obedient to God’s calling. A spiritual formation community must express vulnerability, availability, and accessibility. Ultimately, facilitating spiritual formation must happen in the local church.
4. The Spiritual Formation Team must be missional in nature. Its purpose must be to impact the church culture, but Team members must also live their personal lives in a missional way. (By “missional,” we mean the intentional effort of the Team member to share the ministry of spiritual formation beyond the boundaries of Imago Christi.)
5. The relationship between SF and leadership development: Spiritual formation is the lens through which we understand leadership development rather than a part or one aspect of it.
   
   Healthy Christian leadership is a response to and an expression of the call and work of God. Therefore, “followership” to Christ is the core of Christian leadership. The call to love and obey Jesus is the most basic call in ministry.
   
   Only a genuinely Christian spiritual formation can serve as the engine for biblical leadership. The spiritual formation of the church leaders must precede the spiritual formation of the church itself.
6. The study and development of SF resources should involve a method which is participatory in its style.
   
   Our spiritual formation paradigm and language must be biblically faithful, historically validated, descriptive, developmentally sensitive, experientially validated and culturally contextualized.
   
   The development of SF resources must be interdisciplinary: integrating biblical studies, history, theology, psychology and comparative religion, using resources that are inter-/non-denominational, cross-cultural, and anthropologically and gender inclusive, drawing on the wealth and history of the whole Church.
   
   SF tools and resources are to be recommended based on the team’s personal experience with them, rather than mere acquaintance.
   
   Transformation of the Church through spiritual formation is a worldwide work of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, the work of the CRM SF Team will attempt to reproduce learning communities around the world.
   
   At a most personal level, spiritual formation research and development should arise out of weakness and an awareness of one’s own need, not one’s competence or strength. In the same way, suffering is affirmed as an important way that God forms us.
   
   Comparative and competitive stances in spiritual formation are not appropriate, rather a humility born out of one’s own self awareness before God.