COUNTER-FORMATION

Following Jesus is not a life we get to live in a vacuum, free of powerful influences. It is a contested path of obedience against many of the dominant cultural narratives of our time. The directional influence of our world and often our own hearts is not postured toward being like Jesus. We may not consciously think about being formed by our surroundings, but the cultural liturgies of the world disconnected from God are strong. Many voices in our world give us more than permission to obsess about ourselves, they make it an expected way of life.

“Because our hearts are oriented primarily by desire, by what we love, and because those desires are shaped and molded by the habit forming practices of [modern consumerism] - the liturgies of the mall and market - that shape our imaginations and how we orient ourselves to the world. Embedded in them is a common set of assumptions about the shape of human flourishing, which becomes an implicit telos, or goal, of our own desires and actions. That is, the visions of the good life embedded in these practices become surreptitiously embedded in us through our participation in the rituals and rhythms of these institutions…” JAMES K.A. SMITH

Life as a disciple of Jesus in the midst of these powerful forces will require counterformation. It will require new liturgies and habit forming shared rhythms that help us towards the greater telos of walking with Jesus and seeing His Kingdom come in our lives and in the world. Our behavior so often defaults to our habits and our habits are hard to change. We need grace, abiding in the love of Jesus, the help of the Holy Spirit at each step, and a radical commitment to take up our cross and follow Jesus.

We are called not just to change at the level of our ideas so that we can think Christian thoughts—we are invited to change at the level of our daily habits, our outward actions of loving obedience. For many of us this will require an intentional process of counterformation.