Richard Foster on Spiritual Formation

http://www.reformedworship.org/magazine/article.cfm?article_id=1909

In a Mere Christianity sort of way he points us in a good way towards Christian formation.

His newest book, Longing for God, has an appendix noting the Eastern Orthodox contribution. 

But we are not saved by the spiritual Jesus alone. We are saved by the Incarnate Jesus, who is one person, Human and Divine, Created and Uncreated.  We are saved by the whole Jesus. We have a spiritual communion with Him inwardly and must also be incorporated by the Spirit into His Body to be saved.  We are saved by inward relationship to Jesus and outward incorpration into His Body.  We are saved by the whole Jesus.  

Therefore, Church is not irrelevant to our being saved, wholly and fully, to our being spiritually formed, wholly and fully.  One aspect of the Body of Christ, is that it is not Divided. The apostle Paul tells us in Scripture (go to you online Bible program and look it up!) To be properly related to the body of Christ that saves us we must be incorporated into His Body that is not divided.  Incorporation into any Christian body that is divided or admits to being divided or is obvious that it is divided or adheres to a doctrine that there is division in the body of Christ is a serious problem.  

Why?  Because Jesus, that is to say the revelation of who Jesus is, comes through the Breaking of Bread, that is to say, through Communion with His Body.  Who Jesus is is revealed by the means of His Body. The unique and only son of God was revealed to Peter in just that way. The undivided Christ, the Incarnate Logos, in solitary Body was shown by revelation to that One, through and in His Indivisible Body.  Did the Incarnate one begin with a program that revealed Himself in a solitary Body, then continue with a Church that was divided, that is to say, His Body, divided? No. His Church he promised would persist , manifesting His unique and solitary relationship to the Father, by being One Body on earth.  Spiritual formation that comes by the revelation of Jesus is inseparable from and comes in fullness only through the Church, indivisible, which is His Body.  The Hypostatic Union assures us that the fullness of  invisible, divine, and mystical revelation is united to and manifested through incorporation into Christ's visible and and fully human Body, the Church.  

For this reason, the laudable goals of those in spiritual formation movement will never be fully realized by attempting to take the ministry of spiritual formation that is one fabric with the Church, and grafting it onto assemblies that not only do not manifest the Oneness of Christ's body on earth, but deny it through a doctrine of the Invisible Church.  Christ did not promise us that he was send us 'spiritual formation'; he promised that he would build His Church and the gates of hell would not prevail against it.  

There is no promise that spiritual formation excised from the ancient and undivided Church will be any more successful than any other spirit movement, pietistic, or charismatic, in bringing sons into Fullness.  Only the whole Christ can do that.  Only the whole Christ, Divine and Human, can do that. Only the whole Christ, whose Indivisibile Body alone can fully reveal the One God , who is the Father Almighty.  

So Jesus Christ the Lord, human and Divine, whose ongoing life is revealed through His Body the Church, can only give us the full Revelation of the Father. It is the revelation of the Holy Trinity and the worship thereof that transforms us.  It is not primarily stillness, or ascetism, nor lectio divina, or centering prayers.  It is the Revelation of the Holy Trinity and the worship thereof that transforms.  We beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord are transformed from glory to glory.