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.  

Scripture, Youth, and Orthopraxy of the Desert Fathers

When I was a student attending an on-campus class with the St. Stephen's School of Studies in Ligonier, Pennsylvania, I was struck with a study that noted that of the three groups of Orthodox youth- those who attended services infrequently, those who attended services frequently but did not read Scripture, and those who attended services frequently but had a regular habit of reading Scripture- it was the latter group that showed genuine evidence of living lives separate from the world.  We Orthodox for the most part are not known for our deep familiarity with Scripture. Yet, familiarity with Scripture is a very significant part of Orthodox Tradition. I have never known of a great Saint who was not also a great lover of Scripture. The Desert Fathers perhaps more than any other class of Orthodox saints, best manifested the high view of Scripture. The Desert Fathers of Pachomius, first of all, memorized the entire New Testament and also the Psalms as a sort of baseline for Scriptural meditation and prayer. http://users.skynet.be/scourmont/Armand/wri/lectio-eng.htm
Bishop Kallistos Ware in his book The Orthodox Way  quotes St. Anthony in this manner, ' "When St. Anthony of Egypt was asked "What rules shall I keep so as to please God?", he replied: "wherever you go , have God always before your eyes; in whatever you do or say, have an example from the Holy Scriptures; and whatever the place in which you dwell, do not be quick to move elsewhere. Keep these three things, and you will live."'  It was the practice of the desert Father to reference every deed and word to the Scriptures that they knew. From the reference previously cited (Lectio Divina as school of prayer among the Fathers of the Desert, by Armand Veilleux) one reads, " In the desert, Scripture is constantly being interpreted. This interpretation is not expressed in the form of commentaries and homilies, but in actions and gestures, in a life of holiness transformed by the constant dialogue of the monk with the Scriptures. "St. Peter of Damaskos said, "...we...who do no more than listen to the Scriptures, should devote ourselves to them and meditate on them so constantly that through our persistence a longing for God is impressed upon our hearts...For this is what the holy fathers did before they acquired direct spiritual knowledge."   This is the Orthodox Tradition.
When one thinks of the saints, almost all of them had a great love for the reading of Scripture. My favorite Patron saint, Gr. Gavrilia, carried with her only the Bible and read the Gospels exclusively. In the modern Christian world the spirit of the desert Fathers, the Orthopraxis of respect for Scripture, is most clearly seen in the evangelical wing of the Protestant movement. There is the Tradition of Scripture memory advanced by para-church ministries, such as the Navigators. It is common for such folks to be seen carrying Bibles with them, and for those who are serious-minded about faith in Christ, obedience to Scripture is paramount, and courses of action will be couched in phrases derived, often from the memory of the Scriptures themselves. It seems like Orthodox young people bear significant testimony to that for those who stick near to Scripture, better than any of the others, stick next to Christ.  Yet none of us comes close to the high standard of memorization of the desert Fathers except perhaps for Jack van Impe, the prophetic evangelist who has memorized the entirety of Scripture. My hat is off to him.  We must give honor to whom honor is due.