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One news story after another has revealed lurking cases of abuse in faith communities that, from the outside, looked vibrant and whole. These stories can be disorienting. They leave us asking difficult questions. How can I know if a new church community is a safe place? When is it right to extend my trust to the leaders of a church? If I’m serving in leadership, how can I tell whether my own community is a good place for people to find their spiritual footing?

There’s no silver bullet for restoring faith in our leaders, but I think that a basic principle of spiritual formation can provide clarity: Growing leadership responsibility can only be faithfully sustained by a commensurately growing depth of character. That’s how spiritual formation is relevant to our present moment. It provides a lens through which to see these cultural crises as a matter of what kind of spirit has been formed in a person, in a leader, and in a community. That spirit—that character—is what we should be looking for as we find a way forward.

There’s no silver bullet for restoring faith in our leaders, but I think that a basic principle of spiritual formation can provide clarity: Growing leadership responsibility can only be faithfully sustained by a commensurately growing depth of character. That’s how spiritual formation is relevant to our present moment. It provides a lens through which to see these cultural crises as a matter of what kind of spirit has been formed in a person, in a leader, and in a community. That spirit—that character—is what we should be looking for as we find a way forward.

One news story after another has revealed lurking cases of abuse in faith communities that, from the outside, looked vibrant and whole. These stories can be disorienting. They leave us asking difficult questions. How can I know if a new church community is a safe place? When is it right to extend my trust to the leaders of a church? If I’m serving in leadership, how can I tell whether my own community is a good place for people to find their spiritual footing?

Part of growing up in God is discovering our spiritual DNA, learning and reckoning with what we have inherited—good and bad. When we make that reckoning, we start to make a map of our distinctive spiritual heritage. Like the genome sequences, that map can help us chart new discoveries in spiritual life that bless everyone around us.

As we attempt to make our media habits prayerful, we give the Lord an opportunity to work his purposes into our apps, screens, and conversations. He can change our engagement with media from aimless or destructive to thoughtful and even spiritually fruitful. That’s the kind of experience with media that we won’t regret.

As we attempt to make our media habits prayerful, we give the Lord an opportunity to work his purposes into our apps, screens, and conversations. He can change our engagement with media from aimless or destructive to thoughtful and even spiritually fruitful. That’s the kind of experience with media that we won’t regret.

When we look at others’ needs in competition with our own, it’s easy to think about life as a zero-sum game. But if the way of the cross is the way of life, then there’s a new dimension to self-sacrifice.