Complicating the History of the Protestant Spiritual Formation Movement: The Importance of Untold Stories

Abstract

This is an introduction to “Locating the Protestant Spiritual Formation Movement: A Few Untold Stories,” a special subsection of the Journal of Spiritual Formation and Soul Care. In this introductory article, I attempt to locate the Protestant Spiritual Formation Movement (PSFM), consider the value of studying this movement, and explain our interest in surfacing “untold stories” of the movement. All of this will serve to complicate, in a good way, the history of the PSFM with the hope of motivating further exploration of the movement itself and its marginalized stories.

Introduction

For our purposes, we can think of the Protestant Spiritual Formation Movement (PSFM) ¹ as the heightened emphasis on and increased receptivity to Christian spiritual formation among Protestants in the U.S. and Canada beginning in the late 1970s and continuing into the present. ² By Christian spiritual formation, I mean the Spirit-orchestrated, grace-fueled process of regenerated Christian persons and groups being conformed to the overall lifestyle and character of the person of Jesus. In what follows, I begin by attempting to locate this movement and its development in fairly broad strokes. Then, I suggest some values in studying this movement. And, last, I discuss what is meant by “untold stories” and why surfacing them is important.

Locating the Protestant Spiritual Formation Movement

At first blush, locating the Protestant Spiritual Formation Movement (PSFM) seems fairly straightforward. Various persons have identified a movement that began in the late 1970s with notable founding figures such as Richard Foster, Dallas Willard, James Houston, and Eugene Peterson. For instance, W. David Buschart and Kent D. Eilers write, “In the late 1970s the Protestant way of speaking about Christian life and growth began to take a noteworthy linguistic turn. Pastors, professors and practitioners of various sorts began to use the language of ‘spirituality.’” ³ Buschart and Eilers go on to mention Foster, Willard, Houston, and Peterson among others. Bruce Hindmarsh offers 1978 as a “provisional benchmark” for what he refers to as the “rise of ‘spirituality’ as a subject matter of popular and scholarly interest.” ⁴ 1978 serves as his provisional date because, Hindmarsh notes, it was the year in which Foster’s Celebration of Discipline was published, the year in which Paulist Press commenced publication of the Classics of Western Spirituality, and the year that James Houston began teaching formally in the area of Christian spirituality at Regent College as the first named “Professor of Spiritual Theology” within an evangelical seminary. ⁵

Focusing particularly on the evangelical vein of this movement, Keas Keasler defines the spiritual formation movement as “the reception of and emphasis upon spiritual formation within evangelical churches during the last four decades.” ⁶ Keasler also locates the start of the movement with the publication of Foster’s Celebration of Discipline in 1978 and conceptualizes “three waves” that emanate from that point. ⁷ Keasler’s three waves provide a helpful social-historical framework for considering the broader Protestant movement.

Keasler proposes that the first wave, 1978–1988, was “largely due to the pioneering work of individual trailblazers.” Keasler names Willard, Foster, Peterson, and Roberta Hestenes, among others. ⁸ The second wave, 1989–2007, was “one of theological and institutional maturity.” ⁹ In particular, Keasler emphasizes the conferences and resources provided by Renovaré that helped the movement develop a cohesive identity beyond a loose collection of individuals. The third wave, 2008–present, “has been a diffusion of the movement’s ideas and values, especially in the academy and local church.” ¹⁰ Here Keasler mentions the launch of the Journal of Spiritual Formation and Soul Care in 2008, the emergence of numerous academic degree programs in spiritual formation, and an increase in the number of local congregations adding pastors of spiritual formation and spiritual directors to their staff. ¹¹

Miriam Dixon helpfully focuses on the development and influence of Foster’s book Celebration of Discipline. Referring to its publication, Dixon writes, “An unknown author writes an unlikely book and inadvertently sparks an improbable global movement. . .. The movement kindled by the book developed slowly, almost imperceptibly. But once it caught hold, it exploded into flame.” ¹² Hearing just this, one might have the impression that no one was talking about formation or spiritual disciplines, and then Foster writes his book, seemingly ex nihilo, and everything comes from there. But, of course, that simple story is incorrect. Both Dixon and Foster make clear that Celebration of Discipline was itself the result of prior stirrings.

Foster acknowledges in the early pages of Celebration of Discipline that it was through his connection with Willard that he “first saw the meaning and necessity of the Spiritual Disciplines.” ¹³ Foster pastored, and the Willard family attended the same local congregation for several years beginning in 1970. We know from extant audio recordings that Willard was teaching on the spiritual disciplines at this church as early as May of 1974. ¹⁴

Perhaps, then, Willard is the smoking gun of the PSFM. From Gary Moon’s biography of Willard, we learn that Willard was, courtesy of the Holy Spirit, more or less self-taught regarding the nature of spiritual life. ¹⁵ Born in Missouri in 1935, raised and educated in Southern Baptist churches and schools, Willard was well-acquainted with a type of legalistic fundamentalism but little acquainted with the spirituality that he would eventually come to expound in his teaching and writing. It was through times of solitude, prayer, and meditation on Scripture while he was a student at Tennessee Temple College around 1955 that Willard began to see in the biblical text and experience in prayer that there was an experiential reality to God in the world. About the same time, Willard was given a book called The Deeper Experiences of Serious Christians by James Gilchrist Lawson. This book offered short biographies of various spiritual writers such as Madame Guyon, François Fénelon, John Bunyan, John Wesley, D. L. Moody, and others. Willard testifies that this book “opened the reality of Christians through the ages to me, and caused me to see that a life of holiness and power in the kingdom of Christ was possible.” ¹⁶

Willard’s origin story is that he simply responded to the Spirit’s work in his life as he was led along by Scripture, philosophy, the history of saints, and his own experiential life with God. While Willard influenced Foster in the early 1970s, Willard himself did not break onto the public scene regarding spiritual formation until his article titled “Discipleship: For Super-Christians Only?” was published in Christianity Today in 1980. ¹⁷ It was not until 1984 that Willard published his first book on the Christian spiritual life, In Search of Guidance.

The more I pulled on the 1978 start date, at least as anything like the origin of the PSFM, the more that date began to unravel. Indeed, Hindmarsh notes that his selection of 1978 is a “mental convenience.” ¹⁸ Hindmarsh observes that the rise of “spirituality” is dated further back. He mentions the revival of interest in spiritual theology among continental Catholic theologians, particularly in France (e.g., Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange (1877–1964)), in the first half of the twentieth century, and then slightly later the contribution of ressourcement theologians, such as Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905–1988) and Louis Bouyer (1913–2004). ¹⁹ The American interest in Christian spirituality as an academic subject matter developed shortly thereafter in the mid-twentieth century.

Glen C. Scorgie notes that Vatican II (1962–1965) had a significant influence on Protestant interest in spirituality and formation. ²⁰ Vatican II sought to break down the spiritual elitism in the Catholic church with an emphasis on lay spirituality. Various Catholic writers—such Thomas Merton, Henri Nouwen, Joan Chittister, Adrian van Kaam, Susan Muto, etc.—took up this call, writing books, teaching classes, and starting educational programs. For instance, Henri Nouwen gives a paper in 1972 that is published in Theological Education in which Nouwen writes, “During the last year I have become increasingly concerned about the relationship between professional and spiritual formation as two basic components in the education of the future minister.” ²¹ What became the heart of Nouwen’s area of teaching and writing was just coming online in 1972. Nouwen goes on to publish Pray to Live (1972), Out of Solitude (1974), Reaching Out (1975), and many other helpful contributions. The point here is that all of this is going on well before the watershed moment of 1978.

It appears that the first Protestants to appreciate this emerging emphasis among Catholic writers were mainly Quakers and mainline Protestants. For instance, the Association of Theological Schools initiated a Task Force on Spiritual Development in 1972 to address the question of the seminary’s role in the spiritual formation of future ministers. ²² The members of the task force appear to be largely from mainline Protestant seminaries. The Episcopalian priest, Tilden Edwards, founded the Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation in 1973 and wrote Spiritual Friend: Reclaiming the Gift of Spiritual Direction in 1979. In his introduction to that book, Edwards writes, “In recent Roman Catholic and Anglican tradition, this bridge most commonly has been called ‘spiritual direction’ and its theoretical discipline ‘spiritual theology,’ or ‘ascetical and mystical theology.’ In Protestant traditions, there is no shared term for this area; perhaps ‘faith development’ or ‘devotional life comes closest’, or it might be seen as a dimension of ‘pastoral theology.’” ²³ The psychiatrist and theologian, Gerald May, joins the Shalem Institute in 1973 and published his first book, The Open Way: A Meditation Handbook in 1977. Adding a more academic tone to the evolving discussion, the Wesleyan theologian Stanley Hauerwas wrote Character and the Christian Life: A Study in Theological Ethics in 1975, which became a major influence on the field of Christian Ethics. Scorgie notes that in 1976, the Episcopalian General Theological Seminary in Manhattan launched a Center for Christian Spirituality with a focus on spiritual direction. And in the same year, the Graduate Theological Union began offering a PhD program in Christian spirituality. ²⁴

From all of this, we see that well before Foster’s or Willard’s contributions, there were many Catholics and mainline Protestants discussing and practicing a newfound emphasis on what had come to be called spiritual formation. But there were also some earlier rumblings among evangelical thinkers. For instance, Donald Bloesch wrote Centers of Christian Renewal in 1964 and The Crisis of Piety in 1968, Francis Schaeffer wrote True Spirituality in 1971, and Richard Lovelace published his prescient article, “The Sanctification Gap,” in 1973. ²⁵ In the mid to late 1970s, Roberta Hestenes began meeting with Julie Gorman and other colleagues at Fuller Theological Seminary to discuss a new paradigm for Christian education that they called “Christian formation and discipleship.” A few years later, Hestenes agrees to become the chair of Fuller’s Christian Education Department on the condition that the name is changed to the Department of Christian Formation and Discipleship. ²⁶

All of this suggests that there was something in the water well before 1978 and independent of the origin stories of Willard and Foster. Whatever conditions and dispositions helped awaken these early figures might also be the conditions and dispositions that awoke Nouwen, Bloesch, Schaeffer, Lovelace, Hauerwas, Hestenes, Edwards, and many others.

But even this telling of the story is a bit too neat, for notable twentieth-century Protestant figures were pointing to the need for deeper spirituality before Vatican II. For instance, Frank Laubach’s Letters by a Modern Mystic (1937), Thomas Kelly’s A Testament of Devotion (1941), Douglas Steere’s On Beginning from Within (1943), A. W. Tozer’s The Pursuit of God (1948), Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s The Cost of Discipleship (1949), C. S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity (1952), and Howard Thurman’s The Inward Journey: Meditations on the Spiritual Quest (1961) and the Disciplines of the Spirit (1963).

The idea that there is an identifiable start to the PSFM was beginning to look questionable. But, of course, it all depends on what makes something a movement. No doubt there are always persons responding to the Spirit’s call to a life of holiness, and some of those persons write books or leave other public records, while many others do not. How do we identify a corporate, spiritual renewal movement as opposed to simply cases of personal spiritual renewal?

Revivals, Awakenings, and Spiritual Renewal

While there are no definitive distinctions between spiritual revivals, awakenings, and renewals, some have proposed that we think of revivals as spontaneous, dramatic outpourings of the Spirit on large groups of persons gathered in a particular place or region and come with extraordinary manifestations of the Spirit, conviction of sin, repentance, and evangelistic activism. In his work on Christian revivals and renewal movements, Michael J. McClymond writes, “‘Revivals’ are thus corporate, experiential events. In the social contexts of ‘revival’ there is often a spiritual contagion – an infectious influence transmitted by proximity – causing one person’s spiritual experiences to spill over to others.” ²⁷ The first and second Great Awakenings would be paradigm cases of revivals.

“The term ‘renewal’,” McClymond writes, “is not as clearly defined as revival, and yet it suggests a return of zeal or vitality to a group of Christian believers who have declined in their devotion.” ²⁸ As examples of corporate spiritual renewal, many suggest the eighteenth-century Holiness Movement, the Keswick Movement, and the Charismatic Movement. From these examples, we see that spiritual renewals are more prophetic and ideationally-driven than dramatic and experientially-driven. Renewals come with some prophetic critique and theological corrective of some sector of the Christian church. A spiritual renewal becomes a movement to the degree that the critical diagnosis and corrective catch on, and more and more persons awaken to deeper and more authentic faith and practice. In the case of renewal, the spread is not so much by spiritual contagion as by persons awakening to the problem and perceiving the fittingness of the corrective. In renewals, persons are illumined by the Spirit more often than they are slain in the Spirit.

Given this description of spiritual renewal, it is easy to associate Paul’s renewal language in Romans 12:2, “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will” (ESV). First, we see the ability not to conform to the established patterns of one’s age. This allows for the prophetic critique that sees through barriers to spiritual vitality. And this leads to the renewing of the mind—the corrective—that brings about transformation (i.e., a deeper life of faith and practice). To “test and approve what God’s will is” is not to know whether to marry Jane or Jill, take this job or that. Instead, to test and approve what God’s perfect will is to come to see what God’s people need to do to join up with what God is already doing. His will is his intention for things, and to test and approve is to discern and align. We might think of the renewal of the mind as the emergence of thoughts, feelings, and intentions to see and live differently in light of awakening, purgation, and illumination.

On this understanding of a spiritual renewal, its ultimate cause is the convicting and illuminating work of the Holy Spirit. Assuming the Spirit is always seeking to guide followers of Christ into all truth, we might sensibly imagine that renewal begins with a person’s receptivity to the Spirit’s work to awaken, purge, and illumine the human mind (Jhn 16:12–15). Spiritual renewal for any given person is a renewed repentance and responsiveness to the Spirit. Corporate spiritual renewal occurs when a similar sort of repentance and responsiveness becomes a group effort. So, if the PSFM is an identifiable movement, we would expect to see increasing numbers of persons become awakened to certain critiques of the patterns of the world, purged of their folly, and illumined to a corrective that results in a revitalized experience of Christian life and growth.

Gustavo Gutiérrez puts forward four stages to any movement of Christian spirituality: encounter, experience, reflection, and prolongation. ²⁹ The first stage, encounter, is initiated by God and is perceived as an encounter with the Lord. Referencing Revelation 3:20 and the lukewarm Laodiceans, Gutiérrez writes, “if we open the door of our being to him, we shall share his life, his supper.” ³⁰ Jesus is knocking at the door of some resistance to life with him, and the second stage of any renewal movement will be the turning and opening of that door. This fruitful spiritual experience is the “well from which we must drink.” ³¹ The third stage involves theological reflection and discernment regarding the spiritual experience. What happened? Why did it happen? How do I understand this theologically? Gutiérrez writes, “To reflect theologically on a spiritual experience means to work through it by relating it to the word of the Lord, to the thinking of one’s own age, and to other ways of understanding the following Jesus.” ³² The fourth stage of a spiritual renewal movement is the communicative offering of it up to the church as a way of life with Jesus. Gutiérrez uses Paul’s notion of charisms or gifts given to the church as a way to understand different spiritual movements that arose over church history and have had a prolonged influence. He writes, “Spiritualities come down through the centuries and continually serve as appropriate ways of following Jesus.” ³³

If this sort of stage development—from encounter, to experience, to theological reflection, to communication and prolongation in the church—is a marker of a renewal movement, then it surely looks like something of the sort occurred among various Protestant figures in the early to mid 1970s, mostly independently of one another. Tilden Edwards, Richard Lovelace, Roberta Hestenes, Dallas Willard, Eugene Peterson, and so on all had their unique encounter and experience with the Lord that led to their theological reflection and discernment that then eventuated in some form of communication to the church that began to catch in the late 1970s.

Based on this analysis, we can identify the PSFM as the increased receptivity of Protestants in the U.S. and Canada beginning in the late 1970s to the need and nature of a deeper, more authentic, and transformational life with Christ. The PSFM was not a unique movement in the sense that the Holy Spirit is always at work to sanctify his people. But it was a unique instance of the ongoing movement of God’s Spirit given the particular conditions on the ground, the needs of the church at the time, and the readiness of persons to respond to God’s activity in the world.

The Value of Studying Spiritual Renewal Movements

Having provisionally located the PSFM, what’s the point? Why study renewal movements like the PSFM? In what follows, we consider four main values.

First, assuming renewal movements possess important diagnoses and correctives for the church, it is important to clearly identify and re-articulate these insights afresh for new generations and diverse contexts. This is especially needed as a movement matures and begins to focus more on the implications and applications of the initial critiques and correctives. As the movement’s insights become more commonplace, there can be a danger of losing, once again, the convicting and illuminating work of the Spirit that initially gave rise to the movement.

For instance, one early critique made by those in the PSFM was the lack of interpersonal resources needed for spiritual growth within many Protestant churches. Willard once stated that instead of being organized around our desperate need for spiritual community, the congregational life of many churches seems designed to ensure a carefully calculated distance between church members. Has this critique been effectively addressed in local church life? There are signs that relational isolation, depersonalization, and loneliness have only gotten worse over the last fifty years. ³⁴ So, one reason we study renewal movements is to identify and retain their key insights lest we lose sight of them once again.

A second value in studying renewal movements is to comprehend the conditions to which the movement was responding, the dispositions of early figures that aided them in their awareness, and the organizational development that sustained the movement. Paying attention to the conditions, dispositions, and organization of a renewal movement can be instructive for what is needed to keep a movement going and/or to be responsive to what else the Spirit may be illumining.

By conditions, we mean the lay of the land that predated the movement and tilled the soil. For instance, writing in 1994, D. A. Carson saw the rise of interest in spirituality in North America as a response to the cultural dominance of philosophical materialism and a rebellion against what he called “the profound sense of unreality that afflicts many churches.” ³⁵ Carson writes, “We speak of ‘knowing’ and ‘meeting with’ and ‘worshiping’ the living God, but many feel that the corporate exercises are perfunctory and inauthentic, and in their quietest moments they wonder what has gone wrong.” ³⁶ We study renewal movements to understand how conditions, such as those, have changed. Or in what ways they remain the same.

We also look at the sensitivities and dispositions of the founding figures. What state of mind and habits of discernment had they cultivated that enabled them to diagnose and offer prescriptions that were both prophetically pointed and existentially resonant? For instance, how was Willard able to see past the reductionistic gospels of the twentieth century to highlight Jesus’ gospel of the kingdom? How was Peterson able to see through the consumerism and market-driven mindset of American Christianity and, instead, prioritize the personal and the local? How was Houston able to foresee the problems with professional identity in Christian spiritual life at a time when professional status was universally valued among Christians? And how was Foster able to pinpoint that superficiality was indeed the curse of his age, perhaps in a way that distraction is the curse of ours?

It is interesting to note that Willard, Houston, Foster, and Peterson all have atypical vantage points. Willard, a Southern Baptist from Missouri, was teaching philosophy at the University of Southern California. Houston grew up Plymouth Brethren in Scotland and taught cultural geography at Oxford University before coming to teach spiritual theology at Regent College. Foster was raised in the Quaker tradition, educated at Fuller Theological Seminary, and then served as a pastor of Friends churches in California and Oregon. Peterson was raised in a Pentecostal-Holiness tradition in Montana and then ministered in a Presbyterian church in Baltimore, Maryland, for decades. They were each outsiders from mainstream Christianity and came at the topic of spirituality and formation from a distinctive disciplinary perspective. Perhaps it was partly this that helped them to see the forest for the trees.

In addition to the conditions and dispositions that give rise to spiritual movements, we also learn from how movements develop organizationally. For the PSFM, a variety of parachurch organizations arose that offered resources and training in spiritual formation. For instance, Renovaré, the Transforming Center, Upper Room’s Academy of Spiritual Formation, the Shalem Institute, Transformational Leadership, Inc., the Black Contemplative Society, Practicing the Way, and so on. There has been a steady rise of spiritual formation and spiritual direction degree programs at various seminaries, colleges, and universities. The establishment of the Journal of Spiritual Formation and Soul Care and Spiritus: A Journal of Christian Spirituality, which is the journal of the Society for the Study of Christian Spirituality. As we study the PSFM, we are looking for the conditions, dispositions, and organizational moves that are still needed for this and for other related movements to advance.

A third reason to study renewal movements is to attend to the methodologies that along with the dispositions, helped the founding figures develop their insightful critiques and correctives. When it comes to the PSFM, many see it as a historical retrieval movement, an evangelical resourrcement of historical themes in Christian spirituality. If so, the future of the movement might be thought to be further historical work. But a quick look at the methodology of Houston, Peterson, Willard, and Foster shows that while they were influenced by historical sources, they each developed robust biblical and theological arguments for their understanding of Christian spiritual life. Moreover, both Willard and Houston were deeply informed by philosophy and moral psychology. Foster and Peterson were more open to sociology and the influence of culture. We study movements to attend to the methodology that brought about the revitalizing perspectives.

Lastly, the study of renewal movements can help determine whether a movement has successfully achieved its outcomes or, alternatively, what is needed to keep the movement going. In 2015, I wrote an article titled “Is the Spiritual Formation Movement Dead?” I did not mean to wonder out loud if it had failed, but rather to wonder whether there were signs that it had accomplished its goals. Movements can overcorrect and become myopically focused in their analysis of what is at issue. We study movements to get perspective on them and help shepherd them as conditions change.

The Importance of Untold Stories

All of this leads to the importance of untold stories. If there is an identifiable PSFM and if there is value in learning from the movement, then it is important to make sure our sources are representative of its actual history. Not only do the winners write the history books, but the best-selling authors heavily influence the telling of history, at least when examining a movement largely through the lens of its published literature. When it comes to the books and articles that came out of the PSFM, most of the best-sellers in the 1970s and 1980s were White males. The popularity of their writings led to their being the headliners at conferences, which led to more books and more speaking invitations. While the PSFM appealed to a diverse audience, the main early influencers and identifiable leadership were predominantly White and male. ³⁷

To pay attention to the PSFM more fully, we need to attend to the voices, stories, and networks that, due to one factor or another, have been marginalized. Perhaps some were marginalized by coming before the movement was fully up and running. Persons like Evelyn Underhill and Thomas Kelly were ahead of their time. Other voices did not rise to prominence due to discriminatory gender, racial, and ethnic norms. Still others were not heard because they were outside the U.S. and Canada, or outside the broader Western English-speaking world. Some stories were not told because they were thought outside the boundary markers of what counted as legitimate theology. Finally, in some ways, the most marginalized are those who played significant roles but did not write books or leave some other easily traceable artifacts. Rita Houston, whose husband was James Houston, used to regularly joke that she was the only evangelical she knew who didn’t want to write a book.

Before there was social media and the internet, the main way to be widely heard was through books, radio, articles in prominent magazines, and speaking at popular churches and conferences. Typically, only certain skillsets and personality types excel at these forms of popular media. A. W. Tozer bitingly noted that egotism, exhibitionism, and self-promotion are “strangely tolerated in Christian leaders . . . they appear these days to be a requisite for popularity in some sections of the church visible. Promoting self under the guise of promoting Christ is currently so common as to excite little notice.” ³⁸ In no way do I mean to suggest that the prominent voices in PSFM were of this sort, but it is hard to get a hearing when one is largely disinterested in the sort of self-promotion Tozer references. There have been and continue to be many who prefer to be behind the scenes, and these stories are difficult to surface because they are intentionally personal and local.

Although it is challenging to locate and uncover marginalized, untold stories, we need to do so. For one, to continue to ignore these persons and groups is often to sustain a devaluing and harmful state of affairs. Miranda Fricker has drawn careful attention to the notion of “epistemic injustice.” ³⁹ Epistemic injustice is done to a person or group in their “capacity as a knower” when unjust social dynamics silence, exclude, misrepresent, undervalue, or otherwise unfairly limit their contribution to a community’s knowledge. ⁴⁰ To do the hard work of surfacing marginalized members of the PSFM is a kind of justice work. It can redress past harms and honor spiritual mothers and fathers who have been, at times, unfairly treated.

Moreover, bringing to light marginalized voices brings missing pieces and perspectives that the movement needed at the time and the broader Christian community needs today. ⁴¹ Epistemic injustice not only harms the excluded and corrupts the ones doing the excluding, but it also results in fewer resources for building knowledge and understanding of Christian spiritual formation.

When it comes to the PSFM, some of the stories that need to be integrated are those from Black, Hispanic, Asian, Indigenous American, and other ethnically diverse voices that are underrepresented in the literature. Other perspectives that need to be brought forward are those of women, particularly women who played substantive roles in the early decades of the movement, but often did not receive as much attention as their male colleagues. Of course, the most difficult untold stories to appreciate are the persons who have left very few public artifacts. Here, we need ethnographers, biographers, and spiritual theologians to excavate the history of the PSFM and bring to light the various gifts of the body of Christ that need to be seen, heard, and integrated.

Conclusion

As an exercise in this important work, this article introduces a special sub-section of the Journal of Spiritual Formation and Soul Care that features three untold stories. First, there is Lisa Igram’s helpful treatment of the work of Marva Dawn. ⁴² Next is Eric Brown’s powerful overview of Howard Thurman’s extensive life and work. ⁴³ And, lastly, Glen Scorgie keeps fresh the important legacy of A. W. Tozer. ⁴⁴ Our hope in collecting these untold stories is that this will further a burgeoning movement within the PSFM to honor and learn from every member of the body of Christ. For surely, the eye cannot say to the hand, I do not need you (2 Cor 12:21).

This article was an attempt to complicate the history of the PSFM only in the sense of locating the boundaries of the movement, gaining some clarity as to what counts as a spiritual renewal movement, and stressing the importance of untold stories of the PSFM. ⁴⁵ The purpose of doing so is to discern what the Spirit is saying to the churches. By locating the PSFM, we can refine the critiques and correctives, we can attend to the conditions, dispositions, and organizational development that furthered the movement, we can learn from the methodologies that fueled the movement, and in all of this, we can better guide the movement into what Lovelace called a “continuous renewal.” ⁴⁶ In many ways, the PSFM has done incredible good in the U.S., Canada, and beyond. Indeed, when the movement has been true to its founder, it has always done incredible good. It is important to remember that to help one another become increasingly like Jesus is not in the end a self-help movement. Rather, it is a dying-to-self movement that culminates in giving our lives away to others. We study the PSFM to better follow the Lord of the movement and discern his priorities.