The Ecology of Spiritual Formation and Why the Future May Look More Like the Past Than We Imagine
By: Rev. Cameron Trimble, CEO of Convergence
Across nearly every congregation I work with, I watch them wrestle with some version of the same question:
How do we help people grow spiritually?
It’s a deceptively difficult question. We know how to organize worship, offer classes, recruit volunteers, and host community events. But genuine spiritual maturity is harder to cultivate. Attendance does not necessarily produce transformation, and participation in programs does not always deepen faith.
Over the past several decades, scholars studying congregational life have reached a consistent conclusion. Lasting spiritual growth happens less through what people attend and more through what they practice. Communities become transformative when they shape the ordinary rhythms of everyday life.
In many ways, this is good news. The future of congregational life may depend less on inventing something entirely new than on recovering practices that religious communities have known for centuries. We are also discovering this through The Commons, an experimental online faith community with over 1,000 people engaged (hint: go check it out).
After years of studying this and a deep review of the scholarship, here are seven themes that consistently emerge from both the research and the lived experience of vibrant congregations.
1. Spiritual Practices Shape Identity More Than Spiritual Programs
Behavioral scientists have increasingly demonstrated that lasting change rarely comes through isolated moments of inspiration. It emerges through repeated habits that gradually reshape how people perceive and engage the world. Psychologist Wendy Wood’s work on habit formation suggests that much of daily life is governed by routines that become part of our identity through repetition.^1
Religious communities have understood this for centuries. Prayer, Sabbath, gratitude, generosity, sacred reading, hospitality, silence, fasting, and contemplation were never designed as occasional religious activities. They were intended to become rhythms that slowly formed people into lives of wisdom and compassion.
The question for congregations becomes less, “What new program should we offer?” and more, “What practices are we helping people carry into Monday morning?”
2. Relationships Are the Primary Context for Transformation
Developmental psychology has consistently shown that human beings grow in relationship. Our capacity for empathy, emotional regulation, resilience, and moral imagination is profoundly influenced by the quality of our connections with others. The work of psychiatrist John Bowlby on attachment theory has shaped decades of subsequent research demonstrating that secure relationships create the conditions in which people flourish.^2
Theologian Dr. Andrew Root has applied this insight to congregational life, arguing that relationships are not simply a strategy for ministry; they are the place where God’s grace is encountered. Presence itself becomes formative.^3
Many adults cannot remember the outline of a sermon they heard five years ago. They remember the person who sat beside them through grief. Shared meals, mentoring, listening circles, pastoral presence, and genuine friendship deserve as much intentional investment as curriculum and programming.
3. Ancient Practices May Be Better Suited to Modern Life Than We Realize
One of the more hopeful discoveries emerging across religious scholarship is that many of the practices developed centuries ago may be uniquely suited to the challenges of modern life.
Religious communities did not create these practices because they understood neuroscience or behavioral psychology. They created them because they paid close attention to what it means to be human. Over generations, they learned that certain rhythms consistently helped people cultivate wisdom, compassion, humility, and resilience.
Today, those ancient observations are finding support in contemporary research. Lectio Divina slows the pace of reading until Scripture becomes conversation rather than information. Sabbath interrupts cultures of relentless productivity and reminds us that our worth is not determined by our output. Pilgrimage expands perspective in lives increasingly mediated through screens and algorithms. Contemplative prayer and meditation strengthen attention in an age where distraction has become an economic commodity. Fasting teaches freedom from impulse. Hospitality expands our moral imagination by inviting us into relationship with people we might otherwise overlook.
These practices are not unique to Christianity. Jewish communities have cultivated Sabbath and havruta, paired study of sacred texts, for centuries. Buddhist traditions have refined practices of mindfulness and compassion that are now widely studied in psychology and medicine. Islamic communities organize daily life around rhythms of prayer that repeatedly call attention back to God and community. Indigenous traditions often cultivate ceremonies that deepen relationship with ancestors, the land, and future generations. Although the forms differ, they share a common insight: human beings are formed by what they practice repeatedly.
The late theologian Barbara Holmes spent much of her life’s work recovering the contemplative traditions of the Black Church. She challenged the assumption that contemplation is primarily private or passive, arguing instead that deep spiritual practice prepares people to engage the world with greater freedom, courage, and creativity. Contemplation, in her understanding, is not an escape from reality. It is training in how to remain fully present within it.
Modern neuroscience increasingly points in the same direction. Researchers studying contemplative practices have found measurable effects on attention, emotional regulation, stress reduction, and compassion. Regular contemplative practice appears to strengthen the brain’s capacity for sustained attention while reducing the physiological effects of chronic stress. These findings do not “prove” religious claims, but they do suggest that ancient spiritual disciplines align remarkably well with what we are learning about human flourishing.
Perhaps these practices have endured for centuries for a simple reason. They continue to meet enduring human needs.
4. Stories Shape Communities More Than Beliefs
Every congregation has a theology. It also has a story. The story is often more powerful. Ask members why they love their congregation, and they rarely begin by reciting its statement of faith. They tell stories.
They remember the congregation that welcomed them after a divorce. The members who rebuilt a neighbor’s home after a fire. The pastor who stayed all night at the hospital. The youth group mission trip that changed someone’s life. The difficult vote that nearly divided the congregation and the courage it took to remain together.
Stories become the memory system of a community. They tell people who we are, what we value, and what kind of future we imagine together.
Psychologist Dan McAdams has argued that human beings develop what he calls a narrative identity. We make sense of our lives by weaving experiences into stories that explain where we have been, who we are becoming, and what gives our lives meaning. Communities do the same thing. Congregations construct a shared identity through the stories they tell and retell over generations.
Organizational scholars have observed a similar pattern. Culture is not primarily transmitted through strategic plans or mission statements. It is transmitted through the stories organizations celebrate, the moments they remember, and the people they honor. Stories quietly teach newcomers what matters here.
This insight raises a question for many congregations: What stories are we telling?
If our stories are primarily about declining attendance, shrinking budgets, denominational conflict, or the “good old days,” those narratives become the emotional environment in which people live. Even when they are factually true, they can gradually teach a congregation to expect decline rather than possibility.
The opposite is also true. Congregations that regularly tell stories of generosity, courage, reconciliation, hospitality, justice, creativity, and spiritual awakening begin to reinforce those very qualities within their communal life. Storytelling becomes a spiritual practice. It enlarges the congregation’s moral imagination by helping people recognize where God is already at work among them.
This does not mean ignoring hardship or pretending everything is fine. Faithful communities have always practiced truthful storytelling. The Psalms hold lament alongside praise. The Gospels remember betrayal alongside resurrection. Honest stories do not avoid suffering. They refuse to let suffering become the only story.
One of the simplest practices a congregation can adopt is to ask better questions. Instead of asking only, “How many people attended?”
Ask:
- Who surprised you with an act of generosity?
- What experience changed the way you see God, your neighbor, or yourself?
- Where did this congregation become more fully the community it hopes to be?
The answers to those questions become the stories people carry home. Over time, those stories become the congregation itself.
5. Service Does Not Simply Express Faith. It Forms Faith.
For generations, congregations have encouraged service as an expression of discipleship. Increasingly, research suggests the relationship also works in the opposite direction.
Psychologists studying meaning, compassion, and prosocial behavior have found that people often become more generous by practicing generosity. Character develops through repeated acts of contribution rather than abstract belief alone.^6
Preparing meals, mentoring young people, restoring ecosystems, accompanying immigrants, advocating for justice, or visiting isolated neighbors all become spiritual practices when paired with thoughtful reflection.
Every service opportunity should include space to ask not only, “Whom did we help?” but also, “How did this experience change us?”
6. Intergenerational Communities Build Wisdom
Many faith communities organize themselves by age. Children go one way, teens another, adults another. While age-specific learning has its place, research increasingly suggests that something important is lost when generations rarely encounter one another in meaningful ways.
The deepest spiritual formation often happens not in classrooms, but in relationships.
Children learn resilience by hearing an elder describe how their faith sustained them through loss. Young adults bring fresh questions that invite older members to see familiar traditions with new eyes. Elders discover renewed purpose as mentors and storytellers. Every generation has wisdom to offer, and every generation has something to learn.
Sociologist Christian Smith, whose landmark National Study of Youth and Religion followed thousands of young people over many years, found that one of the strongest influences on lifelong spiritual commitment is the presence of caring, engaged adults who model their faith authentically.^7 In other words, spiritual traditions are most often passed on not simply through formal instruction, but through trusted relationships that allow younger generations to witness faith lived out in everyday life.
This insight extends well beyond youth ministry. Communities become more resilient when people of different ages regularly form friendships, share stories, and learn from one another. Intergenerational relationships strengthen belonging, deepen empathy, and create opportunities for wisdom to flow in every direction.
The encouraging news is that this doesn’t require an elaborate new program. Often it begins with simple practices:
- Invite older members to share stories of moments that shaped their spiritual lives.
- Pair newcomers with long-time members for conversation over coffee.
- Organize service projects where children, youth, and adults work side by side.
- Create discussion circles where everyone, from the youngest participant to the oldest, is invited to reflect on the same question.
- Celebrate milestones together, recognizing that every stage of life carries its own gifts and challenges.
Across many religious traditions, wisdom has always been understood as something that is shared from person to person. Congregations flourish when they intentionally create spaces where those conversations can happen.
Perhaps one measure of a spiritually healthy community is not simply whether every age group has a place, but whether every generation helps shape every other.
7. Awe May Be One of the Most Powerful Forms of Spiritual Formation
One of the fastest-growing areas of psychological research explores the experience of awe.
Psychologist Dacher Keltner describes awe as an encounter with something so vast that it changes our understanding of ourselves and the world.^8 His research suggests that experiences of awe increase humility, generosity, curiosity, and concern for others.
Religious communities have cultivated awe for millennia through worship, music, silence, architecture, beauty, nature, and ritual. In an increasingly distracted culture, this may be one of the church’s most important contributions.
Congregations do more than communicate ideas. They create experiences that awaken wonder.
Design worship and communal life not merely to inform people, but to help them encounter beauty, mystery, and transcendence.
Toward an Ecology of Spiritual Formation
Taken together, these findings suggest that spiritual growth is ecological. People are not transformed by a single sermon, retreat, or class. They are shaped by an environment.
Practices reinforce relationships. Relationships deepen service. Service generates stories. Stories strengthen belonging. Awe renews purpose. Together they create an ecology in which spiritual maturity becomes more likely.
At Convergence, this insight is increasingly shaping our work with congregations. Rather than asking how to create more activity, we are asking how to cultivate richer environments for formation. That shift feels increasingly important.
The future of congregational life will not depend upon becoming busier or more innovative. It will depend upon helping people inhabit communities where compassion, courage, wisdom, and generosity become ordinary ways of living together.
Perhaps that is what congregations have always been called to do.
References
- Wendy Wood, Good Habits, Bad Habits: The Science of Making Positive Changes That Stick (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019).
- John Bowlby, A Secure Base: Parent-Child Attachment and Healthy Human Development (New York: Basic Books, 1988).
- Andrew Root, The Relational Pastor (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2013).
- Barbara A. Holmes, Joy Unspeakable: Contemplative Practices of the Black Church (2nd ed., Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2017).
- Dan P. McAdams, The Stories We Live By (New York: Guilford Press, 1993).
- Barbara L. Fredrickson, Love 2.0 (New York: Hudson Street Press, 2013); Dacher Keltner, Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder (New York: Penguin Press, 2023).
- Smith, C., & Denton, M. L. (2005). Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers. Oxford University Press.
- Marc Freedman, How to Live Forever: The Enduring Power of Connecting the Generations (New York: PublicAffairs, 2018).
- Dacher Keltner, Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder (New York: Penguin Press, 2023).