When we talk about spiritual formation (SF), most people will think of reading the bible and meditation. However, meditating on bible passages is only one of the medias of spiritual formation, and it‘s not SF itself, because SF is not a program nor a method. SF refers to the process of the desire and movement of the Trinity who takes the initiative to attract His children with love to establish a close relationship with Himself. During this process, believers are becoming to be more like Jesus Christ. The quality of Jesus’ image lies in three aspects: character, relationship, and calling. We often mention the Great Commandment and the Great Commission, yet we neglect the Great Promise (2 Peter 1:4) Through this very great and precious promise, we may participate in the divine nature, to nurture our inner characters, so that we will be more and more like Jesus.

At the beginning of March, a seven-month long “Kingdom Leadership” training was held once a month by Scott Yeh from the Mandarine Zone. More than 60 members from both Cantonese and Mandarin zone registered for this course. During this training, we not only learn about “doing” but also “being”, by providing a weekly meditation material to our members and help them practice characters thru small group discussion. Together we practice 8 characters including, humility, confidence, courage, self-control, patience, contentment, generosity and perseverance. Hoping by nurturing our characters, we can develop relationships that reflect the love of God and love of men, and through the call of missionary work, to achieve the blessing of all people. Although this training has already completed in September, building characters requires us to practice every day for a lifetime. I pray that we are all able to truly live out the image of Jesus Christ in our everyday life.