Primary Authors & Sources
From classic imitation of Christ through Puritan rest and affection to plain evangelical duties, students read how holiness is taught for ordinary believers. Thomas à Kempis’s Imitation of Christ remains the enduring handbook of humility, self-denial, and communion with Christ apart from curiosity. John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress allegorizes the Christian life as journey—conviction, warfare, and the Celestial City—in language congregations still understand. Richard Baxter’s Saints’ Everlasting Rest lifts the eyes to heaven as the motive and measure of holy living now. Jonathan Edwards’s Treatise concerning Religious Affections teaches discernment of true grace from counterfeit heat. J. C. Ryle’s Practical Religion brings the same piety into daily duties, dangers, and privileges with evangelical clarity. Together they serve formation that is warm, tested, and usable in house-church life.
What You Will Study
Students study Reformed spiritual theology on union with Christ, mortification and vivification, means of grace, prayer, and holy living drawn from Scripture, Puritan devotion, and confessional piety. The course covers the relationship between justification and sanctification, the role of disciplines, temptation, assurance, and communion with the triune God in daily life. Readings include Owen on indwelling sin, Scougal's life of God in the soul, selections from Heidelberg and Westminster catechisms on prayer and law, and modern Reformed works on spiritual formation rejecting mysticism divorced from doctrine. Students practice guided prayer, journaling, and Scripture meditation with accountability appropriate to house church discipleship groups across the BCFK community.
Course Objectives
Objectives include articulating Reformed theology of sanctification and means of grace, distinguishing gospel-driven piety from legalism and antinomianism, designing personal and congregational disciplines rooted in Word and sacrament, and writing reflections on mortification of sin and growth in grace. Students will evaluate contemporary spirituality movements against confessional standards. The course cultivates holistic devotion integrating mind, affections, and bodily practice under Christ's lordship. Students will explain assurance of salvation and its relationship to obedience without works-righteousness. Assessments include spiritual discipline plans, book responses, and peer accountability reports respecting confidentiality.
Ministry & Life Application
Spiritual formation grounds house church life in genuine holiness rather than mere doctrinal correctness or emotional excitement. Elders across the Florida Keys learn to shepherd members through temptation, dryness, and joy with resources from centuries of Reformed piety. Pastoral ministry becomes sustainable when leaders cultivate their own union with Christ through prayer and mortification rather than burning out in activism. This course complements theology and pastoral courses with personal godliness essential for credible witness. Congregations resemble Christ when teachers model and instruct the life of God in the soul of man.