We are all made with a deep desire to be in God's presence and to become our true selves in light of God's grace. Books from IVP Formatio follow the rich tradition of the church in the journey of spiritual formation. For spiritual directors, retreat leaders, and contemplative Christians alike, IVP Formatio titles facilitate deep and formative spiritual growth through spiritual disciplines and tools like the Enneagram.
Read more about Formatio's history and how books can form you spiritually in the article "Spiritual Formation and Books" by IVP vice president and associate publisher Cindy Bunch.
Search related topics: ▶︎ Christian Living ▶︎ Devotional ▶︎ Discipleship ▶︎ Enneagram ▶︎ Inspirational ▶︎ Prayer ▶︎ Spiritual Direction
M. Robert Mulholland Jr. fleshes out a carefully worded definition of spiritual formation that encompasses the dynamics of a vital Christian life and counters our culture's tendency to trivialize, methodize and privatize spirituality. Now revised and expanded by Ruth Haley Barton with a new foreword, practices and study guide.
When we choose retreat we make a generous investment in our friendship with Christ. Seasoned spiritual director Ruth Haley Barton gently and eloquently leads us into an exploration of retreat as a key practice that opens us to God, guiding us through seven invitations to retreat. You will discover how to say yes to God's winsome invitation to greater freedom and surrender.
Much of our faith and practice is about words—preaching, teaching, talking with others. Yet all of these words are not enough to take us into the real presence of God. This book is an invitation to meet God deeply and fully through solitude and silence. This expanded edition includes a guide for groups to use for both discussion and practice.
God's invitations to rest, follow, remember or repent may seem less compelling than your to-do list. But Adele Calhoun believes invitations like these can heal, restore and shape where we go, what we do and who we become. Here she includes reflection questions, exercises and disciplines to help you attend to the quiet voice of the Great Inviter.
Luann Budd offers to help you get started journaling, and she introduces you to the power of writing as a spiritual discipline through helpful tips and examples from her own journals.
Helen Harmelink Cepero looks at how we can use journal writing to enhance and support other disciplines such as discernment, self-understanding, attention to God, prayer and more.
In Journey with Jesus, spiritual director Larry Warner guides us through the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius, similar to the way he's been leading people through them in person. Ignatius wanted to help everyone, no matter what age or stage of life, experience Jesus. Through prayers and Scripture readings that largely focus on the life of Christ, the Spiritual Exercises that have been so powerful and growth-inducing for so many, including Warner, can be a tool for transformation in you as well.
Including unpublished material recorded from Henri Nouwen's lectures, this book comes at the request of the Henri Nouwen's literary estate from someone who knew him as a teacher and friend. Carol Berry brings her own experience in both ministry and art education to bear as she unpacks the much misunderstood spiritual context of Vincent van Gogh's work, and reinterprets van Gogh's art in light of Nouwen's lectures.
When everything in her life came to a stop, Pastor Juanita Rasmus found that she had to learn to be—with herself and with God—all over again. Offering both practical and spiritual insights, she shares a wise, frank, and witty account of her own story of exhaustion and depression, acting as a trustworthy companion through dark days.
We've all been let down by so-called community. Why is it so hard for us to connect and grow together for the long haul? Veteran spiritual director Ruth Haley Barton helps us get personal and practical about experiencing transformation together. This interactive guide allows us to grow through and by the experience of transforming community.
We've all been let down by so-called community. Why is it so hard for us to connect and grow together for the long haul? Veteran spiritual director Ruth Haley Barton helps us get personal and practical about experiencing transformation together. This interactive guide allows us to grow through and by the experience of transforming community.
Framed around one ordinary day, this book explores daily life through the lens of liturgy, small practices, and habits that form us. Each chapter looks at something author Tish Harrison Warren does in a day—making the bed, brushing her teeth, losing her keys—and relates it to spiritual practice as well as to our Sunday worship.
Dallas Willard explores what it means to live well now in light of God's kingdom. Now in paperback, this book is adapted from the talks given at the February 2013 Dallas Willard Center "Knowing Christ Today" conference. Each chapter is followed with an illuminating dialogue between Dallas Willard and John Ortberg.
Bobby Gross presents chapters on each season of the liturgical year, accompanied by weekly devotions based on the Sunday readings of the lectionary cycle. His book offers a flexible weekly format, designed to let you break the devotions down any way you want to.
In this book Father Albert Haase follows the lines of the Lord's Prayer, showing how the ideas have been understood by great people of faith, including Francis of Assisi, Martin Luther, Thérèse of Lisieux and others, and revealing how God can use this ancient prayer to transform your very soul and teach you to walk in the way of a true disciple of Christ.
Do you long for the closeness with God that you've tasted in fleeting moments? You can begin to fill that longing by developing your capacity to receive and respond to God's love. In this rich resource Richard Foster and Gayle Beebe introduce you to people from the past who have known God deeply and model the seven paths to intimacy with God from Christian history.
Ruth Haley Barton looks at the complexity of women's lives and how women experience spiritual transformation. Underneath all the confusion is a longing for freedom—not the freedom to do as we please, but the freedom to discover our full identity in Christ and use our gifts to serve him.
When pastor David Beck went to Haiti with a ministry team he found himself deeply experiencing the power of being Christ's own hands and feet. Luminous explores what it means to live out the reality of the incarnation, emphasizing the purpose, presence, power and peace Christ offers us and we in turn extend to the world.
Join Bette Dickinson as she moves through the story of Christmas and Jesus' birth. Each of these twenty-five devotionals includes an original painting, spiritual practices, breath prayers, and reflection questions that will allow you to truly make room for God's work in your life, your community, and the world.
Number of Studies: 25
Would you like to enter Scripture in a way that draws you deeper into the very presence of the Holy? These forty guided meditations from experienced Bible teacher Jan Johnson open us to the experience of God's Word speaking into our lives, giving individuals and groups the tools we need to encounter Christ with lectio divina.
The hallmarks of contemplative spirituality—solitude, silence, and stillness—have never been more important for our fast-paced society. Filled with insights and wisdom from personal experiences, Phileena Heuertz introduces us to themes and teachers of contemplative spirituality, as well as several prayer practices, and invites us to greater healing and wholeness by learning to practice faith through prayer.
The Enneagram is like a mirror, reflecting dimensions of ourselves that are sometimes hard to see. In this helpful guide, spiritual director and Enneagram teacher Alice Fryling offers an introduction to each number of the Enneagram, with questions and meditations to lead you into deeper self-awareness and reveal how you can experience God's love more abundantly.
Prayer is not merely something we do; prayer is what God does in us. Using the four movements of lectio divina, spiritual director David Benner invites us to discover openness to God as the essence of prayer, spirituality, and the Christian life. This expanded edition explores prayer as attending, pondering, responding, and being, opening us to a world of possibilities for communion with God.
Activists can only go so far for so long before burning out. Including extended spiritual practices in this revised edition, Phileena Heuertz offers her story and helps us see that contemplation is not just a luxury, it is essential—not only to a life of sustained commitment to justice, but to the fully human life in the Holy Spirit.
We tend to think about God in isolation, but Mark Scandrette contends that Jesus offers something more. Here Scandrette draws from his experience as a spiritual director and leader of an intentional community, plus the best thinking on kingdom spirituality, to help your group experience a vibrant life lived together, in the way of Jesus.