What is it that actually forms our inner reality? Our values, our perspective, our judgment, our understanding of wisdom about the issues that really matter? What difference does that make in Christian character formation? The American church consistently produces fruit that many of its own leaders either don't recognize, don't want, or disapprove of. Under- and malformed Christian people reflect a grounding in the surrounding culture rather than the character and love and gospel of Jesus Christ.

In this episode, author, professor, and consultant Tod Bolsinger argues that culture is the thing that forms you before you ever realize it, let alone consent to it. He suggests that the soil of community and belonging—rooted in attachment, vulnerability, trust, and joy—is what makes sense of exemplary models of Christian formation.

"If you wanna grow good fruit—abundant harvests of good fruit—you don't focus on the fruit, you focus on the soil."

With Mark Labberton, Tod reflects on the agricultural model of spiritual formation; regenerative farming and the impact of soil health on the quality of the fruit; the example of Andre Trocme and the French Huguenots of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, village whose radical hospitality saved thousands of Jews during the Holocaust; trust, pain, and care The intentionally formative community: joyful belonging, shared values, vulnerable self-reflection, care that isn't comfort.

Episode Highlights

  • "There are no dysfunctional systems. They all produce."
  • "These people just lived out their faith."
  • "The precognitive and the unconscious realities of our life are stronger than our words."
  • "Nothing is as formative as the organizational culture you're in."

About Tod Bolsinger

Tod Bolsinger is co-founder and principal of AE Sloan Leadership, a coaching and consulting firm working with churches, nonprofits, universities, and businesses in seasons of change. He is associate professor of leadership formation at Fuller Theological Seminary, where he earned an MDiv and PhD and served six years as a vice president. His books include "Canoeing the Mountains," "Tempered Resilience," "It Takes a Church to Raise a Christian," and the four-volume Practicing Change Series. He was a Presbyterian pastor for 27 years, most recently in San Clemente, California.

Helpful Links and Resources

  • Tod's current project, Good Soil, Holy Ground: Preparing Your People for Facing Change https://www.aesloanleadership.com/good-soil-holy-ground
  • AE Sloan Leadership, Tod Bolsinger's coaching and consulting firm: https://www.aesloanleadership.com/
  • Canoeing the Mountains, Bolsinger's best-known book: https://www.ivpress.com/canoeing-the-mountains
  • Tempered Resilience: How Leaders Are Formed in the Crucible of Change: https://www.ivpress.com/tempered-resilience
  • The Practicing Change Series, Bolsinger's four most recent books: https://www.ivpress.com/practicing-change-serie
  • The Biggest Little Farm: https://www.apricotlanefarms.com/biggest-little-farm/
  • Weapons of the Spirit, Pierre Sauvage's documentary on Le Chambon-sur-Lignon (from the Chambon Foundation): https://www.chambon.org/weapons_en.htm
  • The Patient Ferment of the Early Church by Alan Kreider: https://bakerpublishinggroup.com/books/the-patient-ferment-of-the-early-church/339350
  • An Everyone Culture by Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey, on deliberately developmental organizations: https://store.hbr.org/product/an-everyone-culture-becoming-a-deliberately-developmental-organization/14259

Show Notes

  • Dallas Willard's worry: that spiritual formation would become commoditized—"a cottage industry instead of rooted deeply in the life of the church"
  • "We take on the terroir of the soil, like the way a grape does for wine."
  • "The Biggest Little Farm" documentary: how regenerative agriculture transformed a soil-depleted farm north of Los Angeles
  • "If you wanna grow good fruit—abundant harvests of good fruit—you don't focus on the fruit, you focus on the soil"
  • Rereading the parable of the sower
  • "Jesus literally says that more powerful than his preaching is the soil that the word falls into."
  • Systems perfectly designed for the results they get: "There are no dysfunctional systems. they all produce."
  • No church ever started a program in Christian nationalism, no associate pastor, no strategic plan. "It just came up out of the soil."
  • "Weapons of the Spirit" documentary: Le Chambon-sur-Lignon: How French pastor Andre Trocme led a small village of Huguenots to save thousands of Jewish refugees during the Holocaust.
  • The pastors daughter, at age 93, on being told her parents were heroes: "You're very romantic about this. These people just lived out their faith."
  • Counter-cultural cultivation
  • Examples of radical communal formation: Amish forgiveness, Mother Emanuel AME
  • Cultural competency vs. cultural humility
  • Hospitality as the village economy
  • Mother Teresa and entering East Beirut to save children because of (not in spite of) the bombing
  • Brain scientists reaching for a word: "It is to be in a room with people who are happy to see you."
  • "God, please make me the kind of person my dog thinks I am"
  • The intentionally formative community, which "begins in joy, it ends in death"
  • "Trust, pain, and care": Kegan and Lahey's deliberately developmental organizations, and the three words in the word cloud
  • Are university theology faculty equipped to provide pastoral care to hurting, traumatized students?

#SpiritualFormation #Discipleship #ChristianLeadership #LeChambon #AdaptiveLeadership #ChurchLeadership #ChristianNationalism #Fuller

Production Credits

Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment Magazine and Fuller Seminary.

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