Listening to God: the Key to Spiritual Formation for Salvationists and All People

Abstract

Having a relationship with God implies communication with Him. How do we communicate with God? How do we know what He is saying? Through the process of writing her spiritual autobiography during the COVID-19 pandemic, the researcher discovered that communication with God occurs when people 1) intentionally take time to listen to God, and 2) use the disruption of life as an occasion to contemplate their relationship with Him. Researching models of spiritual formation and looking at patterns in literature resulted in the creation of a five-part spiritual formation model of change. This model proposes that the ability to listen to God is a key aspect of spiritual formation. An action learning research project conducted with soldiers of The Salvation Army revealed that meeting biweekly one-on-one with a spiritual director to learn and engage in spiritual practices had a positive effect on the participants’ ability to listen to God. This portfolio shows that intentionally spending time listening to God aids in the spiritual formation of the listener and is the foundation of communicating with others about their relationship with God.