How is CAFO a “Community of Spiritual Formation”?

If transformed human beings is our goal, it must begin with us. While we will never do it perfectly, we must seek to reflect in increasing measure the life in Christ that we seek for others: generous and joyful, calm amidst trial, grateful in all circumstances, bearing the light yoke of self-forgetfulness, kind and patient, fully present and attentive to the one person before us, steadfast and hope-filled, rich in love.

Indeed, why work to grow this fruit in others if it is absent in ourselves?

This is why we view CAFO not first as a justice organization, a movement, or cause – although CAFO’s work certainly includes these things, too. Our first identity is as a community of spiritual formation. 19

The members of the CAFO team voluntarily unite as followers of Jesus, under the authority of Scripture and led by the Holy Spirit, endeavoring to choose with intentionality those actions that will most enable us to: 1. Grow to know, love and reflect the character of Jesus more each day; and 2. Join in God’s restorative work together, especially by equipping champions whose skillful love enables vulnerable children and families to flourish.

This identity is not to the exclusion of professionalism or work ethic. Far from it. We aim to give the very best that we have to the mission we share. It is simply that we see clearly that we are most able to do that when our souls are most alive. When God is steadily transforming us into His image, both as individuals and as a team, our external work becomes transformative as well. We are more visionary, creative, energetic, perseverant and effective. Good roots will produce good fruit.

To be clear, spiritual formation is not merely a means to productivity. Humans were not made simply to produce. We were made both to glorify and to enjoy our Creator. Our greatest good and deepest identity is not found in what we make or achieve. Rather, it is to hear our heavenly Father declare over us, just as Jesus did before he began his earthly ministry, “This is my beloved child, in whom I am well pleased.” To be “formed in the image of Christ” begins here and nowhere else.

The “Strategic Plan for Thriving Souls” articulates the commitment of CAFO’s leadership to nurturing a culture that supports and sustains a whole-life journey of spiritual formation. Alongside this organizational commitment, as individual member of the CAFO team, we voluntarily pledge ourselves to the following “Commitments of Spiritual Formation.”

By God’s grace, under the authority of Scripture and led by the Holy Spirit, we desire to see the character of Christ increasingly reflected in our spirit, body, emotions, intellect, and relationships. Toward this end, we will endeavor: 1. To spend time with our heavenly Father each day; 2. To receive the gift of Sabbath each week; 3. To experience extended solitude with God at least once each year, along with other spiritual disciplines we may choose to engage; 4. To participate actively in the life of a local church.

There is much room for flexibility and diverse understandings in interpreting these commitments. There is much grace and no judgement of one another in our efforts to apply them. We simply seek to do our best to keep them as God gives us to understand them. We also encourage and pray for each another along the way. Most of all, we desire that, by God’s grace, Christ will increasingly be “formed in us.”20

Our daily work through CAFO is simply the outgrowth of this internal formation. The daily labor is also one important means God uses to deepen our life in Him.

This, for us, is what it means to “seek His Kingdom” above all else. Sin has tangled every thread of creation. But in Jesus – and now through His people – God is at work to rescue and renew. Someday, all that is wrong will be set right. But even now, God’s Kingdom breaks forth wherever broken lives are healed, broken relationship reconciled, and broken situations mended.

Together, we join God in this work of restoration, with special focus on orphaned and vulnerable children. It begins in us and then spills outward through us. To be a small part of this work in our beautiful, broken world is among the greatest joys a human can know.