WAS there an application?

No. But we did ask for a demonstrably high level of desire to be part of this project in its pilot year, meaning: 1) participants were so hungry for a deep-dive into spiritual formation that they would orient their year around it, including some significant parts of their schedule and 2) that they were very excited about being a participant designer and entering into an experience that was happening for the first time and was therefore a work-in-progress!

Why online?

The Formation Project was focused on transforming the way we live our everyday lives. In this respect, the vast majority of the experience took place offline. That said, our formation groups met online, and we didn’t gather all the participants in person. This is because our vision was for this project to be able to grow nimbly, wherever people are, whenever they are ready to undertake a year of spiritual formation. As such, we were striving to eliminate financial and logistical barriers, such as the need to live in a given location or attend any official gatherings in order to embark on one’s formation experience.

WERE ALL PARTICIPANTS religious?

No. At least, not in the traditional sense. The 56 participants came from many religious backgrounds and none at all. They didn’t have to share any beliefs or subscribe to any dogma. This project was born from the fact that more and more of us aren’t finding a comfortable or complete home within a single religious tradition, yet are still in search of spiritual deepening in community.

What was expected, however, was for participants to take responsibility for deepening their own spiritual lives - whatever that meant to them. They were asked to develop language around what they cared about and aspired to, engage rigorously with practices of their choosing, and be held in loving accountability as they began to cultivate disciplines that supported their own process of becoming the people they had the capacity to be.

You say this was a pilot. What were you hoping to learn?

At the highest level, we were hoping to learn how to support spiritual formation in community, amongst folks who don’t live in the same place or share a set of religious beliefs! This was an experiment in responding to the spiritual longing of our time. We explored how to create conditions for each participant to go deeper, in a way that brought their own creativity and insight into conversation with ancient wisdom about how formation happens. We wanted to discover how to provide enough of a framework for folks to feel led and accompanied, and enough freedom to follow their curiosity, instinct, and heart. And to find out if this experience, undertaken in small groups across a wide geography, would bring folks closer together. It did!

Who SAID yes to this?

Among the 56 who began the pilot, the defining feature was a high level of unmet desire for this kind of thing in their lives. They came from various religious backgrounds and none at all, but tended not to have found a comfortable or complete home within a single religious community or identity. Many (not all) were in the United States, many (not all) were in the 25-40 age range. Just under half were people of color. Some were parents. Some were community leaders who came to this project through the How We Gather work, though many were simply seeking to deepen their own spiritual lives.

WHO MADE THIS?

The design team for the Formation Project was Angie Thurston, Sue Phillips, Casper ter Kuile, Eddie Gonzalez, and Katie Gordon. The pilot was incubated at the On Being Project and completed at Sacred Design Lab. See more on our Team page.

Who FUNDED this?

The Formation Project was primarily supported by the Fetzer Institute through a collaboration between Harvard Divinity School and the On Being Project. Valuable support also came from the George Family Foundation, the Angell Foundation, and the Texas Methodist Foundation.

DID PEOPLE PAY?

No, there was no cost to participate.