In this first episode of a new series on formation, I explore a question that has been shaping my own life: Who or what is forming you?
I reflect on experiences in church, men’s ministry, and discipleship, and explain why conversations about leadership, purity, marriage, and responsibility—while important—don’t always answer the deeper question of who we are becoming. Drawing from the life of Jesus, this episode examines how our habits, relationships, communities, and daily practices quietly shape our character over time.
Rather than offering a checklist for becoming a “better man,” this conversation invites listeners to consider what true spiritual formation looks like and how discipleship is ultimately about becoming more like Christ, not simply accumulating knowledge.
Whether you’re navigating church hurt, reevaluating your spiritual life, or simply longing to grow in maturity, this episode offers a thoughtful invitation to examine the influences that are shaping your heart.
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Key Takeaways
- Formation is happening whether we recognize it or not.
- Our habits shape our character long before our actions reveal it.
- Discipleship is about becoming like Jesus, not merely learning about Him.
- Spiritual maturity is revealed during seasons of pressure and difficulty.
- Knowledge without transformation can produce pride instead of Christlikeness.
- The people and voices we consistently listen to are shaping us.
- Healthy community is essential for lasting spiritual formation.
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Thank you for supporting conversations about Faith. Struggle. Becoming.
If this conversation encouraged you, you can support the podcast here:
00:00 - Introduction & A New Series on Formation
02:00 - What Sparked This Conversation
08:30 - The Question That Changed Everything
15:45 - Following Jesus vs Following Ideas
22:40 - We Are Always Being Formed
31:00 - Questions for Reflection
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Hey, welcome to another episode of The Prodigal Journey.
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I am the host, Ben, and as you can see, this episode is a solo format,
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and these are gonna be a little bit shorter episodes compared to
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some of our long form interviews.
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But I just wanted to go through a series over the next couple of weeks that
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deals with the idea of formation in men.
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Of whether you wanna call it discipleship, masculinity, whatever you might have
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interacted with it as and called it, um, I wanna talk about formation.
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And the reason this has been on my mind a lot more lately is because
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I've started just spending some time thinking through my life over the last
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decade as we've transitioned churches and are in a much healthier church now.
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And just talking to men at the church I go to now, and, we've kind of revamped
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our men's ministry, and it's just a burden on my heart- And I wanna preface
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it with this because this is also some of what led me to thinking through
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this and wanting to do a series on it.
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Not too long ago, somebody, sent me a picture.
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It was a media poster that a specific men's conference was sending out,
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and I'm not gonna name the specific conference because that's not my goal.
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But I could tell by looking at the poster that it was not gonna
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be a good men's conference, not just by the way it was structured.
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And I get that it's a media thing, it's a marketing thing, you know,
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you wanna market it to men and, you know, make it sound cool.
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But, um, you know, it's, it's… it just to me, if that's what we're
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doing, then we're kinda missing the boat in how we approach this topic.
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And specifically, on the poster, probably half or more of the men, you know, were
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doing this pose where they're, like, sticking out their chest with their
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arms folded, and they got this really, you know, tough look on their face and
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the way they're standing on the poster.
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I get it.
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Again, it's a marketing thing.
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But that to me was my first red flag, and also, um, then I- when I started to look
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at some of the names at this conference, I realized it was also a red flag
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because it was a lot of people surrounded in, you know, high up in politics and
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we're not gonna get into any of that.
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But, um, it was also being led by a lot of men who have not been humble in
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their public ministry and have been, um, you know, called out by a lot of
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people for their abuse in previous churches that they've covered up,
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their spiritual abuse of people, and these are the types of examples that
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are, you know, being set for men.
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And this conference also had, like, some type of a bunch of, like, strongman events
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and CrossFit and, you know, a bunch of other things to prove how tough men are.
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Well, at that point, you've pretty much ostracized a lot of men who
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might not be into that type of stuff but who are obviously still men.
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Um, so it was just a burden of mine.
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Another conference somebody sent me, um, some information about was, like,
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you know, it was a men's conference and they had some man on stage performing
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and was stripping his clothes off and swallowing swords, and I'm like, "What?"
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You know, I just, I don't understand, and if that's, that's what we are
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directing our energy towards when we think of this idea of formation in men,
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we're really missing who Jesus was as a man and the example that he set for us.
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And so I wanna kinda take this at a different angle over this next
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couple of episodes with this series.
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And I wanna specifically focus more on formation and who is… This
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one, this episode specifically, I wanna focus on who is forming you.
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And this is kind of the question that started this for me.
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Um, over the last few years, I've found myself asking a question that honestly
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did catch me a little off guard, and that was: what does it actually mean
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to become a man who follows Jesus?
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And the more I think about that question, that probably sounds like a strange
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question for me to ask, especially some of you who have heard my story and know
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that I've spent most of my life in church.
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But it wasn't a question that came from reading another book or listening
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to another sermon or podcast.
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Honestly, it came from just me watching my own life, starting to ask some
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good questions about who Jesus was and, and honestly, like, just from
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watching the lives of men around me over the last eight to 10 years.
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Um, and for a while, I was, you know, especially at our last church, I was
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surrounded by conversations of…
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a lot of conversations about what it meant to be a man.
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And we talked a lot about things like purity, marriage, uh, fatherhood,
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work, leadership, responsibility, and we went through a lot of studies that
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devoted, you know, nearly all their time to talking about every role a
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man could have or hold in his life.
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Um, and I really wanna be careful here because some of those conversations,
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if I look back and I'm honest about it, some of those conversations were helpful.
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They named real responsibilities.
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They challenged passivity in my life.
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They made room for having conversations about fear, shame, wounds, integrity,
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and just having a dependence on God.
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And I did definitely learn things from them in the time, you know, that
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I was going through those studies.
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But over time, I definitely began to feel a tension that
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I just couldn't quite shake.
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Um, we had a lot of language around, you know, what men should do.
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But I continued to wonder another question that I kept asking
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Who are we becoming?
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And if you've listened to podcasts over the last, you know, couple months or
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so that we've released episodes, or if you've been following our newsletter, you
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know that as difficult situations have kind of unfolded in both my workplace
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and our previous church situation, I really found myself paying closer
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attention to the men that were around me, and not because I was looking for
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someone to criticize, but I was really just looking for someone to imitate.
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And as I watched the lives of those men around me, I wasn't just simply evaluating
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them based on what I was seeing.
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I was really beginning to also evaluate the kind of man that I was becoming.
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As I was evaluating the kind of man I was becoming, I really wanted to know
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what maturity actually looked like for a man when life became difficult.
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You know, I started asking myself other questions like, "What does a man shaped
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by Jesus look like when he is angry?
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How does he respond when he's challenged by others?
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What happens when that man is given power, and how does he relate
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that power with other people?
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What does he do when he realizes he is wrong?
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Does he admit he's wrong?
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Does he have humility?" And the more I paid attention, the more
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I realized something that was really difficult for me to admit
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The kind of maturity that I really longed for looked more like Jesus
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than many of the examples I had in my life over the last decade
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And that sounds really harsh, but I feel like it's time for us to
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get honest about this conversation
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As I noticed that, and let me say that again, the kind of maturity I longed
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for looked more like Jesus than many of the examples of the men that I
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had around me over the last decade.
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Now, I'm plugged into a really good church now, and the men there so far,
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as I know, have been great and have not been setting a poor example of
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this, and they've really reflected Jesus well to me in discipling me.
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But during this time before we found this church, there were very few men
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who were actually pointing me to Jesus.
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And that's a tough thing to come to realize, especially when you're surrounded
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by so many people talking about Jesus.
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And that question stayed with me.
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And eventually, I had to turn that question inward.
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Who was actually or who has actually been forming me all these years?
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And this leads me to a concept I wanna talk about that is in scripture,
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especially in the Book of James.
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I wanna talk about doing versus becoming as we kind of set up this upcoming
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series on formation, and we're just kinda setting the stage for that.
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Because somewhere along the way, I realized something very uncomfortable.
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Um, I wasn't just observing formation in other men, I was
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being formed myself as well.
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And that's what it takes humility to realize that you are also being
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formed by someone or something.
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And as I've kind of reflected on my own story, I realize I had spent a lot
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of time learning what Christian men should do, which again, are good things.
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Work hard, provide, lead, be faithful, serve, protect, don't be passive.
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Those are all good things.
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But I don't remember many, if any, conversations about
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who we were becoming as men.
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I don't remember many men talking about the inner life.
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How do we grieve as men?
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How do we process disappointment?
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How do we bring fear, joy, sorrow, and anger before God?
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And it really started to bother me that I wasn't having more conversations
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like this, and more people did not really wanna talk about those
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things when I would bring them up.
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But, you know, how, how to become the kind of man whose character actually resembles
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Jesus, and not just a man with charisma that can inform people and be charismatic.
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Now, just to be clear, maybe your experience wasn't… Maybe your
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experience was different than mine, and if you've had a different
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experience, I really am grateful.
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Um, and I'm thankful for that you've had that opportunity
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And like I said, I could definitely identify with the
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things we were told to do.
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I could work hard.
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I've always been a hard worker.
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I could serve.
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I could lead.
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I could know the right Christian language.
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But it really left me asking more questions than
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answers, than having answers
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It left me asking other questions like, was I actually becoming more like Jesus?
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Was I becoming a gentler person?
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Gentle isn't something in this day and age that a lot of people associate with
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being a man or being formed as a man.
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But I had to ask, was I becoming gentler?
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And a lot of these questions came from studying more of the life of Jesus.
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Was I learning to carry anger without letting it control me?
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Sometimes that's a hard thing to do.
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Um, another question, you know, I was left with, was I becoming someone who
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was safe with other people's weakness?
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And some of this language is stuff we do not hear talked about today
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in relation to the formation of men.
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Gentleness, meekness.
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I mean, the whole list of the fruit of the Spirit.
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Was the fruit of the Spirit becoming more visible in my own life?
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And I'm just kinda left asking myself all these questions.
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Was I just doing more things?
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Was I getting better at performing the responsibilities I had been given?
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And I really… I mean, those questions really unsettled me.
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And I've done a lot of wrestling over the last six to eight months,
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especially over this topic, and my burden for men in general.
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Because here, here's the, here's the juxtaposition we can see in these things.
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If we only focus on the things a man is supposed to do, a man can learn
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to lead and still become controlling.
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He can talk about purity and still speak about women without honor.
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He can consume instead of, you know, instead of giving back and honoring.
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He can provide for his family and still remain emotionally absent from his family.
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So th- that's why it's so important to distinguish between all these
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conversations about what we are supposed to do as men, and that's not, that's
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not where… That's not the end of it.
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That's not, that's not all of it.
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And this idea of formation goes much deeper than the things we're doing.
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And as we're being formed, those things, the actions of doing, serving,
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loving, providing, come out of that formation in following Jesus.
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A man can serve every week at church and still be harsh with
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the people closest to him.
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And I'm not just making these up.
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These are examples not only from my own life, but what I was seeing from the lives
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of the men that were around me, uh, as- at the other church and my other circles.
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A man can know scripture and still resist correction.
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He can carry enormous responsibilities and still be shaped by pride, fear,
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anger, or the need for control.
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So that's why it's so important to have this balance, and to focus more on the
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formation and what, what is happening in the inner soul of a man, and those
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other things will come out of that.
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You know, maybe the problem isn't that the things we've been taught is wrong.
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Maybe the problem is believing that doing the right things automatically means that
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we are becoming the right kind of people.
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And that's the distinction I wanna make.
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Doing Christian things and being formed into the likeness of Christ
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are not automatically the same thing
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And when I came to that realization, eventually what I realized is that
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the men I had around me, they could inspire me, they could warn me.
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Some faithfully pointed me to Jesus, and they actually still
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do today, even though those men have also since left that church.
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Um, but they still continue to be a part of my life and my discipleship.
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And others, though, have showed me what happens when our lives
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begin reflecting something else
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So this might seem like it's obvious to even say this, but I wanted to
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know… If I wanted to know what maturity truly looked like, I
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had to go back and look at Jesus.
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And you would think that's an obvious statement to make, but I had to reset
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my idea of what maturity looked like, what it meant to be formed as a man by
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looking at the life of Jesus and looking at the way he interacted with people,
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with other men, with women around him, with the people in power who he interacted
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with, and how he handled his own power
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Because if we don't have that reset and look at Jesus, every other example
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that we look at is only trustworthy to the extent that it reflects Jesus
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So I also wanna talk about this idea.
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We've talked about doing verse becoming, but this idea is following, uh, now that
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we're looking and resetting to the life of Jesus, following Jesus is formation.
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You know, the more I read the Gospels, the more I notice something.
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Jesus, you know, rarely invited people to simply agree with him.
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He invited them to follow him, and you see that example a lot in the Gospels,
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especially in Jesus's earthly ministry.
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He just invited people to follow him, and when they got to know more about
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who Jesus was, that formation in their souls reflected who Jesus was
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to them and what he had taught them.
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And you see when Jesus even calls his first disciples,
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he simply said, "Follow me."
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And that invitation wasn't merely about changing the physical locations
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where they walked, although they did a lot of that, and it led them to a
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lot of dangerous places and a lot of different situations, but it was also
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about changing who they were becoming.
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That invitation to follow me is more about a physical change in location.
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They were changing who they were becoming.
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And following Jesus isn't simply information transfer.
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You notice if you look through again the Gospels in his earthly ministry,
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he wasn't just giving his disciples information about who he was and
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what was to come and, you know, what they were supposed to be doing.
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It was formation.
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The s- disciples didn't simply learn Jesus' teaching.
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They, they walked alongside him.
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They watched how he treated people.
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As I said earlier, they watched how he prayed, how he responded to the criticism
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of the Pharisees and unbelievers, how he rested, how he loved others.
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We see examples of how Jesus grieved with people he loved.
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Jesus cried with different people, and we see how Jesus handled power.
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We see how he trusted his Father.
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And so we see that slowly over time, the disciples, they were being
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shaped by the one they followed.
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And that's the whole idea of this episode is who is forming you?
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Do you also in your own life, as you look at these ideas, do you need a
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hard reset again to look at the life of Jesus and the way he calls us to
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formation, and he calls us to follow him?
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Or are you focused more on simply doing the things that are laid out for
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responsibilities, for providing, just do, do, do all these things and get
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really good at them, um, but are you missing the boat when it comes to the,
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what is being formed in your own soul?
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You know, the, the interesting thing is, and I'd be the, you know, first
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to admit, I don't always get it right.
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The disciples didn't always get it right.
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In fact, the Gospels are remarkably honest about how often they did not get it right.
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And I'm often reminded of my own shortcomings in this area
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and idea of formation, because I can do things really well.
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Um, I am really detail-oriented.
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I can make a list.
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I can get things done.
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I can work hard, while just my soul at the same time can be completely
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empty and void of feeling and just feeling exhausted and not refreshed.
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So… Oh, and I mean, even the disciples, we see they argued
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about who was the greatest.
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So there was a lot of times they misunderstood Jesus and what he
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was saying to them, and they had to ask questions because they didn't
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understand what Jesus was saying.
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And there was oftentimes they just wanted to call down fire on people
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and see people destroyed and judged.
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So it's definitely good examples of not just the shortcomings and the
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ways we've failed, but examples for us of what it really means to follow
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Jesus and be formed by who Jesus is.
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You know, all f- there's times where they fell asleep on Jesus
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when he asked them to pray.
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Peter promised loyalty and then denied ever even knowing Jesus
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But the, the thing that gives me hope is that Jesus kept forming them.
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Jesus did not give up on them.
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He kept forming them.
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He kept correcting them.
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He kept challenging them.
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He was loving them.
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And He just continued to invite them to follow Him again and again and again,
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and He just showed His grace and His mercy to them over and over again.
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And so that's where I find hope, and I hope you can find hope there as well.
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No matter where you are on this idea of formation, and if you
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just find yourself failing, Jesus calls you to keep following Him.
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It's not just a one-and-done follow.
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It's an active everyday follow.
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And it's a, it's a call to be formed by Jesus.
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You know, I wonder sometimes if we've unintentionally reduced discipleship
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to just learning more information.
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Another sermon, another podcast, another Bible study, another book.
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And that's been our discipleship maybe for years, just learning
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more information about Jesus.
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Now, those things definitely matter, and information can give us language
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to communicate to others and, and what's happening in our own lives.
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It can expose things that we haven't yet seen.
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But
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It's just more information.
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It can even teach us truth.
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That information can be helpful in that way as well.
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But information alone cannot transform us, and that's my burden.
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You can take a class on marriage and still be cruel to your spouse.
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And I, I will admit that that was one of my biggest issues in my first marriage
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is we went through so much counseling, and I was able to take the books that
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they were giving to me in counseling and being able to use that to be more
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manipulative and cruel to my spouse.
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We as men can study leadership but still use power and power to control people.
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We can memorize verses that speak about love but still fail to see the
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person standing right in front of us.
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We can know the fruit of the Spirit by heart and still never
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stop to ask whether that fruit is actually growing in our own lives.
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And again, this is important because
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transformation, transforna- transformation isn't merely
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about knowing what Jesus taught.
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It's about allowing him to shape who we are as people, the very
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inner being of our souls as men.
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We struggle as men to be connected to our hearts and what God is showing us.
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We sometimes think that's more of a feminine thing, so we focus on
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things like strongman competitions.
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Again, not a bad thing.
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I've done things like that before, but sometimes that's the only focus.
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The focus is on hunting, how strong you are as a man, you know,
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what your political stance is.
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Things that really, according to scripture, have no bearing
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on who you are as a man
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And I want us to think about this, is that it's not that some of us are not
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being formed, because we are already being formed, every single one of us.
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We're formed by our families, our churches.
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We're being formed by our workplaces, the type of media we
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consume, the people we admire.
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We're being formed by, you know, the voices that we, we repeatedly listen to.
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We're being shaped and formed by our pain, and when we don't know
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how to deal with that pain, that's shaping us in a negative way.
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We're being shaped by the things we fear, the ways we've learned
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to just simply survive instead of tackling the issues in our hearts.
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So formation really is happening whether we're paying attention to it or not.
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It's not about not being formed, it's again, who or what is forming us?
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Who or what is leading us down that road?
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You know, Paul writes in Romans 12, "Do not be conformed to this
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world, but be transformed by," what?
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"The renewing of our minds." That is formation.
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Don't be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
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I think those two words are worth paying attention to, conformed and transformed.
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Paul doesn't simply call us to behave differently.
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He's speaking about transformation.
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He's speaking about something deeper, something that's happening from
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the inside out, not the outside in, not the things that we're doing on
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a regular basis to just perform.
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That's the kind of discipleship that I want to pursue in my own life.
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That is the example I wanna set for my kids, the example that I wanna set
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for other men in our church, the men who are in my circle of influence.
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I don't simply wanna change my behavior
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I don't simply wanna look at Christian l- I don't simply wanna look like
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a mature Christian from the outside
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Becoming the kind of person-- I wanna become the kind of person who naturally
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reflects the character of Christ.
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And when we are being formed from the inside, like I've said before,
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those fruit of the spirit naturally flow out of our hearts when we are
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focused on the formation of our souls.
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This is one of the questions I wanna leave you with.
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What kind of person, what kind of man are you becoming?
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I wanna be clear about something.
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I've said many times in this episode, I have not arrived.
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This series isn't me standing on the other side of formation explaining
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how everyone else should get here.
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I'm standing on the same side as everyone else
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asking people to just come along this journey of formation to follow Jesus
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more closely than what we have been.
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Some of these questions exist because I've had to confront things
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in my own life that I've noticed.
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I've had to con- confront things that my wife and other people of influence
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in my life have brought to my attention.
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Ways I've responded out of fear, ways that anger has shaped me, ways
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disappointment has hardened me, and ways I've looked for approval from others.
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That's a tough one for me.
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Um, ways I've allowed other people's definition of success,
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leadership, faithfulness, or manhood to shape me more than I realized.
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And that's what this whole series is, is about.
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Over the next few weeks, I want us to explore questions that I
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have found reshaping my own life.
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Questions like, what do we do with our inner world as men?
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How do emotions fit into s- discipleship?
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You know, I wanna say this.
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Y- as I was developing this series to, to record, I thought I was gonna start
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out with emotions, and I thought this whole series was gonna be about emotions
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because as I was studying the life of Jesus, I also was noticing things
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about men and our emotions that we just don't have a clear understanding
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of how those fit together as men.
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But this series has turned into something a little bit more than
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just talking about emotions.
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But it definitely fits into this topic, and we'll address some of that in a
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f- future episode You know, some other questions like what kind of man does
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Jesus actually invite us to become?
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Why can't we simply just staple fruit onto a tree and call it healthy?
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Especially when the tree is dead and we staple healthy fruit onto that tree and
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pretend like it's, it's healthy fruit.
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And ultimately, what does it look like to abide in Christ so deeply that
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transformation becomes the natural result?
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And that's my, my heart for this series.
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That's my heart for you if you hear this, that, you know, you would ask
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yourself, what does it look like to abide in Christ so deeply that
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transformation becomes a natural outflow and result of that transformation?
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I don't want this to just be another checklist.
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I'm not gonna go through checklists.
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See, five ways to become a better man.
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Seven habits to an emotionally healthy Christian man.
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I don't wanna make… I don't wanna make a series, another series on
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more things to do like a checklist.
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That would defeat the whole purpose of what we're trying to
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accomplish through this series and what my burden is for you as men.
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Um, because as I've said before, formation isn't simply a performance
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You know, this isn't just about 10 steps to become more like Jesus.
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It's not performance.
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It's not about, again, it's not about stapling some behavior to the outside of
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a life that is slowly dying underneath
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And I've lived that for so long.
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I've seen that modeled to me over the last decade by men consumed
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by power, consumed by not being humble when they're confronted with
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wrongdoing, and I want something better.
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I don't just want a better example because ultimately, we have to look to Jesus as
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our example, but we should have men in our lives that reflect these things to us.
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And Jesus is inviting us to something deeper.
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He invites us to abide.
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He invites us to follow, to remain, and to be transformed.
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I wanna leave you with one question as we close out this series or this episode.
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If someone looked at the tr- trajectory… That's a hard word to say.
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If someone looked at the trajectory of your life, not just your beliefs,
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but your habits, priorities, your reactions, your relationships,
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who or what would they conclude is shaping the person you're becoming?
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And I want you to think about this question this week as you
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interact with those people, and maybe even ask that question to
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someone trustworthy in your life.
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Don't rush to answer it.
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Just pay attention.
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Seek out the advice of someone in your life who's a mentor, who has been
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watching your life because I really think that that's where formation begins, is
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being able to start with that question.
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I appreciate you listening to this episode or watching it wherever
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you're watching it or listening, and I look forward to going through the
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rest of this series on formation.
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It really is… Again, I started out this series thinking I was gonna do a series on
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emotions, and it led into something much different as I was asking more questions,
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and it led to this idea of formation.
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So I really look forward to these other episodes with you, and if you
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have any questions, please reach out.
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I respond to all my emails.
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Um, you can reach out to me.
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I encourage you, if you're not yet following the podcast, go to the
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website, theprodigaljourney.com.
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There you can find all the episodes.
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If you wanna see, um, past video episodes, just click on the link there
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or go to videos.theprodigaljourney.com.
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Also, sign up for our newsletter.
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It's a weekly newsletter, um, most weeks if we're not having an
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episode drop, and it's called Oasis.
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It's just a time to step back, reflect, and really that newsletter
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has a lot to do with formation.
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And that newsletter over the last three or four months that I have been more
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consistent with that is really what led me to this series just through
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some of the things we've walked through in the last few months of that
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newsletter together, um, as a family.
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And I appreciate your support.
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Thank you for listening.
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We'll see you next time on the next episode.
