Christian Formation: Recovering the Whole Self in Formation
Growing up it was all about the soul, the spirit, that true side of our selves that would go meet Jesus in the clouds and flitter off to the land of angels. The body, that was just the skin we wore; the uniform of earthly life that would one day disappear along with the earth. With such theology, I was formed as a lopsided Christianâall spirit and no flesh. My body was left to other stories and I was carried along by many of them, from a weight loss cult to abandoning my body to whatever food I craved. It ended as one would expectâI found myself an obese smoker by my mid twenties, with a spiritual life that reflected what my body had become. Redemption came by returning to the whole of myself. I found that whole from the side of faith in my return to the Episcopal Church, a place where I kneeled and stood, washed feet, ate bread, and drank wine. It was a place where my body entered into prayer as well as much as my spirit. Around the same time I started racing and training for endurance sportsâtriathlons, long runs, 100 mile bike rides. These races called on my whole self, my body, but also my spirit and mind as I worked to make it through the grueling hours. Through worship and workouts, then, I was brought back to wholeness. I tell the story of that journey, with a number of theological excursions along the way, in my book This is My Body: From Obesity to Ironman, My Journey Into the True Meaning of Flesh, Spirit, and Deeper Faith (Random House/Convergent). The title is deliberately Eucharistic, because in telling the story of my own body I realized how deeply I had been formed and renewed through returning to Christâs body. I hope that it is a spiritual and physical memoir that will help others learn to see that their bodies are as important to faith as their minds and hearts. This is a realization that is particularly important for youth, as they work to make sense of their embodied selves in a world filled with conflicting and troubled messages about what our bodies mean. Christian Formation must seek to form the whole of Christiansâspiritual formation, yes, but also bodily formation. As we know, formation comes whether it is intentional or not, and the bodily lives of those in our churches is being formed whether we approach that formation with intention or just let the wider world instruct us from our TV screen and magazine racks. How might we bring the body into the work of faith formation? A full accounting will take much time and practice, but here are some suggestions for a start. 
Ragan Sutterfield is a postulant from the Diocese of Arkansas currently studying at Virginia Theological Seminary. More of his work can be found at RaganSutterfield.com. Ragan’s new book is This is My Body: From Obesity to Ironman, My Journey into the True Meaning of Flesh, Spirit and Deeper Faith .
- We must seek to tell the stories of our bodies. In writing my memoir I came to a profound sense of the ways my bodily life had been formed, for good and ill. Through telling my story I was able to give meaning to that formation and work from it toward a healthy, holistic understanding of my self as a Christian. By learning to tell and hear the stories of our bodies together we can take great steps toward calling us into the goodness God intended in and for our bodies.
- We should embrace the body in our worship. I grew up in a tradition where worship was limited to a few praise songs on a screen before sitting down for a long sermon. In the Episcopal Church, however, I found a way of worshiping that called for me to engage my body. Our tradition has the resources to call the body into worship, but as with so much else, many in our congregations (including clergy) havenât been invited to think about how their bodies are engaged in worship. Simply calling attention to the physical and bodily ways in which we worship can be an important start.
- We should enjoy our embodiment. So many of the messages about our bodies are negative. We eat too much, exercise too little, and on and on. We take to little time to enjoy our embodiment. It was only when I discovered the joy of my body through racing triathlons that I was able to move toward health. We should invite our congregations to enjoy the gift of embodiment through the joy of their bodies. This means that we should help people turn away from mindless minutes on the treadmill and instead find joyful expressions for their bodies through running, swimming, dance, or whatever fits the particular embodied charism of each Christian.
Ragan Sutterfield is a postulant from the Diocese of Arkansas currently studying at Virginia Theological Seminary. More of his work can be found at RaganSutterfield.com. Ragan’s new book is This is My Body: From Obesity to Ironman, My Journey into the True Meaning of Flesh, Spirit and Deeper Faith .