April 22, 2026

Today the church is thinking about formation — who shapes us, how slowly it works, and whether we're willing to submit to the process at all. The Gospel Coalition ran a piece on Augustine as a cross-century mentor, the argument being that the dead still teach. Ligonier is in the same neighborhood — Paul's rebuke of the Corinthians wasn't cruelty but diagnosis. The church in Corinth wasn't ready, and readiness is something that gets built, not assumed. Mere Orthodoxy takes it further. The Easter word doesn't just comfort — it kills first. Real formation isn't incremental improvement. It's death and resurrection, which is harder to sell and harder to survive. That question has been running through this week — on March 30 we were watching it surface as a question about desire and whether our minds are even capable of wanting rightly.

Relevant Magazine names something the formation conversation usually leaves out: new converts handed a platform before they have roots. That's not discipleship. It's content. Christianity Today is watching the same erosion from a different angle — AI companions are teaching people to experience intimacy without vulnerability, desire without discipline. The church's answer, the piece suggests, has to be more than a warning. It has to be a better account of what love costs. Chris Martin is working through Psalm 37 and finds there an antidote to the low-grade rage that now functions as a spiritual posture for a lot of Christians — the psalm doesn't tell you your anger is wrong, it tells you what to do instead. Lifeway Research adds the uncomfortable data point: parents aren't teaching theology to their kids, often because they don't know it themselves. Formation has to start somewhere. The question is whether anyone is willing to go first.