Many of us assume that real spiritual growth will begin the moment a spiritual father or mother takes us under their wing and mentors us. But what if that’s not how it happens?

In a new article at TGC, Brian Bowman draws from personal experience to offer a counterintuitive take: though Bowman never had a personal mentor, Christ gave him something better: his own body. The church discipled him.

An individual discipling relationship is, no doubt, often beneficial. But in the late-modern West we must resist the temptation to reduce Christian experience to the individual realm. What might it look like to congregationalize our vision for spiritual life and growth?

Various men in Bowman’s church shaped him in small ways. “Individually were less than what I needed,” he reflects, “but corporately they were Christ’s body bringing me to maturity.”

Friend, don’t underestimate the formative power of your ordinary church. All of them.