What Do Spiritual Formation Practices Look Like Among Graduate Theology Students? Implications for Faculty Teaching

This article describes a preliminary and exploratory longitudinal study examining the spiritual formation practices of graduate theology students as they move through their program of study. It uses the relational spirituality model as a theoretical framework to measure connection with God, spiritual dwelling, and spiritual seeking/questing within a seminary community over the course of four semesters: Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, and Spring 2021. The one-way repeated measures ANOVA yielded statistically significant results for the spiritual practices of prayer and Bible reading and spiritual seeking. The article concludes with implications for graduate theological education and faculty teaching.