Mario Bravo-Lamas, April 20, 2025
A Christiform Doing-Centered Christian Spirituality
On the journey of Christian spiritual formation, it is not enough to believe correctly (orthodoxy) or to feel devoutly (orthopathy); it is also necessary to live according to the gospel. This third dimension—orthopraxy—reminds us that the Christian faith is embodied in concrete life. It is the doing that flows from a transformed being, an action shaped by grace, indwelt by the Spirit, and oriented toward God.
Far from being reduced to moralism or activism, this Christian practice flows from an integrated spirituality: what we believe, what we love, and what we do are deeply intertwined. And this praxis takes shape in three vital areas: personal life, the ecclesial community, and participation in God’s mission.
Similarly, Woodward and Strawser propose three key dimensions to understand this communal life: communion with God, community among believers, and co-mission toward the world. Orthopraxy involves participating in these three movements: receiving grace, sharing it, and extending it.
1. The Individual: Living from a New Identity
“Evangelicals have been very good at providing help for Bible study, for example, word studies, but I’m not sure the average evangelical is able to use the Bible as an interpretive framework for their daily life.”
—Kevin Vanhoozer
Orthopraxy begins in the life of each person, rooted in God’s care and love for us—but not in an individualistic key. It is a life deeply renewed by grace, seeking to imitate Christ in the everyday. As Kevin Vanhoozer teaches, discipleship is a “theodramatic performance”: an active participation in God’s redemptive drama. The Christian does not improvise according to their own rules but learns to faithfully embody the script of Scripture under the direction of the Holy Spirit.
This performance requires intentional formation. As Dallas Willard aptly put it, the Christian life is not sustained by good intentions alone, but by concrete practices that train us to live like Christ: prayer, biblical meditation, fasting, worship, silence. Not as ends in themselves, but as formative disciplines that shape us from the inside out.
This way of life is anchored in a new identity. As Irenaeus of Lyon stated, in Christ humanity has been recapitulated and remade. The person who lives “in Christ” participates in this new humanity—not only believing and feeling differently, but also living differently. Orthopraxy, then, is the fruit of a deep transformation: living as sons and daughters of the Father, in the power of the Spirit, following the Son.
2. The Church: A Community That Practices the Faith
“For most of Christian history, the relationship with God was inseparable from the relationship with the church.”
—Tish Harrison Warren
The Christian life is not formed in isolation. Orthopraxy flourishes in community. The church is not an audience or an event, but the space where we learn to live the gospel together. It is where we practice forgiveness, hospitality, reconciliation, patience, compassion. There, faith becomes tangible—embodied in shared relationships and practices. It is where we cultivate the value of belonging and staying. In a fragmented and individualistic world, we affirm the importance of being a committed community, thus building a faith that endures over time.
The church is, as Vanhoozer calls it, the theater of the gospel, where every believer is formed to perform according to Christ. It is not a center of spiritual consumption but a school of obedience and a communion of people in transformation. In this sense, worship, teaching, sacraments, and communal life are not ends in themselves. They are formative means meant to lead to a transformed life. The Word does not only shape the mind, but also the body and action. There is no authentic orthopraxy without a living, humble, and sent church.
3. The Mission: Participating in God’s Redemptive Work
“A church that is not a missionary church contradicts itself.”
—Lausanne Covenant
Orthopraxy finds its fullness in mission. Not as a strategy, but as participation in the work that God is doing in the world. Christian spirituality is not exhausted in the inner or the communal—it projects outward: toward others, toward creation, toward history. Mission is not an add-on to the Christian life but its natural outflow.
The mission of God (missio Dei) is the framework that gives meaning to all orthopraxy. The local church is both the fruit and the agent of God’s redemptive purpose. Christian action unfolds in many forms: witness, justice, hospitality, reconciliation, care for creation, proclamation of the gospel, pursuit of the common good. But all of it is born from Christ’s cruciform love—not from a desire for success or recognition.
Participating in mission is making the gospel visible through one’s life. Not as a religious spectacle, but as an ordinary existence touched by the extraordinary: reconciled families, restored neighborhoods, cultures illuminated by grace. It is a life that testifies Christ is alive and His Kingdom has already begun.
An Embodied Spirituality: Doing as Fruit
Christian orthopraxy is neither activism nor perfectionism. It is the visible fruit of a life hidden in Christ, nourished by the Spirit, and formed in community. It is the doing that flows from a renewed identity, exercised in a living church, and projected in a transforming mission.
Any Christian spirituality that does not take shape in real life risks becoming barren. As the letter of James says: “faith without works is dead” (James 2:17). Christiform life is not limited to what we believe or feel, but is expressed in how we live, serve, love, and hope. Because following Christ is always a way of living.
