The Formation Series grows out of a simple conviction: spiritual formation is the shared life of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit poured into ordinary people and ordinary days. SHINE is our way of naming that life.

SHINE is a formational, sacramental, and Spirit-empowered framework of priestly participation in the life of God — through formation, communion, and spiritual resistance — for the glory of Christ and the healing of the world. It gives us language for growing as sons and daughters in the Father’s royal household and for living as a praying, worshipping, discerning Church.

This post introduces the SHINE Framework for Spiritual Formation, the seven B-SHINE-E pillars, and SHINE Formation Resources — our self-publishing home for the Formation Series and all that flows from it.

SHINE Formation Resources — shaped by seven pillars

SHINE Formation Resources is the name we use for our self-publishing work. The name points to the seven pillars of the SHINE Framework:

B-SHINE-E

• Baptismal Identity

• See His Glory

• Hold Fast His Truth

• Increase in His Strength

• Navigate by His Wisdom

• Exclaim His Name

• Eucharistic Participation

Every book, course, and resource we create serves these seven movements of grace. Together they describe a way of life: we remember our baptismal identity, behold Christ’s glory, cling to His truth, draw on His strength, walk in wisdom, proclaim His Name, and share in His Eucharistic life.

SHINE and the Lord’s Prayer

The SHINE Framework is threaded through the Lord’s Prayer. This prayer is more than words to recite; it is a pattern that shapes a lifetime of communion with God. Each SHINE pillar resonates with one movement of the prayer.

• B — Baptismal Identity
  “Our Father in heaven” — we begin as children before a Father who names us, claims us, and gathers us into His household.

• S — See His Glory
  “Hallowed be Your name” — we behold the holiness and beauty of God’s Name and give Him honour with our hearts, mouths, and lives.

• H — Hold Fast His Truth
  “Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” — we yield to God’s reign and cling to His truth in a contested world.

• I — Increase in His Strength
  “Give us this day our daily bread” — we learn to live by daily dependence on Christ, the Bread of Life, and on the Spirit’s strengthening presence.

• N — Navigate by His Wisdom
  “And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors” — we walk in the wisdom of mercy, confession, and reconciliation.

• E — Exclaim His Name
  “And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one” — we stand in awe and joy before His victory and confess His Name in the face of pressure, trial, and accusation.

• E — Eucharistic Participation
  “For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.” — we join the Church’s thanksgiving, share in the Lord’s Table in gathered worship, and are sent in mission for the sake of the world.

The Lord’s Prayer carries us from identity to doxology, from “Our Father” to “Yours is the kingdom.” SHINE simply names the steps along that path.

The four streams of formation

Underneath the seven pillars flow four streams of formation. These streams help us see how different practices belong together in one river of life.

1. Sacramental Formation – B & E (Baptismal Identity, Eucharistic Participation)
   Here we encounter water, oil, and table. We remember our baptism, receive anointing for service, and gather at the Lord’s Table in the midst of the Church. These practices root our identity in God’s covenant and draw us into His presence.

2. Contemplative Formation – S & Ex (See His Glory, Exclaim His Name)
   Here we learn to behold Christ with the eyes of the heart. We attend to Scripture, silence, beauty, and worship. Awe and joy grow as we gaze on His glory and confess His victory.

3. Confessional Formation – H & N (Hold Fast His Truth, Navigate by His Wisdom)
   Here we agree with God’s truth over every competing story. We confess the faith of the Church, talk back to temptation with Scripture, bring sin into the light, and learn to forgive. Our tongues, desires, and decisions are trained by the Word.

4. Spirit-Empowered Formation – I (Increase in His Strength)
   Here we receive and rely on the Holy Spirit. We ask for daily bread, spiritual gifts, courage, and strength. We learn that growth comes through the Spirit’s presence and power at work in our weakness.

The Formation Series — beginning with Faith Fulfilled — is written to help us live inside these four streams, week by week and year by year.

The B-SHINE-E pillars in everyday life

Baptismal Identity — Our Father in heaven

Baptismal Identity is the ground under our feet. In Christ we are adopted, washed, and welcomed. We belong to the Father’s royal household, called to share Jesus’ own relationship with the Father by the Spirit.

In practice, Baptismal Identity shapes how we pray, how we repent, and how we face fear. We return again and again to the reality that we are buried with Christ and raised with Him, sealed with His Name.

See His Glory — Hallowed be Your Name

To “see His glory” is to live with a worshipping gaze. We give attention to the beauty of Jesus — in Scripture, in the gathered Church, in the faces of brothers and sisters, and in the world He loves.

This pillar fuels adoration, wonder, and praise. It strengthens us to endure wilderness, disappointment, and delay because our eyes and hearts are turned toward the glory of Christ.

Hold Fast His Truth — Your kingdom come; Your will be done

Holding fast His truth means clinging to the gospel when other stories compete. We learn the shape of God’s kingdom through Scripture and the life of the Church, and we align our thinking, speaking, and living with His will.

This pillar anchors preaching, teaching, catechesis, and daily discernment. It steadies us when circumstances shake and voices multiply.

Increase in His Strength — Give us this day our daily bread

We all know our limits. Increase in His Strength teaches us to bring those limits into the presence of God. We ask for daily bread, grace for today, power to love, courage to witness, and endurance in trial.

Here we discover that spiritual formation is sustained by the Spirit’s strength, not sheer effort. We receive, then respond. We rest, then rise.

Navigate by His Wisdom — Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors

Navigation is about direction. To navigate by His wisdom is to travel through tangled relationships, decisions, and desires with a forgiving heart and a clear conscience.

This pillar shapes confession, reconciliation, boundaries, and guidance. It helps us walk in humility and mercy, carrying the cross into every place forgiveness is needed.

Exclaim His Name — Deliver us from the evil one

Exclaiming His Name brings awe and joy together. We stand before the risen Christ who has overcome the world and we speak His Name with confidence. We resist fear, despair, accusation, and deception by confessing who He is and what He has done.

This pillar is where spiritual warfare and worship meet. Our lips become instruments of praise and resistance.

Eucharistic Participation — Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory

Eucharistic Participation is the great horizon of SHINE. The Lord gathers His Church to the Table in thanksgiving, communion, and mission. We receive the Bread and the Cup in the midst of the gathered people of God and are sent out as a royal priesthood into the world.

This pillar brings together altar, presence, proclamation, and intercession. The kingdom, the power, and the glory belong to God; we share in that life through Christ.

How SHINE supports the Formation Series and Faith Fulfilled

Every volume in the Formation Series is shaped by SHINE. Faith Fulfilled focuses especially on Baptismal Identity and Seeing His Glory as we journey with Abraham and the promises of God. Later volumes explore the wilderness, the blood of Christ, the cruciform path, and the radiant Church — always within the SHINE framework and the doxological pattern of the Lord’s Prayer.

As you read the Formation Series, this SHINE post will serve as a reference point. Whenever you see the seven pillars or the four streams mentioned in our blog posts, you can return here to remember how the pieces belong together.

SHINE reflection, declaration, and prayer

Reflective question (S — See His Glory):
Where in my life right now do I most need to lift my eyes and See His Glory, so that my prayer, confession, and decisions are shaped by who Jesus is?

Declaration:
Jesus, Your Name is holy and beautiful. We choose to see our lives inside Your story and to let Your glory shape our worship, our words, and our way.

Prayer:
Father, teach us to pray the way Your Son taught us. Let the SHINE pillars take root in our hearts, so that we live as Your royal priesthood — formed by Your Word, strengthened by Your Spirit, and drawn into Your Eucharistic life for the healing of the world. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.

“For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.” Matthew 6:13 NKJV

Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Introducing the SHINE Framework for Spiritual Formation