Christoformity and the Place of Cruciformity
What does it mean to become like Jesus?
The question seems straightforward until we consider which aspects of His life receive our attention. We speak of sacrifice, self-denial, and suffering. We call people to take up their cross (Luke 9:23). These are necessary dimensions of discipleship. Jesus prepared His followers for opposition, and His invitation to follow Him leaves no room for a Christianity organized around personal comfort. Yet Jesus also taught, healed, welcomed, prayed, shared meals, formed friendships, restored people, and sent His disciples into the world. He rose from the dead and reigns as Lord.
All of this must shape our understanding of the Christian life. Jesus is the center of discipleship. He calls us to follow Him, and we run with our attention fixed on Him (Matthew 4:19; Hebrews 12:1–3). God’s purpose is that we be conformed to the image of His Son (Romans 8:29).
This is why I find the language of Christoformity helpful. It names the formation of our lives and communities in Christ. It holds together His person, character, teaching, relationships, mission, death, resurrection, and present reign. Through the work of the Spirit, knowing Christ increasingly becomes visible in how we live together and participate in God's mission.
The Place of Cruciformity
Within that comprehensive formation, cruciformity has an essential place. The cross reveals the costly obedience and self-giving love of Jesus (Philippians 2:5–8; Ephesians 5:1–2). Following Him includes surrender, sacrifice, forgiveness, and faithfulness in suffering. My concern arises when cruciformity is reduced to suffering and then made the controlling description of Christian existence. Such a reduction risks making pain the measure of maturity and endurance the whole substance of discipleship.
We need to ask whether our account of becoming like Jesus is expansive enough to receive all that He reveals.
The distinction matters because cruciformity itself can carry a richer meaning than suffering alone. The cross reveals reconciliation, humility, love for enemies, and obedience to the Father. A thoughtful account of cruciformity will attend to these realities and their relationship to resurrection. The concern here is with a particular reduction: the assumption that becoming like Jesus is principally about suffering as He suffered.
Suffering alone cannot tell us whether a person is becoming like Christ. People suffer for many reasons. Hardship may expose our need for God and become a setting for profound formation, but pain does not automatically produce holiness. The question concerns the person we are becoming within it. Are we learning to love, forgive, speak truthfully, trust the Father, and care for others? Christ gives suffering its meaning within discipleship. Suffering cannot supply the whole meaning of Christ.
Paul's desire in Philippians 3:10 is instructive. He longs to know Christ, the power of His resurrection, and participation in His sufferings. These belong together within his desire to know a person. Similarly, in Romans 6:4, participation in Christ's death and resurrection leads to walking in newness of life. The Christian life includes costly obedience and the transforming reality of resurrection. Neither can be detached from the living Christ.
The Christoform Life of the Early Church
In Letters to Churches, I describe Christoform authority as patterned after the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. That breadth is important. The early Christians whose letters we read in that volume knew persecution intimately. Ignatius wrote while being taken toward martyrdom. Polycarp called believers to faithful endurance. The Roman church addressed Corinth while carrying burdens of its own. Suffering was a concrete reality for these communities.
Yet their correspondence also concerns unity, humility, discernment, pastoral responsibility, generosity, and the restoration of fellowship. The Roman believers reached beyond their own difficulties to help a divided sister church. Their concern for Corinth embodied the reconciling character of Christ. These communities were learning to endure, and they were learning how to live together as His body.
Their witness reminds us that Christoformity is communal. A church becomes visibly Christlike through the way its people honor one another, share responsibility, address conflict, care for the vulnerable, and preserve fellowship. Faithful endurance belongs within this shared life. So do forgiveness, hospitality, encouragement, and joy.
In Lead Like Paul, the second edition coming out later this year, I develop this understanding through the formation of leaders and the participation of the whole body in God's mission. Matthew 9:35–11:1 provides a revealing picture of Jesus' leadership. He moves among cities and villages, teaching, proclaiming the kingdom, and healing. He sees the crowds with compassion. He directs His disciples to pray, equips them, and sends them.
This is a Christoform pattern: seeing people, responding with compassion, praying, equipping others, and participating together in God's work. Suffering will accompany their mission; Jesus makes that clear in His instructions. But their commission also includes proclaiming the kingdom and serving people in need. Opposition is a cost they must be prepared to bear as they follow Him.
Paul's leadership reflects this same breadth. His co-laborers participate through teaching, hospitality, encouragement, generosity, prayer, and the exercise of their gifts. Their life together bears witness to Christ through reconciliation and mutual service. The maturity Paul seeks is measured by the fullness of Christ (Ephesians 4:13). His desire is that the whole body grow into Christ, its head, and build itself up in love (Ephesians 4:15–16).
This is also why the knowledge of God matters so deeply. In Lead Like Paul, I connect epignōsis, the transformative knowledge of God, with increasing Christoformity. Knowing Him shapes our desires, imagination, habits, relationships, and participation in His mission. Such formation encompasses how we face adversity and how we exercise responsibility, celebrate goodness, welcome a stranger, or help another person flourish.
Bearing Burdens and Relieving Suffering
There is a shepherding implication we must take seriously. If suffering becomes the primary measure of faithfulness, we may struggle to recognize that relieving suffering can itself be an expression of becoming like Jesus. His compassion moved Him toward hungry people, grieving families, the sick, and those pushed to the margins. He fed, comforted, healed, and restored.
As His followers, we may be called to bear a cost so that someone else's burden becomes lighter. A community that accompanies a grieving family, feeds a hungry neighbor, or protects a vulnerable person displays something of His character. Their suffering matters because the people who suffer matter to Him. Christoformity forms us both to endure faithfully and to respond compassionately.
It also makes room for joy. Jesus spoke of His joy being in His disciples even as He prepared them for the world's hatred (John 15:11, 18–20). Joy and costly faithfulness belong within the same relationship with Him. Prayer, friendship, gratitude, rest, and shared meals can all become expressions of a life increasingly shaped by Christ. These deserve attention in our teaching about maturity alongside sacrifice and endurance.
The cross remains indispensable. Every account of Christoformity must reckon with the crucified Jesus and the costly love He embodies. Every account must also reckon with the One who welcomed children, withdrew to pray, washed feet, restored Peter, rose from the dead, and sent His followers into the world.
Jesus calls us to follow Him. The Spirit forms us into His likeness. Our task is to receive the fullness of that formation: to love as He loves, serve as He serves, endure in faithfulness, rejoice in Him, and participate together in the mission of God.
The question for our discipleship is therefore comprehensive: How fully does the life of Jesus take shape in our life together?