The Theology of Transformation We Refused to Learn: Psychology & Theology

When the Church Forgot How People Actually Change

There was a moment—not dramatic, not loud—when it became painfully clear that something was missing in how the Church talks about healing. It wasn’t a theological crisis. It wasn’t a loss of faith. It was the slow, uncomfortable realization that we had become fluent in Scripture while remaining functionally illiterate in how people actually change.

Let’s be honest, the Church has never been afraid of sin—but it has often been terrified of psychology. In fact it seems as if there is an obvious intentional effort to avoid the subject altogether. Not because psychology threatens Scripture.
But because it exposes how shallow some of our discipleship models really are.

The Church knows how to talk about sin. In fact, it is certainly easier to tell someone what they are doing wrong than to actually become knowledgeable enough to help them overcome it in the first place. The church also knows how to preach on salvation; there is an opportunity to come to know Christ in nearly every service. It even knows how to talk about suffering; I will refrain from inserting my comments here. But when the conversation turns toward mental health, trauma, anxiety, depression, or chronic stress, the room often tightens. Voices lower. Language becomes vague. Solutions get spiritualized. And before long, people are told—implicitly or explicitly—that their struggle is a failure of faith.

Pray harder.
Trust God more.
Stop overthinking.
Let it go. (This one is my favorite – especially when the other saint is telling you to hold on just a little while longer)

All sincere. All incomplete. And for many people, quietly devastating.

What the Church has often failed to acknowledge is that beneath every prayer, every act of worship, every confession of faith, and every moment of spiritual doubt is a real and tangible human brain—designed by God, shaped by experience, and profoundly affected by trauma, habit, memory, and chronic stress. Ignoring that reality has not made the Church more spiritual. It has made it less honest and certainly less effective.

The Pattern We Refuse to See: The Church Has Been Wrong Before

This is not the first time the Church has resisted truth because the language felt unfamiliar. I have spent a lot of time studying the doctrine of the Trinity in my graduate studies. Some might find it interesting to know that church history reveals that at one point, the doctrine of the Trinity was viewed with suspicion. The word itself was not found in Scripture. The formulation felt dangerous. Some feared it compromised monotheism, the very idea that God could exist as three-in-one was threatening to the early understanding and belief in only one God. Others accused it of philosophical contamination. And yet, over time, the Church was forced to admit what Scripture itself revealed: Father, Son, and Spirit woven throughout the biblical witness, demanding a more robust theological framework. So naturally, back to the drawing board, but don’t bring attention to it, just change it and move on.

The Church did not invent the Trinity.
It recognized it. Hmm. What a powerful concept to ponder.

The same pattern repeated with heliocentrism, germ theory, psychology, and even literacy itself. Each time, the resistance wasn’t rooted in Scripture—it was rooted in fear. Fear of losing control. Fear of complexity. Fear of admitting we didn’t yet understand the full scope of God’s design. And I believe that for many years now, we have found ourselves in one of those moments yet again.

One thing that I have found to be true is that neuroplasticity, trauma science, emotional regulation, and nervous system health are not theological threats. They are descriptions of the mechanism God embedded in human beings. I came to understand this in my own life by walking through my own personal season of battling these things. The problem is not that these ideas contradict Scripture. The problem is that they expose how thin some of our discipleship models have become.

I realized in my own life that maybe so much of what I had come to understand as “spirituality” and “faith” was, in fact, a weak, watered-down way of seeking healing without actually understanding what needed to be healed. I never thought of myself as “depressed” or “anxious”; in fact, to even consider those things would have placed me in the category that I hoped most of my life I could successfully avoid. I worked extra hard to make sure that any sign of weakness or vulnerability to the heartbreak I was actually feeling was masked by another accolade or accomplishment. It felt good to be recognized for what society deems as successful or accomplished. I mean, it is never a bad thing to be at church every time the doors are open, right? What about if you are going every time the doors are open, but nothing changes, you just get better at learning how to put a mask over it? No worries, I will just buy a new Bible, which will help for sure.

Scripture Speaks

Despite the many hours, days, weeks, months, and years I spent attending church services, my understanding of Scripture was very shallow. Maybe some of you can relate, unless you would rather we not know that part (been there too). One thing that I believe helps us to begin to gravitate towards understanding the depth of Scripture is through the way we are able to see it apply to our life. This journey for me began when I started reading Scripture to understand what it said about my mind, since that was where I came to realize I needed the most healing. For many years, science and the study of the brain have suggested that our physical brains are unable to change, but further research has revealed that is not the case. Our minds are not static. In fact, that is revealed to us directly in Scripture, long before the Science books attempted to explain it. The Bible never treats the human mind as static. It treats it as trainable, shapeable, and deeply influential.

Paul’s words in Romans 12:2 are not poetic abstractions: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

The word transformation implies process and the word renewal suggests repetition. The verse assumes that what we repeatedly think, attend to, and embody reshapes us over time. That is not modern psychology—it is ancient wisdom describing neuroplastic reality.

Philippians 4:8 does not tell believers to stop thinking. It tells them what to think about: “Whatever is true… honorable… just… pure… lovely… commendable… think about these things.” The assumption is unavoidable: thought patterns shape spiritual life. No wonder my spiritual life was shallow; my thinking was merely a puddle. I lacked depth and understanding of what I was really feeling on the inside. I had learned to suppress and avoid those things that might appear to be weakness. I did not voluntarily have the hard conversations, and I was certainly going to avoid anything that would cultivate emotion. I had come to accept disappointment as a reality because anything else would simply be setting myself up for failure, right? I later realized I could merely unlearn this. But not nearly as easily as I learned it.

This journey of transformation and discipleship would teach me that healing is possible, but formation is never instant.

Confusing Inspiration with Formation

Somewhere along the way, the Church began to substitute emotional inspiration for actual formation. Sermons would start to replace practices. Altar calls replaced rhythms. Moments replaced processes. And when people failed to change, we blamed their hearts instead of questioning our methods. I know this isn’t popular opinion, but the good news is that it’s not an opinion at all; it’s merely facts. The rituals of the church became the framework of formation, but on its best day, it can only be recognized as emotional inspiration.

We are indeed to be participants in our faith, not just spectators, but we must not confuse corporate routines with spiritual formation. When we avoid the reality that physical participation at the expense of spiritual depth is costly, we are promoting a discombobulated form of discipleship. That is exactly the way I felt most days, like a discombobulated disciple with absolutely no depth, and plenty of misunderstandings.

Now, I am not here to offer some sort of spiritual solution that will solve the world’s problems. I just wanted to reflect on how important it is to consider what is involved in effective spiritual formation. We are living in a day and time when not having a well-developed understanding of how the brain works in tandem with our soul is about as effective as swiping an expired credit card. The research is far too valid to become fearful of admitting our inadequacies when it comes to counseling souls and ministering to those who have entirely lost sight of their identity. When the Church ignores how habits, trauma, and stress shape the brain, it unintentionally trains people to live in contradiction—confessing peace while their nervous system lives in survival mode.

Chronic Stress Is Not a Spiritual Failure

Chronic stress is not a lack of faith. It is the body doing exactly what God designed it to do: protect. When stress becomes prolonged—through trauma, instability, shame, or constant pressure—the brain rewires itself toward survival. Fear becomes automatic. Rest feels unsafe. The ability to discern, reflect, and respond with wisdom diminishes.

When we talk about transformation—spiritual or psychological—we are talking about what happens in the brain, particularly in the hippocampus and the prefrontal cortex. The hippocampus is essential to memory, learning, and meaning-making. It helps us take experiences—both good and traumatic—and organize them into stories or narratives that we can remember without being overwhelmed. When we are exposed to chronic stress in our life or trauma, the hippocampus becomes directly impaired, which results in our memories being fragmented, tied to emotions, and challenging to process. This is why unhealed trauma often feels ever-present, as if it is still happening rather than something that happened.

The prefrontal cortex, on the other hand, is responsible for discernment, self-control, emotional regulation, and wise decision-making. It is the part of the brain that allows us to pause, reflect, pray, and respond rather than react. Under prolonged stress, the prefrontal cortex goes offline while survival systems take over. This is entirely contrary to what Scripture reveals about our posture of rest that we were created for. Scripture consistently pairs spirituality with rest, rhythm, and embodiment. In fact, through repeated practices—such as mindfulness, prayerful attention, routine, learning, creativity, and rest—these regions can be strengthened and reconnected. This is neuroplasticity at work: the brain being retrained toward regulation, reflection, and integration. In other words, these practices don’t replace spiritual disciplines—they create the neurological conditions that allow them to function as they were intended.

This might sound an awful lot like a checklist. I can assure you that I am not here to offer you another spiritual checklist or suggest another daily devotional. The profound difference here is that these intentional practices must become part of your personal relationship with God, and not the concern of the corporate congregation. Your spiritual disciplines do not answer to a board of directors; they have to become your heart’s desire, regardless of who knows about them.

As for the church – and the corporate body of believers, we cannot shame a dysregulated nervous system into holiness.
We cannot rebuke trauma out of the body. And we cannot bypass formation with spiritual shortcuts for the sake of keeping sanctified score on one another.

Mindfulness, Creativity, and Routine

If you want to make the sanctified saints nervous, start talking about mindfulness, and they will be sure to tell everyone you have started meditating. The lines of the language can sometimes become blurred, but the meaning has never wavered. Mindfulness is not emptying the mind, and it’s not lighting all of your candles to find yourself sitting in some ancient spiritual posture trying to find your inner “zen”, although I love a good candle and you can never go wrong with good posture. Spiritual mindfulness is learning to direct attention. Something that has become a runaway train for quite a while now. In fact, there may be some pastors who would love to count the squirrels that their members chase in with the weekly attendance numbers, which would more than double the outreach data. Can you imagine how effective evangelism could be if mindfulness became essential to our discipleship?

Psalm 1 describes a person who meditates on the law day and night, not as passive, but as deeply rooted and fruitful. Mindfulness will lead to fruitfulness, and that is evidence that the Spirit is at work in our life.

There are ways that we can do this besides sitting on the floor quietly, or attending yet another church service. Try getting creative in your spiritual disciplines. You will be surprised at what giving yourself a little bit of freedom from the rigid expectations of the sanctified yet salty will do for you. It’s not a sin to be creative, in fact it’s encouraged. Creativity—music, art, writing, drawing—is not a distraction from spirituality. It is participation in the imago Dei (for were we not a direct result of God’s creativity?). Research shows that creativity builds new neural pathways, integrates emotion and meaning, and restores joy. One of the greatest testimonies of healing that you will ever hear is for someone to declare that their joy was restored.

When creativity is suppressed long enough, people don’t just lose hobbies—they lose parts of themselves. Identity becomes suppressed rather than celebrated. It’s easier to regulate the rigid because creativity can sometimes feel like chaos if we do not fully understand it. So what would happen if we began to get creative with our rigid routine? I love a good routine. There is absolutely nothing wrong with it; in fact, it is proven beneficial for our minds on a daily basis, but when routine becomes legalism, it is no longer effective.

I want to invite you to begin using mindfulness to integrate your sense of creativity into your walk with God. Don’t do that daily devotion today that you have done the last week and gotten nothing out of, instead grab your paint brush and begin pouring out what is on the inside as you invite God into the process. Grab your favorite journal and draw your gratitude rather than doing the same 3 bullet points today. Dare to be different as you allow for your mind to become open to all that God created for you to be, rather than what society has yet again tried to define as perfection.

The Real Resistance: Control, Not Scripture

If we are honest, the Church’s resistance to psychology and neuroscience is rarely theological. It is structural. A psychologically informed believer:

• Knows the difference between shame and conviction
• Understands trauma is not sin
• Recognizes unhealthy systems
• Asks better questions
• Cannot be easily manipulated by fear

That kind of believer is not rebellious. They are mature. And maturity has always been disruptive to shallow authority.

The Depth of a Disciple

The Church must stop treating the brain as suspicious and start treating it as sacred. Nobody is campaigning for any of Piaget’s or Sigmund Freud’s theories to be added to a new book of the Bible, but there is certainly a need for discipleship to begin fostering depth. It is an effective approach to integrate psychology and theology in a way that does not criticize what science says about God’s creation, but instead uses it to affirm its beauty. It is perfectly acceptable for the Saints today to be spiritual without being static. Psychology and the studies of neuroplasticity do not replace the Holy Spirit. It describes the terrain in which the Spirit works.

If the Church continues to avoid this conversation, people will keep leaving quietly (and taking their squirrels with them). Trauma will keep being mislabeled as sin. Shame will continue to produce fear. Fear will continue to cultivate division, and mental health struggles will keep being spiritualized into silence.

But if the Church has the courage to learn—as it has before—we do not lose holiness. We recover wholeness. God has never been afraid of the brain. He designed it. And refusing to learn because the words feel unfamiliar is not humility—it is fear dressed up as faith.

The Spirit has never been the obstacle to transformation—our refusal to understand the mind has. If the Church keeps refusing to learn how people actually change, it will keep preaching transformation that it no longer knows how to cultivate.