This article is part 2 of the Faithful Faith Formation in a Formative World series Romans 12:1-8
When Paul writes, “Do not be conformed to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2), most of us hear it as a private command — a call to personal spiritual improvement. But Paul doesn’t write in the singular. His language is plural: the renewed mind and transformation is for the church community together.
Reimagining Worship
In the previous article, “The Living Sacrifice,” we explored how Paul turned the meaning of sacrifice inside out. Worship is no longer tied to a set of rituals and beliefs grounded in a building (for Jews) or display of allegiance to the empire and its gods and patriotism (for Gentiles). Instead, this is our true act of worship – it’s our corporate and individual obedient response to God’s given mercy and grace to where we also extend mercy and grace toward others. Mercy received is mercy given.
Paul’s World
Paul isn’t speaking to just a group of individuals, but to a body of believers — a community learning how to think, understand, and live differently in the world – and a world far different from our Canadian society. Paul was Jewish by birth and steeped in Torah. He was also a citizen of Rome well informed in Greco-Roman philosophy. When he talks about “patterns,” “renewal,” and “transformation,” his language might seem hard for us to identify with. But for his Jewish and Gentile audience living under Helenistic morals and Roman civic discipline, that was their lived experience.
So yes, Paul described something profoundly counter to his culture; a way of being human not shaped by power, honour and hierarchy, but formed by mutuality, mercy and love. But like the Roman world informed Paul’s world, our world informs us also. We’re constantly discipled – not by idols carved from stone, but by ideologies, algorithms and identities. We renew our minds by whatever communities and practices we live into most deeply.
When Paul calls for the renewing of the mind, he’s not just talking about changing how we think; he’s describing a practice of counter-formation. Renewal must be both corporate and individual – a feedback loop like the one between your brain and body. I’ll unpack that further in my next article: Faithful Formation in a Formative World.
From Private Renewal to Shared Reorientation
Western Christianity tends to individualize everything — faith, morality, even transformation. We talk about “my personal relationship with Jesus,” “my spiritual growth,” and “my calling.”
But in Romans 12, Paul’s logic moves directly from renewed minds (v.2) to the shared life of the church community (vv.3–8). Transformation, in his view, isn’t something that happens in a vacuum before we engage the community – it forms as we engage within community.
We learn to think differently as we live differently – in relationship with others who are also learning, a renewed mind helps us discern God’s good, pleasing, and perfect will.
Neuroplasticity gives us language for something that I think Paul seems to understand intuitively. The brain literally rewires itself through repeat experiences – not just through what we believe but also how we act and what ongoing practices create well worn pathways.
Transformation begins as we live with renewed minds; renewed relational patterns – giving ourselves to worship, serving one another, practising the mercy and compassion of Christ as the most important truth in the world. As those practices take shape, the mind is renewed, both corporately and individually.
Paul isn’t looking for us to make better moral choices or align with certain church teachings. Instead he wants us to develop life patterns grounded in the character and mission of Jesus.
Neuroscience Says…
Our actions and attention drive a rewiring of our neural pathways.
What we do repeatedly, trains what we repeatedly see; our peceptions change.
Our direct, lived experiences are the foundation upon which we base our understanding of the world. You can’t understand something until you first experience it. But over time, we learn from our successes, failures and interactions. As we interpret them, we assign meaning – a process the brain performs by constantly by filtering, patterning (the brain loves making patterns) and reframing what happens to us.
What cognitive science describes as meaning-making through filtering of our experience, Paul frames as the “renewing” (anakainósis) of the “mind” (nous). The Greek word he uses points to the inner lens through which we interpret life. He’s not talking about a replacement of knowledge but a renovation of our understanding.
I think we could say that Paul’s theology, calls for a holy reframing of meaning-making itself. This is what the Holy Spirit does in reshaping our interpretive filters to align with the mind of Christ rather than the template of our world.
Through this renewing of the mind, Spirit-led transformation (metamorphoó – from which we get metamorphosis) happens not only individually, but within a church community where we learn to think differently as we live differently.
The Communal Mind of Christ
I like how Paul decribes this renewed communal consciousness In Philippians 2:
“Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus…”
This “mind” isn’t simply an idea or attitude; it’s a way of being – a way of seeing others that mirrors how Christ sees us.
Jesus didn’t lay aside His own interests, but while attending to His own mission, He refused to pursue it at the expense of others (I think The Chosen TV series excels at dramatizing this). The Scripture says Jesus emptied Himself by making Himself nothing and taking on the posture of a servant. But He didn’t erase Himself; Jesus still maintained His core nature of self-giving love.
So, when Paul says, “Have this mind among yourselves,” he’s calling the church community to practice the same relational pattern:
What’s good for me is good for you, and what’s good for you is good for me.
That’s covenantal thinking. It’s the opposite of the consumer or contractual mindset that too often shapes modern church life.
From Contract to Covenant
Many well-meaning church communities unintentionally operate by contractual logic: I give, therefore I get. Whether it’s attendance, tithing, volunteering, or loyalty, the unspoken exchange is transactional.
Covenantal thinking speaks another language: We belong, therefore we serve.
In a covenant, belonging precedes doing. You don’t earn your place – you live from it. Covenant reorders thinking around mutual trust rather than negotiated terms, shared faithfulness rather than institutional performance.
When Paul urges believers to see themselves “not more highly than they ought,” he’s not suppressing individuality; he’s grounding identity in relationship. Each member belongs to all the others. Each gift serves the good of the whole. While transformation is corporate before it is personal — it’s never impersonal.
A Transformed Community.
As Paul continues in Romans 12, his focus becomes unmistakably relational:
Love must be sincere.
Be devoted to one another in love.
Live in harmony with one another.
Overcome evil with good.
These aren’t individual moral expectations; they’re best practices for a church community – ways of embodying a renewed imagination.
So, this renewed mind, gives rise to a transformed community, and a transformed community sustains the ongoing renewal of each person within it. The transformation feedback loop flows from the inner life to the shared life, and back again.
Practicing the Communal Mind
In a society shaped by individualism, competition, and religious consumerism, practicing the communal mind of Christ often starts small – in circles of trust, shared meals, honest conversation, and mutual care.
It looks like:
Listening more than asserting.
Valuing presence over performance.
Seeing the Spirit’s work in others as essential to one’s own growth.
Choosing covenantal interdependence rather than contractual independence.
These postures form a kind of counter-culture – not loud or flashy, doesn’t play to power and politics, but deeply human and quietly transformative. It’s here that the church, stripped of marketing polish and institutional pretense, once again becomes what it was meant to be: a living body through which Christ continues His reconciling work in the world. That’s replanting ancient seed!
Where Renewal Begins
Although I’m a retired minister, (I invite you to read a recent article where I share an open and honest story of where I am today) three decades of lived pastoral experience tells me that transformation doesn’t begin with a new program or leadership vision. It begins wherever a few people together decide to live with renewed minds – to see one another as Christ sees them, to love sincerely, to belong covenantally.
That’s where the Spirit’s renewing work takes root.
Renewal always begins smaller than we think – and it grows deeper than we expect.