I stood beside him in the church choir.
Months later, he was arrested for murder.
Back then, he seemed like the kind of man no one would ever question—steady, respected, a pillar of our community.
Sure, he seemed a little aloof during choir practice, but I was just a teenager, not noteworthy to someone so respected. Sure, he lacked a little warmth, but I knew he had a reputation of being a loving husband and a good father.
Each emerging detail of the twisted tale—how he shot and strangled his wife amidst an affair—rocked our community and rattled me, leaving me with lingering questions. How could I reconcile the man I thought I knew with the man he really was? How could a man of apparent character hold such contradictions? If he could do this, could I trust other leaders?
The Crisis of Character
From the fractured trust in the highest political, corporate, and ecclesial offices in the land to the fragmented places in our own hearts, we’re facing a profound unveiling.
And what’s been uncovered is not just an individual crisis but a systemic one. In my work as a therapist, pastor, professor, and consultant, including more than twenty-five years in the spiritual abuse space, I’ve noted a profound cultural shift: Qualities of charisma, charm, credentials, confidence, and skilled communication are being elevated at the cost of character.
So much has become performative: Behaviors or expressions seem to signal virtue, expertise, alignment, or authenticity, but they lack genuine depth, substance, or integrity. They are done in the name of image management rather than deep formation. Metrics, branding, and platform have become benchmarks of success that must be constantly and rigorously curated. We are increasingly driven by external validation (what others think, say, or reward) rather than our own internal convictions and personal integrity. We feel immense pressure to immediately respond to complex social issues, to side publicly in disembodied disputes, to quickly signal concern for global injustices instead of engaging in difficult, long-term local work. The temptation to posture rather than to pause—to be seen as righteous rather than to pursue what is right—can feel unbearably strong.
Spiritual growth is reduced to informational note-taking and sermon-spectating under bright lights and from big personalities, trading intentional formation for a kind of ecclesial voyeurism. Embodied relational, liturgical, and confessional pathways of growth and discipleship are exchanged for a drive-through spirituality that fills the belly but fails to nurture the soul.
This is the reckoning: a painful but necessary confrontation with all the ways we’ve traded true character for charisma, formation for information, communion for control, discipleship for display, transformation for techniques.
We cannot paper over this crisis with platitudes, quick fixes, or superficial reforms. The way forward cannot be reactive or cosmetic. It must be a wholesale reformation, a ground-up reconstruction, a reintegration of what has been fragmented, distorted, and disguised.
In short, it’s time to cultivate the courage to tell the truth about who we are and who we’ve become. It’s time to embrace the slow, costly work of character formation.
But what is character? And how is it developed?
A Course in Character Formation
Character is revealed over time through the habits of the heart and the choices that emerge naturally from deeply rooted convictions rather than the whims of circumstance. Its understated and steady presence—seen in the quiet courage to tell the truth, the humility to admit fault, the consistency of integrity over time, and the ability to hold power without using it to harm—may be undervalued in a world that embraces the sparkle and grandiosity of charisma and credentials.
The Beatitudes and the Formation of Character
While charm and expertise have their place, I sense the need to shift our imaginations toward more substantial pathways that lead to character change. The Beatitudes offer us a compelling vision (Matthew 5:1-12). These are not mere moral benchmarks or abstract blessings but descriptions of the flourishing life—the kind that aligns with God’s Kingdom and leads to wholeness. “Blessed are . . .” is best translated as “Flourishing are . . .” to emphasize that Jesus offers a vision of the good life, a life of character shaped by humility, mercy, wholeness, and peacemaking.1 In this view, the Beatitudes are formative—they describe the kind of person whose inner life and outer relationships reflect deep congruence with the heart of God. They invite us to become who we are, at our core, as image bearers created for worth, belonging, and purpose in the world.
The Ultimate Objective of Character Is Love
And of course, Jesus sums up the entire law and prophets in two commands: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. . . . Love your neighbor as yourself your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:37, 39). This reveals the telos—the ultimate objective—of character: love. Not love as sentiment, but love as self-giving, shalom-seeking, justice-making, relational wholeness. Mature character, in other words, is not defined by public posture or performance but by one’s capacity to love wisely, courageously, and sacrificially. The apostle Paul encourages us to aim for lives that exemplify the fruit of the Spirit—a full expression of love that is accompanied by joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23).
Character Is More Than Personality
If personality is how we show up—funny, shy, pensive, charming, bold, sarcastic, reserved, talkative, intense, magnetic, awkward, or agreeable—character suggests something more substantial and enduring: our deep-seated dispositions, consistent traits, embedded habits, even our chronic behaviors. Imagine a sculptor carving an image into stone or a metalworker imprinting an image onto a coin. Imagine the deep, permanent grooves that hold up amidst life’s changing weather patterns.
The Slow Work of Christlike Character
Thus, character is the slow-formed architecture that shapes our consistent choices so that we can live in alignment with love. It reflects our capacity for inner integration—of our desires, wounds, and fears. When we are able to acknowledge and reconcile the internal patterns and motives that drive our behavior and emotions, our outer life increasingly flows from wholeness rather than compulsion. This is evidence of an inner life reordered for the sake of embodied love.
There are no shortcuts to this kind of fruitful life and Christlike character. It’s not something that can be crowdsourced or curated, simply tweaked with a few spiritual practices, a season of self-care, or a book on your personality type. We must reimagine spiritual growth, not as the means of acquiring information or mastering techniques, but as a lifelong movement into depth and integrity, cultivated through faith, strengthened through hope, and embodied through love. It is nurtured in the quiet, often unseen spaces where no one is watching, where the Spirit meets us, not on stage, but in the shadows. It is forged slowly—measured not in weeks, but in years. Sometimes decades.
The Spirit does not rush nor relent. In hidden places, in quiet lives, in small acts of courage and truth-telling, the Spirit is already at work—deepening roots, strengthening trunks, preparing us to bear the fruit of a renewed and resilient character.
1. Jonathan T. Pennington, The Sermon on the Mount and Human Flourishing: A Theological Commentary (Baker Academic, 2017).
Adapted from Who You’re Becoming: The Slow and Courageous Work of Cultivating Character in a Narcissistic Age by Chuck DeGroat, releasing in October 2026 from Tyndale House Publishers.
About Chuck DeGroat
Chuck DeGroat is a professor of pastoral care and Christian spirituality at Western Theological Seminary in Holland, Michigan, where he also serves as founding executive director of the clinical mental health counseling program. He is a licensed therapist, spiritual director, author, retreat leader, and founder of the Soul Care Collaborative, a network of practitioners offering spiritually attuned and trauma-informed care. As a therapist, he specializes in navigating issues of abuse and trauma, pastoral (and leadership) health, as well as doubt and dark nights on the faith journey. He and his team also facilitate five-day soul care intensives. He trains clergy in handling issues of abuse and trauma, and conducts pastor/planter assessments. Before transitioning to training pastors, Chuck served as a pastor and counseling center director in Orlando and San Francisco. He and his wife, Sara, have two married daughters. Visit Chuck online at chuckdegroat.net and soulcarecollaborative.com.
