Faith Formation and the Marks of a Disciple

Faith is believing something is true so that it shapes one’s understanding of self and informs how one lives. Cultivating faith involves engaging ministry practices that foster faith formation within our congregations. The feasts, festivals and sacrificial system throughout the Old Testament are examples of ministry practices that fostered faith formation.

Ministry practices that are effective with our young people contribute to the building up the body of Christ “until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4:12-13). In other words, what is good for our young people is good for our congregations.

Congregational faith formation ought to be contextual and forward looking. Trying to rekindle past practices will result in a short lived flurry of activity. Forward leaning faith formation looks to the future and envisions how people ought to be formed. This will necessitate a robust discussion the marks of a maturing disciple – cognitive, affective and kinesthetic for all ages, including adults. In fact, I wonder if our primary focus ought to be on adult faith formation.

The picture provided in Deuteronomy 6 is a community concerned with passing on its faith to the next generation. It is the adults who are to “Impress the commandments on their children, talk about them with they sit at home and when they walk along the road, when they lie down and when they get up” (Deut. 6:6-8).  If our adults’ faith is not formed according to the scriptures, then the faith formation of our children and young people will suffer. Current research aptly illustrates the relationship between adult faith formation and its influence on the faith development of our children and young people.

With this in mind, I would like to offer six marks of a maturing disciple. These marks are applicable throughout our congregations and across the age-spectrums. These marks are assessed using diagnostic questions that focus on how people are being formed.

The suggested marks of a maturing faith are:

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•  A growing love and understanding of Scripture through regular reading and reflection;
• A growing understanding and skill in explaining how one’s life is informed by the Ten Commandments, Lord’s Prayer, Apostle’s Creed and the Sacraments;
• A growing understanding of the Gospel and what it means to live prayerfully and missionally as an adopted child of God;
•  A lifestyle that increasingly manifests the fruit of the Spirit, stewardship of resources, and gracious support of the church and her ministries
•   A desire and ability to share one’s story, and introduce others to the gospel Story;
• An ongoing investment in the life of the faith community through regular attendance, participation in worship and the church’s ministries.

These markers of a maturing disciple cannot be pursued in a traditional manner; they are learned and nurtured though active participation in an intergenerational faith community that models and discusses them.

Passing on the faith from one generation to the next

Central to the church’s mission is passing on the faith from one generation to the next. Unfortunately, fifty-nine percent of 18-22 year olds leave the church, according to David Kinamann in You Lost Me. Young people are generally inarticulate about their faith, according to Christian Smith and Melissa Denton in Soul Searching and Souls in Transition, and Kenda Dean in Almost Christian. Passing on the faith may be central to the church’s mission, but recent research indicates that all is not well in this area.

As the father of two daughters (and three grandchildren) the challenges of passing on the faith are real. Their upbringing and church experiences were similar but their spiritual struggles were very different. Making sense of their struggles and the struggles of other young people and emerging adults is a personal and professional quest. In assessing the research, wrestling with Scripture, the Reformed Confessions, Catechism, and listening to the stories of young people it is clear that a primary means for passing on the faith to the next generation is through corporate worship.

Worship is a corporate activity; it is also an educational activity. Faithfully passing on the faith from generation to generation requires carefully considering worship’s educational dimensions in light Deuteronomy 6:4-9.

Deuteronomy 6.4-9

The Israelite community was commanded to pass the faith to the next generation. This included   that “the Lord our God, the Lord is one” (v.4), and learning to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength” (v 5). Moses described how the commandments were to be ever before them and “impress them on your children” (v. 6-9). The “you” in verses 6-9 are plural; it is the Israelite community that was to keep the Torah ever before the children. The Torah was to permeate their lives and relationships. Parents were supported by the broader community in the passing on the faith, and the community was supported by parents.

Parents play a significant role within the context of community in passing on the faith to their children. This involves the church functioning as a missional community seeking to enculturate young people into faithful Christ following.

A Missional Perspective

A missional church is committed to equipping believers to enter into the cultural narratives of its community to persuasively communicate and demonstrate the good news of the gospel in a manner that promotes the common good. A missional church strives to be a visible expression of the body of Christ grounded in the belief that every part of the body is essential (1 Cor. 12;12, 13, 20, 25-27).

This is why our baptismal liturgy teaches that baptized infants and children are members of Christ’s church when a congregation declares,  “With joy and thanksgiving, we now welcome you into Christ's church; for we are all one in Christ. We promise to love, encourage, and support you and to help you know and follow Christ.” The body of Christ metaphor invites the missional church to live as an authentic community inviting each member to lay aside preferences in order to foster the spiritual growth of other members of the community so that “we can reach unity in the faith and knowledge of the son of God and become mature attaining to the measure of the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4.13). Worship services that segregate the body of Christ disrupt the passing on of the faith from one generation to the next.

Enculturation

Infants, children, teens, and adults learn about the Christian faith together by participating in corporate worship, which includes interacting, supporting, encouraging, nurturing and challenging each other in their relationship with Christ. In other words, by participating in worship people are enculturated into the beliefs, values, behaviors and standards of the community.

Learning is a complex activity involving the five senses and the brain’s remarkable ability to store, access and recall data. Learning is a lifelong activity. Two often-overlooked observations about learning deserve more attention.

People are enculturated, they learn through participation. We learn by engaging in activities with others. When we segregate infants and children from our worship services they do not learn about worship. My daughter’s remark about her son rings true, “How will Tuck ever learn to worship if he is not in worship.” Through regular participation in worship the neural pathways connecting various experiences with worship are strengthened. My granddaughter, Karlie, has placed her offering in the plate every Sunday with me since she was born. First I carried her and pulled the dollar from her little grasp, later she began to drop the dollar into the basket. Vow she listens for the offering “signal” and looks at me expectantly, knowing it is time. The link between worship and giving is being forged; neural pathways are being strengthened through participation. Does she understand what she is doing and why? At some point she will.

People know more than they can articulate. Articulating what one knows is a complex process that involves recalling, organizing and encoding data. Enculturation includes learning to articulate what one understands within the context of community.  Karlie is not able to articulate why she gives an offering, but her description would be age-appropriate.  As she matures, questions will arise about what she is doing and why, providing teachable moments.

The significant role of enculturation was validated by the 2003 report Hardwired to Connect released by the Institute for American Values.  Drawing on the neurosciences and related disciplines the report observed, “We are hardwired for other people and for moral meaning and openness to the transcendent. Meeting these basic needs for connection is essential to health and to human flourishing”.  The report goes on to describe the type of communities’ children and young people need, which they labeled authoritative communities. “Authoritative communities are groups that live out the types of connectedness that our children increasingly lack. They are groups of people who are committed to one another over time and who model and pass on at least part of what it means to be a good person and live a good life.”

Authoritative communities enculturate and integrate infants, toddlers, children and young people into the life of the community. Segregating infants, toddlers, children and young people disconnects them from church community’s defining activity and its faith forming influence.

Towards a Way of Life

We were created to live in community, in relationships with other people across the generations. The Passover celebration captures the generations eating and learning together as the children asked questions. The feasts, festivals and sacrifices were instructional community events. It is through intergenerational relationships that the faith is passed on from one generation to the next as stories are told, questions asked and the frame of reference of those present is broadened. It is through intergenerational relationships that catechesis takes place.

Catechesis is a way of teaching that intertwines knowledge and life. It involves explaining and illustrating through the use of stories from every persons’ lives. It invites questions and seeks to promote dialogue and application. A session on the first phrase of the Lord’s prayer, “Our Father” would include both explanations of the significance of “our” and God as “Father”, stories about how those particular truths inform one’s life, and discussions about its meaning and significance for life.  Adults, teens, children, and toddlers are able to share stories that are appropriate and challenging to all those present.

Catechesis employs intergenerational relationships in order to foster authentic community. The elderly woman was always quick to listen and welcome the children and teens at church. Everyone knew that if you said “Hi”, a peppermint and the question “How are you?” was inevitable. An answer was expected. Children grew and left for college. Upon return, they would make their way down the aisle for peppermints and her inevitable questions. Intergenerational relationships invite the church community to learn, grow, support and challenge each other in their walk with Christ. Intergenerational relationships are essential if the church is to be a safe place to ask authentic questions, wrestle with the issues of life and pass on the faith to the next generation.

Conclusion

Jesus stated, “Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me” (Mark 9.37) and he summons adults to “receive the kingdom of God like a little child” (Mark 10:15). Passing on the faith from one generation to the next is a priority. Every dimension of a church’s ministry should be able to articulate how it contributes to the passing on of the faith, whether it be serving meals, council meetings, worship services, worship committee meetings, youth programming, etc. Truly integrated intergenerational worship is not optional and the church as a missional community must recapture this essential component of its being. If we do not, then not only will the spiritual lives of our children and teens suffer, but our congregation’s spiritual life will be impoverished as well.

One of the hallmarks of the Reformed tradition is the statement: Reformed and always reforming according to the dictates of scripture. May the Holy Spirit through the Word empower us to a wholesale commitment to passing on the faith from one generation to the next by recovering a truly integrated intergenerational approach to worship.

Some cues on why emerging adults stick in church

This year's theme at Association of Youth Ministry Educators conference was emerging adults. The descriptor emerging adults is a label applied primarily to 20 somethings who share similar discernible characteristics brought on by social and cultural changes as they seek to adapt to the world around them. The overall value of the emerging adult construct is still being evaluated.

A paper that caught my eye at the conference was titled: Factors contributing to emerging adult church-based retention  by Megan Brown, a PhD candidate at Biola University. Her qualitative study based in SC and NC cuts against the grain by offering some helpful insight into the reasons emerging adults persevere in the life of the church. These reasons include:

• Parental expectations and accountability
• Good relationships with pastor or youth pastor
• Siblings that encouraged church involvement
• Relationships with other adults, including older adults in the congregation
• Felt they "belonged", they felt like an important part of the community
• Contributed or participated in service projects or trip

Allow me to summarize:

• An ongoing parental commitment to their child's faith development.
• A church community that welcomes, values, includes and respects everyone regardless of age.
• Strong safe relationships with others and the pastoral staff.

Herein lies the challenge, these characteristics ought to inform every person's church experience. The characteristics cannot be added at middle school or high school; they must characterize all ministries from the cradle to the grave.

Youth Ministry Abuse: Research from the National Center for Family Integrated Churches

A new survey by the National Center for Family Integrated Churches (NFCIS) declare that youth group is the reason why young people are leaving the church, as reported in Charisma. The article does not indicate how many people completed the survey and a quick review of the three-question instrument reveals that no demographic data is collected and the questions are skewed. Who completed the survey? How did they find the link to the survey? What part of the country are they from? Why only three questions? Why do the questions presuppose a certain answer? In essence, the survey’s poor design renders the data meaningless.

I fear for our young people whose pastors read this report and decide to act on it. I fear that a pastor will read Adam McManus’s comments and take them seriously. Mr. McManus seems to have forgotten that Deuteronomy 6:4-7 is written principally to the Israelite Community and not parents; that Proverbs is a group of wise saying, not promises.

Yes, our young people are leaving the church. There are a number of contributing factors. Youth group might be a contributing factor in a limited number of cases; it is not the enemy. Making youth ministry the villain, as NCFIS does, is not helpful.

There is better research. There are more thoughtful descriptions of why you young people are leaving the church. If you want to begin understanding why young people are not in church and leaving the church, I recommend that you watch Diana Butler Bass’s lecture at http://rachelheldevans.com/blog/diana-butler-bass-church.

In the meantime, if you pastor reads Charisma do the pastor and your youth group a favor and shred this article before its read.

the spiritual nurture of young peope: parental responsibility in perspective

The blog post 3 Common Traits of Youth Who Don't Leave the Church sparked some interest around the web. This post  is worth a second look.

The first and second traits, "they are converted" and "they are equipped" deserve an "Amen". Sure we can quibble about what it means to be converted and equipped, but in the end I am not sure much will be gained. The third trait is a bit more troublesome, "Their parents preach the gospel to them" places too much responsibility on the parents in lieu of the faith community.

 Deuteronomy 6:4-9 is written to the nation of Israel. It is the nation as a whole, the faith community, who is instructed to impress the commandments of the children, to talk about them and bind them on their foreheads. Parents ought to teach and pass on the faith to their children; the community has a responsibility as well. Young people catch an understanding of the Christian faith from their parents, churches, youth groups and other social units. Parents without a strong church community supporting, encouraging and participating in the spiritual nurture of their children face a daunting challenge. This is why it is essential that youth workers divert their attention from working primarily with youth to equipping their congregations to disciple young people and fully integrate them into the life of the community.

Detangling vocation from occupation

Tim Otto’s video Thoughts on Christian Vocation calls into question the church’s understanding of vocation in the same way Gary Friesen’s Decision Making and the will of God did in the 1980s. I suspect Otto’s points, also preceded by Quentin Schultze’s Here I Am: Now What on Earth Should I Be Doing? will fall on deaf ears as the earlier attempts appear to have done. All these works require a paradigm shift.

Concern about vocation is evidence in that people desire to find meaning and significance in their labor. People are seeking their “calling”. Yet, in scripture we are “called” to follow Christ, to find our meaning and significance and hope primarily in Christ; not in our labor. Faithfully following Christ is every Christian’s vocation which is worked out through one’s occupation or in Schultze’s station in life.

This understanding of vocation opens up opportunities. Living our shared vocation together involves a shared commitment to foster faithful Christ following by the entire community. It is the community’s responsibility to assist a person in identifying and validating each person’s gifts. It provides a context for wrestling with questions about which occupations would allow one to faithfully utilize their gifts; to faithfully labor in light of who they are in Christ.

This approach anchors our understanding of vocation in the gospel; our calling is to faithful Christ following. Our shared vocation is then worked out in and through various occupations where one’s gifts and talents are seen as gifts to one’s employer.

Otto, Friesen and Schultze’s understanding of vocation lodge meaning, significance and purpose in the gospel rather than what we do. The paradigm shift proposed is both freeing and weighty; it places greater responsibility on the community of faith to live out a shared vocation and to assist each other in identifying appropriate occupation