Adult Faith Development Pt 1

I am very close to finishing my Masters Degree in Spiritual Formation and Leadership. In this program, I have learned that there is a process to being formed into the image of Christ, and while mapping out the process is like mapping the ocean floor, I have found that there are milestones along the way and different levels of function.

When we think of stages of development, we may think that some stages are inferior to others and create a hierarchy. This is a mistake, we know that God can be equally found in the poor in spirit as he can with a whole individual. When I speak of stages of development, I am speaking of a way of functioning in the world and with God, not a higher level of value as a human being.

I call this a modified Cook-Greuter scale of faith development. Susane Cook-Greuter has done some amazing work with the study of adult development, and I have stood on her shoulders along with St Bernard of Clairvoux's four degrees of love, and integrated many concepts of Spiritual Formation into a working illustration of faith development.

You can see illustrated in this philosophy of Christian leadership that there is room for 3D movement in both vertical and horizontal directions. Not all growth will result in a greater awareness of God and capacity of love. Cook-Greuter suggests that a person can have horizontal growth when they “learn new skills, new methods, new facts, even new ways of organizing knowledge, but their current action logic mental model of the world remains the same.” This means that we can grow horizontally without growing vertically.

I have observed that much growth in the church has been horizontal: more knowledge of theology, scripture memorization, church program involvement, preaching skills, strategic planning, missional models, administration of vision; but, in this model, horizontal growth does not equal vertical growth. Horizontal growth is what “discipleship” has come to mean in these later years of the Enlightenment. Christian Spiritual Formation, however, emphasizes vertical growth with horizontal growth as a consequential fruit. As we define the nine stages of adult development illustrated here, we shall see why an emphasis on mere horizontal growth becomes a problem to leadership and a corporate church setting.

The chart is broken into three levels of awareness: Pre-conventional, Conventional, and Post-Conventional. Each level brings with it new paradigms of thinking and being, an increased awareness of God; His workings in our own lives and the world around us, and a greater capacity of love for God, others, and our self. Each level has different stages within, which have varying capacities of function.