What's happening when what I believe is not what I used to believe...

This title was the name of the workshop conducted by Chris Brown, a psychologist and in pastoral care at Rusty Springs festivel.

Chris basically went though James Fowler's 'Stages of Faith', which Chris categorized as a part of developmental psychology.

The Wikipedia summarised these stages of faith as such::

• Stage 0 – "Primal or Undifferentiated" faith (birth to 2 years), is characterized by an early learning of the safety of their environment (i.e. warm, safe and secure vs. hurt, neglect and abuse). If consistent nurturance is experienced, one will develop a sense of trust and safety about the universe and the divine. Conversely, negative experiences will cause one to develop distrust with the universe and the divine. Transition to the next stage begins with integration of thought and languages which facilitates the use of symbols in speech and play.

• Stage 1 – "Intuitive-Projective" faith (ages of three to seven), is characterized by the psyche's unprotected exposure to the Unconscious.

• Stage 2 – "Mythic-Literal" faith (mostly in school children), stage two persons have a strong belief in the justice and reciprocity of the universe, and their deities are almost always anthropomorphic.

• Stage 3 – "Synthetic-Conventional" faith (arising in adolescence) characterized by conformity

• Stage 4 – "Individuative-Reflective" faith (usually mid-twenties to late thirties) a stage of angst and struggle. The individual takes personal responsibility for their beliefs and feelings.

• Stage 5 – "Conjunctive" faith (mid-life crisis) acknowledges paradox and transcendence relating reality behind the symbols of inherited systems

• Stage 6 – "Universalizing" faith, or what some might call "enlightenment".

Some insteresting points brought out on the workshop on these stages were::

:: Fowler belives that %20 of Americans are in Stage 2
:: Fowler belivied that only 1.6% ever get to Stage 6
:: Some examples of Stage 6 given are Mother Teresa, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Luther King.
::The stages of faith is cross cultural, so it could be for a Buddhist or some other faith.

For me all this made a lot of scene. It filled a lot of gaps. It is interesting that part of the conversation was regarding fundamentalism/evangelicalism. It was agreed that this aspect of Christianity is in the stages 2-3. This would be what I saw in the Vineyard denomination. Although at Ranges I would say I saw people enter the church who where Stage 4 and 5, that they had not much Church background.

Interestingly a 'Crisis' is often the catalyst for people moving though a Stage. In my opinion they either go to Stage 5 or go backward to where things are safe Stage 3 or 4.

So what about myself. Well I reckon I'm Stage 4-5. A 'Critical self-evalutation' is taking place without the crisis. As my friend Bob says over at View from a Room, "I've sacked Jesus and looking for the real one."

 

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Stretched

One of my favorite reads is 'Backyard missionary', I've got a lot of respect for Hammo as one who has gone before me. His las post "Stretch" a reflection of his community in Perth has had me thinking a little bit.

The line-

I have said a number of times that on a scale of 1-10, if normal established church life is ‘1′ then we probably ‘jumped’ out to around an ‘8′, to a place of unfamiliarity and to an environment that made most Christians uncomfortable. (Its ok for overseas missionaries to jump to ‘8′ but not local ones!)

For me, after we did Forge and the stagnancy of Ranges at the time I would have done the same as Hamo, gone to 8 straight away. I supose Ranges would have been about a 2 on Hammos scale. We didn't do the plunge for a few good reasons. We were a new church plant 3 years old and the people that we had with us already had gone through enough joining our team. We decided that the external would look the same but the underpinning would change.

So it has been a slow movement up the scale at Ranges we would now be about a 3-4. Although the Vineyard Catalyst Network which we set up, the communities would be 5-8.

Hammo also mentioned some of the difficulties meeting others expectations

• Children's Ministry
• feed
• worship

I think these problems happen for every church, large and small communities. Yet they have their own set of issues. Eg a large church you start having great worship, then... 'excellence, elitism' sneaks in the music team, which no one can crack. (Yep I've been in and tried to get into these types of teams, very clicky).

I think it would be easier just to start at hammos ranking of 8 without a Christian team. Or if people wanted to join, you lay your cards on the tables. The 'feed', 'worship', 'Children's Ministry' expectations are made pretty clear. I really think next time this is how we will do things.