The Youth Work Lab: Faith Development

The theory

Faith can be a tricky concept to define and pin down, and an even trickier one to pull apart into stages, but that hasn’t stopped people trying to do it.

Having a scale for faith development may seem restrictive for such a personal devotion that often is difficult to express in words. I’m not suggesting that we devalue the journey of faith into a process of levelling up to your prayer ability, however, we can see that others may be at different points in their walk with God and if we can learn about those stages then we can think about what might be needed to move them on.

Fowler

James Fowler outlined six stages of development a person might go through as their faith starts in childhood and matures into adulthood. Rather than being a purely conceptual scale, the stages were formulated after a series of interviews and closely follow the psychological development of children and adults.

Stages zero and one: Undifferentiated faith (birth to two years)

This is marked by the early learning of safety in their environment and trust, or distrust in care givers. This learning can then be applied to the divine, if distrust is learnt at this stage it will significantly impact the following stages. Religion is learnt through experiences, stories and people the child comes into contact with.

Stage two: Mythic-literal faith (mostly in school children)

Here the child begins to separate out the real from the make-believe. The experience of faith happens through stories, but these stories are seen as one-dimensional and metaphors and symbolic language is often misunderstood and taken literally. There is a strong belief in justice and that good things will happen to good people.

Stage three: Synthetic-conventional faith (arising in adolescence, aged 12 to adulthood)

Here a person is not fully conscious of having chosen to believe but rather is part of a group that believes. The connection to the wider group is important.

Stage four: Individuative-reflective faith (usually mid-twenties to late-thirties)

This is the stage of doubt and struggle. The individual takes personal responsibility for their faith and can reflect on one’s own beliefs. As such people at this stage may re-examine their past experiences. The weakness of this stage is that the person may not be able to resolve their faith with the rational, critical mind and abandon their faith altogether.

Stage five: Conjunctive faith (mid-life crisis)

This stage acknowledges paradoxes in faith and holds them in tension, for example that we are both sinful and saved in the same moment. The individual resolves conflicts from previous stages by a complex understanding of a multi-dimensional, interdependent ‘truth’ that cannot be explained by any particular statement. Here the whole biblical narrative draws us in rather than individual stories and verses.

Stage six: Universalising faith

This is the final stage and according to Fowler is only reached by a few. The individual would treat any person with compassion as he or she views people as from a universal community, and should be treated with universal principles of love and justice. Here people commit their total being to their faith, examples being Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr. and Mother Teresa.

Engel scale

The original Engel Scale was developed by James F. Engel and Viggo Søgaard in 1975, although others have developed it to suit their own needs. The scale looks to map the whole journey towards God by seeing evangelism and discipleship as part of the same journey. (See right.)

The experiment

Ali Simpson- Smith is a pioneer youth minister and project manager for The Edge Project.

One question that prompted the use of a faith development scale was, ‘How do you measure spiritual growth in an individual?’ Although this form of monitoring is subjective, and based on conversations we have had with the young men we work with and our relationships with them, we wanted a clear understanding of where they were in terms of their spiritual journeys.

The problem I found with the faith development theories that I researched, is the assumption of where one’s faith journey begins. Though much of what they propose suggests that one’s faith journey begins in infancy and childhood, the language used does not reflect an adult who is making an informed exploration of early stages of faith. So a lot of childhood developmental theory stages are used to highlight the varying stages of faith development, e.g. infancy / early childhood / adolescence etc, and I found that this just did not marry up with my own experiences of supporting grown adults who are pre-churched.

Through my work I found that this was the case in terms of the people I was meeting, for example, the football ministry we are currently developing as a fresh expression. This group is a prime example of people embarking on a new spiritual faith journey, however, none of it matched up to the faith development models I researched. Adopting a similar approach on faith development to Fowler is Sparkman. In Sparkman’s faith development theory he suggests that the first stage begins in infancy and early childhood. He says, ‘This positive awareness forms the basis for all other realities in the faith pilgrimage, and unless it is achieved in these years, the full dimensions of belonging, affirmation, and trusteeship cannot be experienced’. This theory could be explanatory of some of the situations that the football lads may have found themselves in through their teens and early adulthood.

Reflecting on some of the lads’ life choices and behaviours there could be an argument for Sparkman’s theory in terms of how a lack of parental influence in their developmental stages during infancy and early childhood has affected their relationship-making abilities. This therefore suggests that unless you ensure the child experiences the ‘full dimensions of belonging, affirmation and trusteeship’ a sense of not belonging and disconnect will plague them and their relationships throughout their adolescent and young adult years. During my experiences with our football ministry I have seen various stages of faith development displayed. However few provided a clear mapping of their journey. The Engel scale enables us to clearly map, and keep track of, the varying stages that the lads have, or are transitioning through.

Engel’s faith development scale is made up of positive and negative points, mapping out the different stages from becoming aware of Christianity, being challenged by it, applying it to one’s own life, becoming a Christian, becoming part of the Church, growing in faith and prayer life, and finally culminating in sharing the gospel with others. The language used is also nondescript, therefore it would apply to both a child exploring faith in a very childlike way, and an adult exploring faith in later life. Due to the depth of scope within this scale it enables us to clearly map each faith journey, see where additional support is needed and tailor our strategies to enable growth and support that is appropriate to each individual. It also gives us a tangible way of measuring growth for our funders.

Experiment yourself:

Why not take the time to apply these faith development models to yourself, think about your journey of faith thus far and reflect on where you might be on the different scales. If you’re feeling brave, ask your manager or close friend to see if they agree. This kind of self-examination is useful before you begin to apply the models to young people. With your team or by yourself, choose a faith development model and see if you can apply it to the groups and individual young people you work with. Depending on your relationship with the young people you may want to include them in the process. Reflect on the journey they’ve made. Consider what might help and hinder them from moving on to the next stage.