Contingent Dimensions of Adolescent Faith Formation
The last couple years I've been thinking deeply about the spiritual formation of adolescents for the mission of God. I've always understood the spiritual formation of adolescents to be important, of course. However, it really wasn't until I had a decade or so of experience shepherding adolescents and through consistent consideration of my own spiritual discovery and growth that I really began to understand what spiritual formation is and how to help myself and others live into it.
I certainly don't have it figured out by any stretch of the imagination. I do feel, however, that I have some unfinished ideas on what's essential to the process and progress of our spiritual development.
With the help of others, I've put together some training workshops that are designed to inform, inspire, challenge and equip youth workers as they guide students into spiritual formation. We've had a ton of fun and learned a lot as we have facilitated the workshops in dozens and dozens of cities throughout North America.
I've also written a book called, Story, Signs and Sacred Rhythms that is intended to give a theological yet intentionally practical overview of a narrative approach to youth ministry --an approach profoundly rooted in the Story and mission of God. The time spent writing (actually more so the reading, interviewing, having other people a lot smarter than me speak into the book, etc.) has also helped me better understand the process and progress of faith formation.
Along the way I have come to the conclusion that there are several key and what I describe as "contingent" dimensions in the faith formation of adolescents. I am not only referring to an overarching model or an in depth framework (click HERE for more on the approach in my new book). I am also referring to the implicit and explicit fundamentals of spiritual formation. You know what I mean, where the rubber meets the road kind of stuff.
Of course, I don't think anyone can effectively help shape the faith of others without an overarching model or in depth and guiding framework. However, I also know that in order to be truly effective in our efforts of shepherding we can't merely work in the “bigness” of models and frameworks. Eventually, we must dig down into the earth of it all and discover the specific matter that a soul can’t grow without.
Over the next few days and weeks I will be writing several posts on what I believe are some of the contingent dimensions of faith formation, specifically in the lives of adolescents. I invite you to participate in helping me to establish a more robust collection of particulars that will help all of us. I invite you to comment here or post my thoughts along with your thoughts on your blog for others to comment. Below is a table that illustrates my present plan for sharing my thoughts. Of course, this may change as we converse about it together. Obviously, I plan to bring context and meaning to each of these future posts as we go along. NOTE: The table below, by itself, most likely will not help you understand what I am getting at.
Also, you will notice that I have arranged the posts into three main areas of focus – Associating, Assimilating and Actualizing. While I think these labels are helpful, don’t get hung up on the words. Instead, work to contextualize the words I use to develop your own categories.
One more thing -- I think it is imperative that we work through these posts with our own spiritual discovery and growth in mind, not just the adolescents and others that we shepherd. You can’t give away what you don’t own.
I am looking forward to the conversation!
