the journey to spiritual maturity
how do we grow up in the faith?
All too often in the church, we are excited to see people come to faith in Jesus, but then fail to help them grow and mature spiritually. It would be like celebrating the birth of a child, and then leaving them to figure out how to feed and clothe themselves, how to obey the laws, and reproduce all on their own.
Our desire is to help each of our members move along the pathway to spiritual maturity with grace and a clear vision for the future. We will provide community, classes, and environments for challenge and growth with the aim of helping each member becoming spiritual parents to younger believers.
In order for you to grow, first you must become aware of where you are along the path. It is not meant to be a shameful exercise, but one that with humble honesty gives great clarity so that you can move forward. It is best to consider where you are personally, but also through the feedback of trusted fellow believers who are close enough to have an honest view.
The stages of faith
The Apostle Paul tells us in Ephesians 4 that Christ gave the church various spiritual leaders to equip the church, so that it may be built up, towards maturity. If we remain as spiritual infants, Paul warns that we will be tossed back and forth by every form of false teaching. The church matures together or there is a danger in the church not maturing at all.
Spiritually Dead
Before you are any stage of spiritual life, Paul says that we are spiritually dead. “In the past you were spiritually dead because of your sins” Ephesians 2:1, NCV.
As a spiritually dead person, we have no hunger or thirst for the presence and righteousness of God, and therefore, no spiritual life. Without the regenerating power of the Spirit, we are left in this state and face the consequences of our sin.
You can be very religious and be spiritually dead. You can attend a church service every week, serve on a team, be in community, and be spiritually dead.
Spiritual Infant
As an infant is born into the world, accompanied with tears of joy, the newborn Christian is welcomed into her spiritual family with a lot of excitement. A newborn baby is completely dependent on family to take care of her: feeding, changing diapers, and pouring out love! It’s primarily the responsibility of the parent to provide for the infant, but even the teen and child can be helpful.
A spiritual infant is brand new to the faith. While potentially physically and emotionally mature, spiritually, they are dependent on others spiritually. A spiritual infant is a consumer, contributing little to the family outside of their joyful presence. The burden is gladly taken on by the church, although the longer one is arrested in their spiritual development, remaining a consumer, naturally the burden feels heavier and heavier to the family.
It is not shameful to be a spiritual infant, just as it’s not shameful to be a human infant. However, it’s important to grow and develop so that you may thrive spiritually.
Spiritual Child
Children are slightly less messy than infants, although they contribute their fair share. Children are learning independence, how to care for themselves. Children are learning commands that are for their protection, as well as the protection of those around them. Children within a healthy household are being taught not only the “don’ts” of the family, but also the “do’s”. How to be respectful, hospitable, caring, etc.
The Christian who is like a child in their faith is learning how to feed themselves, even learning how to prepare their own nourishment, reading and praying on their own. This stage of faith is where a Christian learns some of the do’s and don’ts of Christianity, not because Christianity is a list of rules. Rather, because the Christian life is about becoming like Jesus and doing what he did: loving the last, least, and lost of society.
The child is learning how to serve and give, rather than being simply a consumer.
Spiritual Teenager
Teenagers are, well, sometimes awkward. They’re doing what they can to be more independent, even developing their own interests and ideologies. While dad may have wanted them to play t-ball because he likes baseball, the teenager is really growing to express their own interests, even if it means leaning dad’s hobby or committing to it.
A spiritual teenager is becoming more aware of who they are individually in Christ, what their unique gifts and contributions to the church can be, and owning the faith as their own, rather than of their parents (whether actual parents or just those who have been spiritually parenting them).
A spiritual teenager develops their own interests and really begins to interact with parents on a more mature level. A spiritual teenager is beginning to show interest in how to love others well, taking initiative to check-in on others. A spiritual teenager sees how, even they can help an infant grow in the faith.
Spiritual parent
The parent is filled with joy at the birth of a new infant. The parent is excited about the potential of the child. The parent is moved by the ability to have “adult conversations” with their teenager. And, the parent can oftentimes feel ill-equipped for the task of parenting. The parent can often feel like the responsibility to keep the child alive falls completely on them.
A spiritual parent is active in feeding and caring for others. They’re pouring into the next generation of Christians. The gospel flows out of them naturally to those who are growing in their faith. And as the spiritual parent helps to develop infants, children, and teens, they are continually faced with the reality that they, too, still have growing to do.
A spiritual parent is a leader in the church. Whether in a formal position or not, they are passionate about seeing others mature in Christ. A spiritual parent is willing, even, to have difficult conversations with others for the purpose of seeing them grow.
Spiritual Grandparent
The healthy grandparent is full of experience and wisdom, so whatever those in the family are going through, they can engage with them warmly, encouragingly, and without anxiety, because they’ve been around long enough to see that nothing new is under the sun. They are patient and kind, filled with love. They are unshaken by the tides of culture.
A spiritual grandparent continues to engage with infants, children, and teens, but their primary relationship is with parents. Helping them along the way know what is best in the parenting calling. The spiritual grandparent should be well thought of by the parents and grandchildren as thoughtful, encouraging, and reliable.
A spiritual grandparent is able to keep the family identity healthy, with healthy rhythms of gathering and celebrating. This is the cool, old person, whose priorities are on living in the presence of God, not just in the future, but here and now.
The Pathway
How do we grow from one stage to another? The two major factors in our growth is our desire and the Spirit’s leading. Without those, no system, structure, or vision for your future will be effective. As a church family, we are passionate about equipping believers, but as a rancher can lead his livestock to the water, he cannot make them thirst or take a drink. What you will find below is our attempt to lead you to the water, praying the Spirit gives you thirst and you take the responsibility to drink.
Our Discipleship Pathway is biblically informed, but it is imperfect. Therefore, over the years, we may change certain elements, but the heart remains the same. In each section below, you will find what each stage of faith needs in order to move along the journey to the next stage of faith.
Spiritually Dead to Infant
If you have identified that you are spiritually dead; that there is no discernible life, thirst, hunger, desire for God in you, then what you need is Evangelism. You need to hear the Good News!
God the Father created the world and everything that is in it. He gave each part a specific purpose and humanity is the pinnacle of his creation, who are to be agents in the world acting as his ambassadors, bringing glory to His name.
However, we all have believed a lie that we are better off on our own. We have believed that something within creation can bring us the security, approval, pleasure, and satisfaction. If you are honest with yourself and if you will trust those who have reached the mountain top of each pursuit, you will find that apart from God, all of these are inadequate to bring about the life they promise.
The bad news of the gospel is that due to our rejection of the Father and his goodness, each of us deserve the penalty of death. But even in the initial pronouncement of judgement to Adam and Eve, the first humans and first sinners, God provided a way to cover their shame and a promise to deliver them from death.
That promise was fulfilled in the man Jesus, fully God and fully man. The only person to have ever lived without sin and voluntarily died a sacrificial death on behalf of sinners. He displayed his power and authority over sin and death by walking out of the tomb on the third day after his death and ascending to Heaven 40 days later. In Jesus’ death on the cross, we see how serious our sin is, that it took the death of the perfect image of God Jesus. We also see how serious his love for us is, that he would do this to reconcile us back into a relationship with him.
If you believe that you are more sinful than you dared imagine and yet more loved by the triune God than you could fathom, and submit to him as the Lord of your life, then you are a Christian. Then you are freed to live a restored life the way you were always meant to live, gradually finding freedom over the restraints of sin.
Spiritual Infant to child
An infant trusts her parents to feed her properly. There is so many new things to learn and experience in new life, and yet the most important aspects of life are receiving love and healthy attachment.
At the Crossing, we believe that one of the most basic necessities to a healthy spiritual life is to be in community. We have several Crossing Communities available for the new believer to receive care & direction and to learn what it looks like to live with a missional. mindset, taking this gospel message to others who are spiritually dead. With new life, it is often the spiritual infant who is passionate about evangelism to the spiritual dead.
At the Crossing, we also encourage all to join us for a Basics class. This one day class is a pathway to membership with our church family. It is where we spell out what a disciple looks like and this Discipleship Pathway! We host these typically 3-4 times per year.
With new life, the spiritual infant is quickly learning their new identity as a believer. We offer an Immerse class which guides participants to understanding their Christian, baptismal identity in context of the Triune loving God (Father, Son, Spirit).
We have created a worship playlist of the songs we often sing at The Crossing together, to help you begin to worship privately.
Spiritual Child to Teenager
Spiritual childhood is possibly the most common stage of faith that more believers stall at than any other. Fighting against a culture of consumerism is daunting. Taking responsibility to obey the commands of Jesus and to begin feeding ourselves is a big shift.
Spiritual children begin the process of becoming contributors rather than mere consumers, and so joining a volunteer team and consistently giving are marks of a spiritual child.
Children begin the process of discovering what lies beneath the surface to understand the emotions they are feeling and with trusted brothers and sisters, they can receive comfort for their hurts, pronouncement of forgiveness in their repentance, and accountability to grow in the Christian walk. At the Crossing Church we have DNA groups available to help each believer in this process. DNAs typically form out of a Crossing Community, but there are other ways to get involved as well!
Children also need to be trained, equipped for life. To help in this, we will teach through the Commands of Jesus found in his Sermon on the Mount. We will provide a class for how Christians can engage in a Christian walk that Relationally Healthy with those around us.
We have (and will again) provide evangelism training for how to share your story with Jesus as the hero so that others are attracted to the love of Jesus!
Spiritual Teenager to Parent
Identity is a massive aspect of adolescence. What aspect of identity that I inherit do I retain? What ways do I embrace my unique design by God?
Every aspect of our identity begins first with the fact that all of our life is God’s story, not our own. We must have an understanding of God and his design to even begin to get an accurate understanding of ourselves. To help the young believer grow in their engagement with God through scripture, we have the Story of God series and resources available.
As the spiritual teenager learns how to identify themselves within God’s grander story, they can begin to understand the ways in which their own personality has been shaped throughout their lives and view their place to serve through a Gifts, Passion, and Story course.
As the teen grows in spiritual independence and begins to look back at infants, children, and fellow teens who need leadership and have been affirmed as a leader, then they will be invited to participate in a Spiritual Parenting Course. In this course, we’ll cover not just how to feed yourself, but how to feed others.
Spiritual parent to grandparent
As any parent can tell you, much of what they are teaching the generation behind them, they are still in process learning themselves. Spiritual parentage is not an apex of spiritual maturity where you have arrived, but rather a place where humility leads us to desire seeing others experience the love of God in their lives.
Spiritual parents are those who are pouring into spiritual teens, children, and infants. Spiritual parents are active in sharing their faith to the spiritually dead. What we find is that through leading these younger in the faith, is that parents are learning as much from simple truths as those they are teaching.
Spiritual parents need a specific leadership community around them where they have other parents who can identify with their stage of faith and they can lean on spiritual grandparents who have the wisdom of experience and suffering to share.
Spiritual Grandparent
Spiritual grandparents are those leaders who not only lead the infants, children, and teens directly, but also indirectly as they lead spiritual parents to do the same.
In grand parenting, the believer continues to need community, teaching, and practice obedience. These older (in faith) men and women are teaching the faith generations behind them. This may be through mentorships, equipping classes, or if applicable preaching.
These older (in faith) generations lead as deacons and deaconesses in our service, mission, and administration.
Older (in faith) men may be considered for the Elder Process, to serve through leading and caring for the church. In unique situations, the spiritual grandparent may even be called to consider church planting, whether as a planter, sender, supporter, mentor, or aid in establishing deacons and/or elders.