Defining Mature Christianity
How does a mature Christian student look/act/smell? This is one of those questions that has been tossed around for ages. There are a lot of opinions out there. Wouldn’t it help if we had a solid answer?
Barna says that church leaders today struggle to define spiritual maturity. I wouldn’t doubt that. Spiritual maturity is a fuzzy concept, hard to specifically define and quantify. (Maybe it was never meant to be defined or quantified, just pursued…?)
Doug Fields has his five pillars of youth ministry. The Exemplar YM Study has their “34 Characteristics of Mature Christian Youth.” Greg Steir says that personal evangelism is the biggest sign.
Here’s my take: There’s a lot of good signs of Christian maturity. But I don’t think anybody is ever going to create the end-all flawless description of the perfectly mature Christian student.
So get realistic about your youth group. Look for weaknesses and opportunities, and focus your ministry on them. Are your students not spending any time reading scripture? Are they getting interested in prayer, or maybe world missions?
Prayerfully identify those weaknesses and opportunities, and focus on them for the next couple of months. Then, prayerfully consider your group again. Have they grown in those areas? What led to that growth? Is it time to focus on new areas?
It’s okay if you can’t articulate a wonderfully perfect definition of Christian maturity. But you should be able to look at your group and figure out what they need to grow in their relationships with Christ. Focus on those areas for a while, then step back again to see what’s changed.
What areas do you think your youth group needs to focus on?
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GREAT post, Nate.
We’re trying to focus on serving right now. A common pattern that all of our youth leaders are seeing is that the students are quick to jump on opportunities that benefit them, but less enthusiastic about serving others for little or no recognition.
I agree that it is hard to define. We have the same problem in the counseling field. What exactly does a “functional” person look like? I think that Christlikeness is the big goal - but that is going to look different for different groups with different needs, personalities, giftings, ect.