Stage 2: The Life of Discipleship

Long ago, before research on developmental stages had really begun, classical education was shaped around three stages of learning.  

The idea is that children are in the grammar stage from birth until around age 11.  This is a time of absorbing data.  Children are sponges taking in as much as they can, but while absorbing all of this information, they aren’t quite able to dissect it and think deeply about it.  Children might ask questions like why does the sun shine every day, how can birds fly, why do we get milk from cows, or where do babies come from, yet in asking these questions, they aren’t wrestling with if these things are true but more how do they happen.  It is like a fact-finding mission, and much of that data is being stored away for a later date.

Somewhere around age 11, depending on the child, this absorption of data shifts to the questioning of data.  If you’ve raised or worked with children, you know that about the time kids enter middle school, they begin to question, well, pretty much everything.  Children who previously just followed the rules given to them, suddenly - it might feel like overnight, begin to want more than facts.  They move into what is called the dialectic stage.  As their brains develop, they become more logical; thus, they no longer want just to know how something works. Now they want to wrestle with their belief about if what you are telling them is true.  

This transition can feel very difficult for parents, teachers, and pastors.  It requires the adult teaching the student to understand how that student’s brain is changing and to understand that their new questions are not necessarily meant to be contrary. Instead, these questions help them to exercise new pathways in their thinking that will, in the long run, help them to be better at using logic and critical thinking.  Adults have the opportunity in this stage to help students learn how to disagree with others while still being loving and treating those with different views with kindness.  

Eventually, students move into the rhetoric stage, where they can take the information they have been learning, the ideas they have questioned and wrestled with, and lead conversations with others from the knowledge they have acquired.  Within this classical framework, this tends to happen near the end of high school and into young adulthood.  

The grammar, dialectic, and rhetoric are rooted in classical education, so we might try to relegate these ideas and declare that they only impact children and teens.  And yet, it seems evident that we all move through these stages each time we learn something new.  

I would venture to say that the first three stages proposed in The Critical Journey would fall into the grammar stage of learning, regardless of our age.  

Last week, in the first stage of formation, we looked at how we are inclined to trust what people tell us about Jesus.  We don’t necessarily question what we are taught because we are in a stage of absorbing as much information as we can.

Moving into Stage 2: The Life of Discipleship, we still find ourselves continuing to absorb information from others.  Thinking back to the LEGO story from last time, we’ve moved beyond looking at the box to opening the directions and beginning to build, and yet as we build, we have to go piece by piece.  This stage of discipleship is where our beliefs about who God is and how God relates to us begin to take shape.  

Hagberg & Guelich write, “Those from and with whom we journey clearly determine what and how we experience this phase of our faith.”

They also write, “The more traditional forms of Sunday School classes, youth groups, church camps, and retreat experiences stand out for many as formative associations in their journeys of faith.  Through all of these settings, we experience God through association with others.  The group forms our concepts of who and what God is.  Often key figures, particular leaders, exhibit what we are seeking to experience.  They become models for us.” 

This feels complex and sobering.  

Taking into consideration the varying developmental stages of children and adults, many factors need to go into the curriculum that is written, the sermons that are preached, and the conversations happening in our faith spaces.  

Children, and adults alike, in the Life of Discipleship stage, depend on the people teaching them to tell them the truth.  They count on the people they are in community with to be safe.  They expect the directions they are following to be accurate.  

They count on these things because they are still in the grammar stage.  They are still absorbing the data and asking fact-finding questions.  Why do we sing this song?  Why do we pray this way?  What happens when I make a mistake?  What do I do when I’m afraid?  

Wrestling with what they believe will come later, but in this stage, the primary work relates to establishing a foundation they will build upon for years to come.

As Dallas Willard writes, “In our services and in our models both of ministry and of pastors, we must remember that we are not making robots who sing, clap, pray, give, and show up for meetings when they are supposed to.  We are bringing forth the sons and daughters of God to live their unique lives in this world to his glory.  We must do all we can to suit the means we employ to that end.” 

People can get stuck in Stage 2 when they begin to live as if their faith is a checklist to be completed or a set of rules to be followed.  They can also get stuck if they find themselves in an unhealthy or unsafe community.  The hope is that people continue moving forward and engage in Stage 3: The Productive Life.  

More on that next time.  

~  Melissa