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I am unbelievably pleased that John Westerhoff III has written this feature for us. He is in my mind the most significant contributor to the thinking around children’s ministry in recent times. In his book Will our children have faith? he outlined the process of faith development in children and explains how best we can nurture it. Thirty years on, it is probably still the best theory available. Others have done some fascinating work in this area; indeed Westerhoff’s theory owes much to the work of James Fowler, who in turn developed his ideas from Piaget and Erickson - leading names in the world of child development. But Westerhoff’s theory remains the clearest and best fitting model for what we, as adults, have observed in our own journey of faith, and what we see in the lives of children.

His theory has two main thrusts which are both very significant to how we relate to our children in our churches. Firstly, he says that children’s faith grows best within an intergenerational faith community - not in a separate children’s church. The love, community life and ritual of that community are what a child needs to mature in faith. Secondly, he says that people grow in faith through four stages, each growing on each other like the rings of a tree. Faith does not develop; we develop in the faith of the Church. This development is not a hierarchy in which one stage is considered superior - but rather different manifestations of our faith in the faith of the Church, which reflects different moments in our journey of faith. Here are his stages:

Experienced Faith

In this first stage, faith is based around a child’s experiences in church. The child will feel loved by God if they feel loved by the church they attend. This understanding is the foundation of all that is to come.

Affiliative Faith

This is faith based on belonging. Westerhoff says that if a child feels part of a community, then they will adopt its beliefs and values. Therefore the most powerful thing you can do for the child in this stage is help them to feel that they belong. It is also a key time to engage children in a way that prepares them for the next stage.

Searching Faith

You might call this teenage faith. Beliefs previously adopted are challenged and often rejected as the child seeks to find their own meaning. Churches can find this stage very challenging as it is all about testing and doubting what once seemed certain. However, the previous two stages remain, which means that those searching still need to be loved and to feel that they belong.

Owned Faith

To reach owned faith one must pass through searching and come out the other side, confident in their beliefs and values. They often re-join groups they left during searching faith - not to belong, but to contribute. In this article John reflects on his ministry and explains his current thinking about how faith develops in children, 30 years on from his landmark book.

I recently turned 80. My career as a practical theologian, priest, and professor is drawing to a close. I was 12 years old when I experienced the Church’s call to be a pastor and teacher. I penned my first tract, Values for tomorrow’s children, some 45 years ago. My best known book, Will our children have faith?, was published in 1975. It is now in its third major revision.

Like others, I am a child of my time and place. My convictions have always been changing and as time has gone on, I have fewer answers and more divergent insights. The more I am sure about, the more I question. Faith and doubt in my experience have always been two dimensions of truth. My hope is that the following brief personal notes may stimulate and aid you to reflect on some important questions facing Christian educators and children’s leaders today.

THE MODEL

I need to acknowledge that there was a time when I, like most of my progressive colleagues, was attracted to this idea of psychological development in which adults do things for children to aid in their maturation. I admit that I found this psychology of intellectual, moral, and faith development interesting, but I had reservations from the beginning.

I understood faith to be perception - how we see, envision and understand reality - rather than as intellectual propositions about truth. Faith is best understood as perception of reality. Faith is a verb, a way of being and doing. It is best understood as the way we see things, which in turn explains our behaviours.

Rather than thinking about stages in faith development, I preferred to think in terms of life styles - life styles of the faithful over time. I identified four life style changes from early childhood to adulthood, namely: experiential, affiliative, searching, and owned. The experiential life style focused on interactive experiences between adults and children, and children with children. The affiliative life style focused on the religion of the heart, the religious affections and life in a liturgical story-formed community. The searching lifestyle focused on the religion of the head, critical judgement, experimentation, disbelief, and testing. And the owned life style focused on transformation and commitment to personally believed convictions and behaviours.

I used the growth of a tree as my curriculum metaphor. A new tree with only one ring is as much a tree as one with four rings. A tree might be alive and be arrested in its growth if its environment does not support that growth. Some years trees grow faster than in other years. Trees grow slowly, one ring, one year, at a time. As a tree grows it adds rings but does not eliminate those of previous years.

As time has progressed I have increasingly become convinced that determinism - the belief that we can produce the results we desire in Christian formation if only we know enough - is not true. Parents and teachers cannot take credit for how their children or students turn out, and children cannot blame their parents or teachers for how they turn out. Further, children have as much to offer adults as adults to offer children.

Children have as much to offer adults as adults have to offer children

Every person is a soul, a co-equal self, who, by necessity, interacts with the influences of heredity and the environment, with the influences of God’s Spirit and the spirit of evil. Each of us interacts with those influences and reacts to them in positive or negative ways, which explains why there are those with nothing but negative influences in their lives who turn out good and vice versa. Parents and teachers need not worry about how their children and students turn out, but they do need to worry how they turn out, and so be self-critical and intentional about their lives and influence.

THE PILGRIMAGE MODEL

With those thoughts in mind my current curriculum metaphor is a pilgrimage in which we are all co-pilgrims on a journey to become who we already are. At our baptism we are made aware of the truth about ourselves as a communal reconciled and reconciling people, redeemed and justified people, an interdependent and graced people. We are not called to do things to people to make them into our predetermined design, nor are we called to do things for people that will aid them to become the person they should be. Rather, we are to do things with each other that will aid us as persons and communities to become, with God’s help, what God desires us to be, makes us to be, and what with God’s help we can all become.

Using this pilgrimage metaphor for human life I have identified three ‘pathways’ to God. Each is of equal value and no one needs to travel on every pathway unless they are able.

On the experiential way we need to participate in a caring, nurturing community that shares a common faith, regularly making present again its sacred story through its liturgical life, and thereby nurturing our common faith (our perceptions of reality), our character (how we are disposed to behave), and our consciousness (how we are made aware of God’s presence and action in our lives). On this pathway we emphasise the intuitive way of thinking and knowing which is nurtured by the arts - dance, music, drama, literature, the visual arts and architecture. On this pathway the authority of the community is assumed and trusted as persons engage in making the community’s story their own and establishing their identities as members of a story-formed community of faith and life.

The second pathway I refer to as the reflective way, in which we struggle with evil, with doubt, and with life’s many challenges. On this pathway we need to be with others who are sharing our struggles to find meaning and purpose. It is a time to critically reflect on our lives of faith. We are on a pilgrimage to realise our salvation, to wholeness, health and wellness. We are on a journey to live the truth about ourselves, to become who we already are. As a redeemed people we need to continually reflect critically on the course we are travelling and make sure we are on course to our goal. So it is on this pathway that we emphasise the intellectual way to thinking and knowing, the acquisition of knowledge: the content of scripture and its interpretation, the tradition and the ability to think theologically, and the ethical principles for making moral decisions. On this pathway persons are encouraged and helped to make sense of their lives in the light of their experiences and the community’s sacred story. They are encouraged to assume responsibility for their own faith and life through critical reflection on their experiences. There are some who do not have the abilities to travel on this path. Nevertheless, they have all that they need for wholeness, spiritual health and well-being. At the same time those who have these abilities are obliged to travel on this path.

The third path I have called the integrative way, in which we participate in resolving the dissidence that may be experienced by travelling on either or both of the other two pathways. On this new integrative way we focus on how we as the Church live as a sign and witness to our faith in the world. It is a pathway in which we hold in tension prayer as daily life and prayer as cultic life, contemplation and action, the sacred and the secular. It is a time when having given up our childishness as St. Paul suggests, we become childlike as Jesus teaches us. On this way we learn that while there is something called the truth (there is no place for relativism), we may not know it fully. We can live, therefore, with ambiguity and without certainty. We can acknowledge, affirm and advocate truth as we know it while remaining open to others. Those on this third pathway can affirm those travelling on the other two paths. In fact, those on the other two paths can help those who strive to travel on the third. And those who are unable to travel on the second pathway have all that they need and indeed can help those travelling on other paths. A healthy community of faith has persons on all three pathways interacting with each other and encouraging each other to travel on as many pathways as they are able.

There is no determinism in Christian formation. There is no guarantee for how children will turn out

Continuing the conversation

I am aware that I am writing this article in the United States of America for readers from across the sea. We do and do not share a common culture or context. I, therefore, can only hope that these ramblings have stimulated you to reflect on their implications for your lives. I would be happy for you to e-mail me at johnwest33@bellsouth.net. Before you do, I encourage you to read Will Our Children Have Faith? published in a new third revision with a memoir. I look forward to hearing from you. Do any of my images help you to understand your journey in the faith of the Church? Do you have other images that have been helpful to you? How can we honour each other’s dignity and help each other to mature in the Chiristian life of faith?

John Westerhoff is the author of seminal children’s ministry text Will our children have faith and has been a leading voice in children’s work for over 30 years.