"How do I measure success?"
Compelled by the divine call of the Spirit upon my life to reorient myself towards God, my passion is to lead and nurture young people in their own spiritual journeys. This is the call and commitment of my heart.
It is this question that plagues my mind. How do I know if I’m succeeding? To be sure there’s an element of pride to be wrestled with in this question, but beyond that, there are vital questions for youth ministry. How do we measure success? What constitutes spiritual growth?
For a long time our approaches to youth ministry have been shaped by models such as Fowler’s stages of faith development, which focuses on cognitive development and how an individual’s faith progresses as their ability to think changes. This highlights that what we’ve probably looked to a measure of faith is how well a young person understands and articulates the content of the Gospel. It is a matter of how effectively we transmit the commitments of our beliefs, values and doctrines to young people.
The authors of The Reciprocating Self, propose a model of understanding what it means to be human, which changes how we might look at faith development. Grounded in Trinitarian theology, they view that the goal of being human is to become fully ‘reciprocating’ selves, able to give and receive love both in terms of the divine and human other. Spiritual growth then is not just in terms of cognitive commitments, but relates to the very human self. It is about becoming more fully who we were created to be in God’s image.
While proponents of Fowler might argue that we are more fully able to love God and others through cognitive processes and choices, there are studies which link moral development more to processes of social interaction than to cognition. They show the necessity of memory storage in the formation of moral identity, despite the presence of cognitive ability.
They propose that spirituality does not unfold in a linear cognitive process, but it is developed in the interaction of biological, social, cultural and spiritual factors. Faith does not occur in stages, but rather in interactions of a person and context over time. Crucially, they conclude that there is not one path to spiritual maturation.
So how does this help me measure success in my ministry? It liberates me from thinking that there is a key or formula to follow which results in spiritual growth. Instead, it draws me to understanding that the goal of faith is not just a choice, decision or commitment, but rather it is to become fully human, loving God and loving others in reciprocity, in the image of the God who created us. My ministry then is not to call young people down a simple path, but it is to help guide them down the many paths along which they will travel, helping them to become fully human.
