Ministry News

So That's Why My Church Is Full of Babies!

Details: Tuesday, 12 May 2009 10:01

As a pastor, you naturally want to see those you lead become spiritually mature followers of Christ. But if your congregation is still full of infant believers, here's something to chew on from the latest Barna study: You may be the reason they're still that way.

According to a survey of more than 1,000 Christians and a secondary one of more than 600 pastors, more than half of all churchgoers can't describe how their church defines a mature believer. An overwhelming 81 percent believe spiritual maturity correlates to "trying hard to follow the rules described in the Bible," and even among born-again Christians (a small subset of the entire group polled), only 30 percent mentioned having a relationship with Jesus as one of the characteristics of spiritual maturity. Other elements included living a moral lifestyle (14 percent), applying the Bible (12 percent) and sharing your faith with others (6 percent).

Possibly more revealing than these statistics is the disconnect that exists within church leadership. Among pastors surveyed, nearly 90 percent said a lack of spiritual maturity was one of the nation's biggest problems—yet a minority of them stated that this wasn't the case in their own church.

Fewer than half of the churches represented have written documents defining, describing or outlining what a mature Christian is like. In addition, most pastors add to this ambiguity by using vague biblical references when actually trying to measure spiritual maturity. When asked to identify the most important portions of the Bible that define spiritual maturity, more than three-fourths gave a generic response: one-third simply answered "the whole Bible," 17 percent said "the gospels," 15 percent said "the New Testament," and 10 percent offered "Paul's letters" as their source of definition. Just one-fifth of pastors cited specific Bible verses that speak of a mature believer.

"America has a spiritual depth problem partly because the faith community does not have a robust definition of its spiritual goals," said Barna Group president David Kinnaman. "The study shows the need for new types of spiritual metrics. One new metric might be a renewed effort on the part of leaders to articulate the outcomes of spiritual growth."

Such an effort begins with most pastors recognizing their systems of measurement is lacking. Yet further indicating the disconnect from reality, the majority of pastors surveyed were moderately satisfied with their current methods and standards. (Granted, only 9 percent were completely satisfied with how they measured and assess spiritual growth of those they lead.)

In light of this, Kinnaman offered a warning to any grow-quick solutions: "As people begin to realize that the concepts and practices of spiritual maturity have been underdeveloped, the Christian community is likely to enter a time of renewed emphasis on discipleship, soul care, the tensions of truth and grace, the so-called ‘fruits’ of the spiritual life and the practices of spiritual disciplines. A related challenge is that as spiritual formation becomes ‘trendy’ it will inevitably become ‘watered down’ with products that over-promise or are simply counter-productive. Leaders have to take on this issue more effectively, and part of that task is weeding out the good from bad." [barna.org, 5/11/09]

Subscribe to Ministry Today magazine

Comments

0 #4 Quantrel Brown 2009-05-13 03:56

Spiritual Maturity is summed up as follows: Hebrews 5:12-14: For even though by this time you ought to be teaching others, you actually need someone to teach you over again the very first principles of God's Word. You have come to need milk, not solid food. For every one who continues to feed on milk is obviously imexperienced and unkilled in the doctine of righteousness, of conformity to the divine will in purpose, thought, and action, for he is a mere infant (not able to talk yet). But solid food is for full-grown men, for those whose senses and mental faculties are trained by practice to discriminate and distinguish between what is morally good and noble and what is evil and contrary either to divine or human law. Simply put you grow (mature) by living the Word of God. At any moment you decide not to obey the word of God you stop growing (maturing). James 1:21-25: So get rid of all unclenness and the rampant outgrowth of wickedness, and in a humble, gentle, modest, spirit receive and welcome the Word which implanted and rooted in your hearts contains the power to save your souls. But be doers of the Word, obey the message and not merely listeners to it, betraying yourselves into deception by reasoning contrary to the Truth. For if anyone only listens to the Word wthout obeying it and being a doer of it, he is like a man who looks carefully at his own natural face in a mirror; For he thoughtfully observes himslef and then goes off and promplty forgets what he was like. But he who looks carefully into the faultless law, the law of liberty, and is faithful to it and perserveres in looking into it, being not a heedless listener who forgests but an active doer who obeys he shall be blessed in his doing, his life of obedience. Pastors can prepare the meal but the people have to eat it and conduct their lives accordingly if they plan to grow.

Quote

0 #3 Virginia Norris 2009-05-12 08:17

Oh, by the way, I have just started a blog on this topic. Please go to http://virginiaschristianselfhelp.com/wordpress and add to the few articles there. Self help is not the way to grow spiritually!

Quote

0 #2 Virginia Norris 2009-05-12 08:13

I have been studying this issue for decades, and also how one becomes spiritually mature. There is the problem that sometimes spiritual maturity is difficult to measure. However, people at different stages of maturity will have different spiritual needs, some of these needs are very much opposed to one another. It is similar to growing up. You need to first help a baby learn to walk—by putting them out in the open, by giving them something to pull themselves up on. When they have learned to walk, they walk all over the place! They need to learn to stay with the parent. As they mature, they need to get along with others. If you try to teach them to walk at that stage, they will not be able to get along with you, because you are not in their world.

Not only is this topic of utmost importance to the church, but also to the world. Spiritually mature Christians can listen to God telling them where their place is in the world. They can execute an assignment from God and do it God's way. Making Christians mature is more effective, I believe, than giving money to Right to Life, or fighting legal battles, as important as that is!

Many pastors have written about what they have seen is the progression of growth in the Christian life. I have always been interested in helping people grow. But what are we growing them towards? And how do they get there? What do they need at each step? I have done my own survey of these questions at prisons and other locations, as well as reading everything I could find on the topic. Here is the question: If you found a perfect Christian on earth, please describe this person. "Jesus" is a common cop out answer.

I would be very much interested in what the readers believe is a person who is spiritually mature. If we can agree on this, then we can work on the steps to get there.

Quote

0 #1 Mark Deckard 2009-05-12 07:53

This kind of survey annoys me. There are so many caveats the survey does not account for that the respondants are not allowed to address. For inststance, the followingQuote:

only 30 percent mentioned having a relationship with Jesus as one of the characteristics of spiritual maturity

Well, could it be that most people consider a relationship with Jesus as a distinction of lost vs. saved as opposed to immature vs. mature. Apples and oranges. That quote reveals that the study was already looking for certain answers. Not very objective. Re-title the survey "How many christians define spiritual maturity the way Barna does?"
Furthermore, I'm a bit tired of christian statisticians telling the leaders of the church what failures we are with these studies. Paul complained that he had to feed the Corinthians milk instead of meat because of their immaturity. Barna would have surveyed them and found Paul a failure? Or maybe the leadership is good (Moses) but the people are uhhh....typically human (Israel). Give Pastors a break and stop using states to berate thier work.

Quote

Refresh comments list
RSS feed for comments to this post