Faith Formation

This comes from Fowler’s Faith levels adjusted for the purposes of discipleship.

Very Young Children: Undifferentiated Faith.

Pre-images of God, Care, Safety, and Trust are essential to learning

Pre-school Children: Intuitive-Projective Faith

It is primarily a reflective of parental faith. Children at this age are not able to think abstractly, to take someone else’s perspective on things or think through complexity. It is a faith based on impressions, mostly from their guardians.

This is a informing stage. Their faith talk with reflect the faith in their home and church. Children at this age like reptition.

Middle School and much of HS: Synthetic-Conventional Faith:

Identity Formation, Psycho-Social Development. See Piaget’s theory of cognitive development suggests the ability to handle abstraction. They realize a more personal past and personal future. They also are able to see things from the perspective of other people – a skill they often use to look at themselves. This also can fuel self-absorption – adolescent egocentrism.   Caleb Radio, all Caleb, all the time. They are now about to put the Bible stories into the larger picture of faith.

Fourth Stage is the Individuate-Reflective Faith:

Religious language is like any other language: to learn to speak it, one needs first to listen to native speakers using it a lot, and then one needs plenty of practice speaking it oneself.

The 5:1 Ratio, The 5-7 Mentor ratio. 5 Adults for every 1 student….