Together on the Journey: A Weekly Blog from Fr. Andrew Sheldon
Faith Formation
I write this as we are most of the way through a six-week adult faith formation series being held Wednesday mornings and evenings. I am heartened by the number of people taking part, but especially pleased with the robust conversation and evident learning that is taking place. We need to be having more of these opportunities, and we need to find ways to make it possible for more people to take part. Because another of the indicators of a healthy church is that:
The church is a community where all members are involved in learning to become the persons God means us to be.
The former Archbishop of Canterbury wrote of a view of church that he names as both damaging and popular, it is “that the Church is essentially a lot of people who have something in common called Christian faith and get together to share it with each other and communicate it to other people ‘outside’. It looks a harmless enough view at first, but it is a good way from what the New Testament encourages us to think about the Church – which is that the Church is first of all a kind of space cleared by God through Jesus in which people may become what God made them to be.” To be the people God means us to be is not just about belonging and gathering; it is about learning and growing.
In many of our workplaces, we take part, or have taken part, in what may be called professional development or continuing education. These opportunities are meant to help us do our jobs better by providing us with the requisite knowledge, skills, or behaviour expected of us in our particular fields.
As Christians, we are also called to a process of development, formation, and education in order to grow into our identity as the persons God means us to be. This can happen in some measure in our worship, but it will also take more. It will need intentional and organised opportunities to be shaped and formed in this identity.
In the past and present, the church has managed to see this as a priority in its ministry to children. From traditional Sunday School through to the innovative and imaginative approach of Godly Play, churches – including St George’s – have been intentional about providing Christian formation to our children.
What the church hasn’t done so well, fuelled to some extent by the notion of Confirmation as graduation and the general apathy of leaders and congregants, is adult Christian formation with the same kind of institutional investment that is directed towards things like worship and music and pastoral care. This needs to change.
Now, this is not to suggest that this cannot be an individual’s initiative. I know many Christians who take on a regime of reading, studying, and reflection as a means of growing in their own faith. But is also incumbent that a healthy church offers collective opportunities for this growth and, dare I say, that it is important that those who aspire to the Christian life need to take these opportunities seriously.
My friends, I encourage you to engage in this life-long learning process of integrating your life with the practices and habits of a life lived as God desires. As noted, this may be a personal pursuit. But on our end, St George’s will continue to offer these opportunities. And as you collectively look ahead, I would also encourage you to name this as a priority that is reflected in the planning and programming of the church going forward.
Andrew +