Fowler’s Stages of Faith Development

1. Fowler’s Stages of Faith Development Pre-stage: 0 Early experiences count ‘We are loved into knowing and feeling… as we are loved into being’

2. Uninhibited imagination yields a chaos of powerful images Thinking is intuitive and haphazard Reality is a scrapbook of random impressions Symbols viewed magically and as what they represent Symbols of Christian experience, tradition and liturgy can contribute deep and lasting images at this stage Stage 1: Unordered or Impressionistic

3. Children excluded from experiencing ritual and sacrament alongside adult Christians because ‘they don’t yet understand’ are being cut off from a vital form of nourishment. Dependable, structured parenting is crucial at this stage. Stage 1: Unordered or Impressionistic – Implications for workers with children and young people

4. Able to unify experience and trace patterns of cause and effect Storytelling is important Distinguishes ‘true’ stories but sees them from within Belonging matters Stage 2: Ordering

5. Importance of telling the story of the Christian community to which we belong Valuing people as part of the faith family Stage 2: Ordering – Implications for workers

6. Can think abstractly and see self as others see them Importance given to what peers and ‘significant’ others think and say Despite rebelliousness, essentially conformist Cannot stand back and view beliefs and values from others’ perspectives Tendency to be defensive when challenged Stage 3: Conforming

7. Christian leaders and workers can be ‘significant others’! It is a time of going with the ‘faith-crowd’ or ‘faith-current’ Ability to reason gives opportunity for new ways of teaching and discussion Stage 3: Conforming – Implications for workers

8. Can take a third-person perspective in evaluating beliefs and values Need to know who I am for myself, not second hand Take charge of values and responsibility for commitments, evaluations and worldview Newfound autonomy and maturity Stage 4: Choosing

9. Need sensitivity, allowing space to grow into new way of meaning-making This stage of faith can lead to an unrealistic sense of independence People at this stage can also tend to caricature the faith of others to justify their own stance Oversimplifying faith may result in denying paradoxes and tensions Stage 4: Choosing – Implications for workers

10. Desire to resolve tensions becomes a psychological burden Develop greater openness to, and mutuality with, other perspectives Able to keep in tension the paradoxes and polarities of faith, in order to cope with ambiguity in our meaning-system Recognize that truth is too complex to be viewed from one perspective alone Recognize other ways of knowing (e.g. intuition) Capable of self-criticism, questioning, doubt Recognize our inevitable interdependence Stage 5: Inclusive

11. This person is willing to engage with others and possibly be changed as a result. This stage often results from coping with failure, crises and/or living with the consequences of earlier decisions Stage 5: Inclusive – Implications for workers

12. Essentially a relinquishing and transcending of self ‘Such people often go out to transform the world. And they often die in the attempt’ Implications for workers: These people are dangerous! They might change you… Stage 6: Selfless

13. What our children are really asking is for us to reveal and share ourselves and our faith, not to provide dogmatic answers… It is in the relationship between us during our shared quest that God is revealed From Bringing Up Children in the Christian Faith, Harper & Row, 1980 A challenge from John Westerhoff