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Growing disciples in a digital age

Growing disciples in a digital age. John Roberto jroberto@lifelongfaith.com www.LifelongFaith.com. Part 1. Lifelong Faith Formation. Lifelong & Lifewide Faith Formation for Everyone!. Faith Formation Goals. Churches want faith formation that helps people. . .

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Growing disciples in a digital age

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  1. Growing disciples in a digital age John Roberto jroberto@lifelongfaith.com www.LifelongFaith.com

  2. Part 1. Lifelong Faith Formation

  3. Lifelong & Lifewide Faith Formation for Everyone!

  4. Faith Formation Goals Churches want faith formation that helps people. . . • grow in their relationship with God throughout their lives • live as disciples of Jesus Christ at home, in the workplace, in the community and the world • develop an understanding of the Bible and their faith tradition • deepen their spiritual life and practices • engage in service and mission • relate the Christian faith to life today • participate in the life and ministries of the faith community

  5. Holistic Faith & Formation • A way of the head(inform) demands a discipleship of faith seeking understanding and belief with personal conviction, sustained by study, reflecting, discerning and deciding, all toward spiritual wisdom for life. • A way of the heart(form) demands a discipleship of right relationships and right desires, community building, hospitality and inclusion, trust in God’s love, and prayer and worship. • A way of the hands(transform) demands a discipleship of love, justice, peace-making, simplicity, integrity, healing, and repentance. (Thomas Groome)

  6. Faith Forming Processes

  7. Faith Forming Processes • Caring relationships • Celebrating rituals and milestones • Celebrating the liturgical seasons • Learning the Christian tradition and applying it to life today • Praying, devotions, and spiritual formation • Reading the Bible • Serving people in need, working for justice, caring for creation • Worshipping with the faith community

  8. Religious Transmission

  9. Factors Promoting Faith Growth The combination of the following factors makes an enormous difference in religious outcomes during emerging adulthood: • the teenager’s parental religion • importance of faith • prayer • Scripture reading • lack of religious doubts • personal religious experiences • having supportive nonparent adults in the church These most influential factors make differences of sizeable magnitude in substantive outcomes.

  10. Factors Promoting Faith Growth In these seven factors alone, we have identified some powerful teenage factors associated with and, we think, causing differences in emerging adult religious commitment and practice. • 85% chance of being Highly Religious as an emerging adult if you were in the top 25% on the scales of: • parental religion • prayer • importance of faith • Scripture reading

  11. Family Religious Socialization

  12. Factors Promoting Faith Growth • 75% chance of being a Highly Religious emerging adult if you were in the the top 25% on scales of: • having support nonparent adults in the church, • having personal religious experiences • lack of religious doubts

  13. Factors Promoting Faith Growth • Approximately 70% of youth who at some time or other before mid-emerging adulthood commit to live their lives for God, the vast majority appear to do so early in life, apparently before the age of 14. • Most make their first commitments to God as children or during the preteen or very early teen years. • Many religious trajectories followed in the course of life’s development seemed to be formed early in life.

  14. Factors Promoting Faith Growth • Parental Influence: The single most important social influence on the religious and spiritual lives of children and adolescents (and emerging adults) is their parents. • Embedded Family Religious Practices: Effective religious socialization comes about through specific religious activities that are firmly intertwined with the daily habits of family life.

  15. Making a Difference in the Life of Families • Nurturing the faith life of parents and grandparents • Teaching and resourcing parents and grandparents to provide religious socialization and model the Christian faith and practice • Engaging the whole family in worship and community life • Equipping families to engage in faith practices • Building family assets • Encouraging parents to develop a warm, supporting, affirming, and authoritative parenting style

  16. Family Assets - Search Institute

  17. Family Assets Families with more assets are more likely to: • Have children who are actively engaged in school and who earn higher grades • Act in socially responsible ways like spending time together serving their communities. • Teach youth to make good decisions. • Foster positive identity and values. • Nurture spiritual development. • Build social-emotional skills. • Encourage healthy life habits.

  18. Daily & Home Life • Through the day: meal times, car times, morning and bedtime, exits and entries, family sharing times • Through the year: church year seasons, rituals and celebrations • Through the lifecycle: milestones and rites of passage • Through key family moments – good times and hard times, times of joy and sorrow • Through life issues and life skills: parenting, decision-making, financial planning, communication, and more

  19. Settings for Faith Formation

  20. Intergenerational & Generational

  21. Planning Lifelong Faith Formation

  22. 2. A Faith Formation Network

  23. New Operating System: Faith Formation Network

  24. Intergenerational Faith Formation

  25. Intergenerational Faith Formation • Caring: Community building activities, storytelling, mentoring, social events • Celebrating: Intergenerational Sunday Worship, whole community sacramental celebrations, milestones celebrations, church year feasts and seasons • Learning: Structured IG learning programs (weekly, monthly, small group); incorporating IG learning into age group programming • Praying: IG prayer experiences, prayer partner, IG prayer groups, spiritual guides • Serving: IG service projects and mission trips (local, global), church-wide service day, monthly IG service, IG service nights at church

  26. New Operating System: Faith Formation Network

  27. Network Programming • A wide variety of diverse faith formation experiences, programs, activities, and resources to match with people’s diverse needs and tailored to their busy lives. • Multiple ways to learn and grow • Online/virtual & Gathered/physical • Mobile - available anytime & anywhere.

  28. Families in the First Decade of Life

  29. Families with Children Faith Formation Network

  30. Family Faith Formation Network

  31. Youth Faith Formation Network

  32. Youth Network

  33. Young Adult Faith Formation Network

  34. Adult Faith Formation Network

  35. Adult Faith Formation Network

  36. Adult Faith Formation Network

  37. Developing Network Programming Current Activities & Programs New Activities & Programs

  38. Three Seasons of Programming Fall Season: September 1 – January 1 Winter/Spring Season: January 1 – May 1 Summer Season: May 1 – September 1

  39. Digital Platform Other Platforms www.wordpress.orgwww.wix.comwww.squarespace.com

  40. Connected Faith FormationVirtual & Physical Settings

  41. Extending Church Events with Online Content You can extend. . . . • Sunday worship • Church year feasts and seasons • Sacrament and ritual celebrations • Children, teen, or family programming • VBS and summer camp • Mission trips and service projects • Retreat experiences . . . . and more

  42. Extending Worship with Online Content

  43. Extending a Church Season with Online Content Lent

  44. Online & Gathered Programming Flipped Classroom

  45. Flipped Classroom

  46. Flipped Classroom

  47. Personalized Faith Formation Personalized pathways for discipleship & faith growth. . . . • Guide people in discerning their religious and spiritual needs • Equip people with the resources and tools to learn and grow at their own pace • Provide mentoringand support for the journey

  48. Faith Growth Plan Create expectations for participation in faith formation and church life by providing a seasonal/yearly growth plan with a variety of options for experiencing the Christian faith through community life. For example: • Sunday worship • Church year feasts and seasons • Service/mission projects • Retreat experience • Faith practices @ home, e.g. reading the Bible, praying, rituals, and more

  49. Emerging Roles Current Roles Emerging Roles • Designinglearning environments—architecture • Curating religious content and experiences Developing religious content Designing programming Managing programming Teaching/Facilitating programming

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