New Series: Signs of Maturity in Christ
"We proclaim him, warning and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone mature in Christ. I labor for this, striving with his strength that works powerfully in me."
-- Colossians 1:28-29
Full Maturity in Christ
How do you know if you are mature?
What is your church or community doing to develop you to full maturity?
In Colossian 1:28-29, Paul writes,
"We proclaim him, warning and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone mature in Christ. I labor for this, striving with his strength that works powerfully in me."
I gather from this that the God-given goal of Christian community and Christian leaders is to "present everyone mature in Christ." How is that working? Most churches focus on new people but don't do much when it comes to full maturity. I often ask this question to church leaders, "How often in your staff meetings do you discuss your most mature members and how to bring them to full maturity?" The answer is usually somewhere around never.
LIFE STAGES
I'm starting a new series to address this issue. I'm drawing mainly from two frameworks I have found invaluable for clarifying this important concept. I think avoiding this pursuit has been a blind spot for the church for too long.
Father Ron Rolheiser speaks of a three-part life framework which includes
1. "Getting your life together" which theoretically goes from birth to 25-years-old,
2. "Giving your life away" which takes you to around age 75, and
3. "Giving your death away" which describes how to make your end of life a blessing to those you leave behind.
He has written much on these concepts, a genuine blessing to the church. Most of my readers are in the middle phase, giving our lives away, which is where I want to focus. One problem is that many of us did a poor job getting our lives together which has made the move to giving our lives away more dissonant. We have been slow to understand and live into our true identities which has left us with a lack of understanding as to what we are to give away. Let's figure out how to correct this.
THREE DOMAINS
In addition, I am drawing from Andrew Richey's “Triple Axis Spiritual Development” framework, as described in a paper he wrote for his Doctor of Ministry program at Fuller. Andrew is a close friend, spiritual director, and member of the Focustsoul community. In his paper, he draws inspiration from Ken Wilber in describing three areas on which we need to focus to grow to maturity. I am over-simplifying here, but it captures the ideas. His three axes are:
1. Waking Up, in which we deepen our intimacy and union with God,
2. Growing Up, in which we grow in self-awareness learning to inspect the lenses, mental models, and assumptions that guide the way we see and engage the world, and
3. Cleaning Up, in which we deal with our deep emotional and psychological wounds, traumas, and issues from our family of origin and formational events.
Consistently developing in all three of these areas is necessary to become a fully mature human.
These two frameworks lay a Biblical foundation for discussing and growing to maturity. I think these frameworks capture a host of Biblical principles, and I plan to bring those out more explicitly as we go through the series.
[Note: Another helpful framework is Hagberg & Guelich's The Critical Journey which draws heavily from the writings of two Spanish mystics, Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross. I will not explicitly point to this model, but if you know it, you will recognize pieces of it throughout this series.]
BECOMING
The key concept to emphasize as we go through this series is that it is about becoming, not arriving. We are in process and this series will lay out some markers that help guide us as each of us considers our process. Where I am is not as important as which direction I am heading. Where I am today is useful to know in that it allows me to track progress. In the end, maturity can't become our idol. It is not about being mature as if we get a prize. Our invitation is to be with Jesus, to abide, to walk in the Spirit. As we do that in our day-to-day lives, God will provide all we need to grow. This will include ups and downs and suffering and victory, seasons of crazy transitions and monotonous sameness, community and isolation, and whatever else is needed to complete the work of sanctification God began in us. As this happens, we can look to certain signs or markers to help us know how we are doing. Knowing the marks doesn't tell us how to develop them; we will discuss that as we look at them each week.
For this, my launching point and the topic of the next 10 posts will be Ron Rolheiser's "Ten Commandments for Mature Living" as listed in Sacred Fire: A Vision for a Deeper Human and Christian Maturity.
These are helpful for giving us focus, but I appreciate Rolheiser's list as a more concrete way to discuss maturity. Dallas Willard tried to do this as well with his exhortation for leaders to develop a "Curriculum for Christlikeness". John Mark Comer is helping the church grow in spiritual practices through his Practicing the Way resources. If you haven't checked it out, you should. I think his thinking is that maturity comes through a lifetime of walking with Jesus so if we can grow in doing certain things, then we will become Christlike. I don't disagree; I just think it is more involved than that. He captures well the need to manage the polarity of being and doing. To be, we must do, and we become by doing certain things. Thus, I hope in this series over the next 10-15 weeks to describe what full maturity looks like and to give ideas on how to get there.
Again, I will repeat myself, the reality is that the maturity the Apostle Paul targets in Colossians is a process which involves key people, community, God's Spirit, and lots of time and experience. It also involves suffering and failure and perseverance. This is unavoidable regardless of our preferences.
So, with that introduction, let's dive in...
Rolheiser calls these commands, but they are more invitational in their orientation.
1. "Live in gratitude and thank your Creator by enjoying your life.
2. Be willing to carry more and more of life's complexities with empathy.
3. Transform jealousy, anger, bitterness, and hatred rather than give them back in kind.
4. Let suffering soften your heart rather than harden your soul.
5. Forgive - those who hurt you, your own sins, the unfairness of your life, and God for not rescuing you.
6. Bless more and curse less!
7. Live in a more radical sobriety.
8. Pray, affectively and liturgically.
9. Be wide in your embrace.
10. Stand where you are supposed to be standing, and let God provide the rest."
As you read those how do you feel? Hopefully they spark something deep within each of us. They are each Biblical but use language designed to give us fresh vision, to see what we haven't seen or considered before. They are profoundly spiritual but use profane language to remind us that God calls us to be fully human.
We will start with the first one next week. I pray you are excited to join me on this journey towards understanding and growing to full maturity.
“Maturity is the ability to think, speak and act your feelings within the bounds of dignity. The measure of your maturity is how spiritual you become during the midst of your frustrations.”
– Samuel Ullman