Faith Quote by Martin Luther King by Internet

Stages of Faith

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The life of faith is not static. Just as people grow and develop in other areas of life so too they grow in the spiritual or faith dimension of their lives. This growth is often compared with a journey – a journey towards God or a faith journey.

5-6 Years - Experienced stage of their faith development

This means their faith is likely:

* to be heavily influenced by the example of adults such as parents and teachers

* to be highly imaginative and fantasy filled

* to hold different or even conflicting images of God

* to find stories an important means of raising religious questions of love, joy, good, and the overcoming of fear and evil, etc

* to find symbols an important means of conveying religious meaning.


7-10 Years - Belonging stage of faith

Some of the main features of this stage are:

* they value belonging to the family-whanau and share its faith

* the influence of parents is still very strong so parental example in relation to their faith journey is important

* stories are a very important part of their learning and they like hearing their family faith stories, Bible stories and Saints stories

* they tend to have a literal understanding of these stories.


11-13 Years - Conventional stage of their faith development

Some of the features of this stage are:

* a searching faith which adopts a more critical approach with a tendency to question what was previously accepted

* a tendency to be influenced more by the beliefs, attitudes and values of peers

* a tendency to distrust those in authority