Continuing a series on the stages of faith. In stage two, people who have fallen in love with God join a community of fellow believers. It is a time of learning and belonging. They want to learn and grow in every way they can. They also want to develop an identity with a group of fellow believers, so they explore, absorb and practice the belief systems of the community as they seek to draw closer to God. During this stage there is a strong sense of being right; they have found the “right” community and they are learning the right way and worshiping in the right way.

During this stage, spiritual growth is particularly stimulated by strong leaders, teachers and mentors. In some cases the greatest mentors are found in books. A strong, biblical example of this stage would be the relationship between Paul and Timothy, and between Jesus and His disciples. Since this is a stage where mentoring is extremely important, new believers need a lot of help to find the “right” mentor. Unhealthy mentors can guide new believers into dangerous digressions. If your spiritual mentor is named Osama bin Laden or David Koresh, your very life could be at risk, so it is imperative that new believers be guided to mentors appropriate to their stage of spiritual growth.

How would you recognize that someone is in stage two? Stage two believers have a strong desire to follow. They will attach themselves to anyone who seems able to teach them and help them. They are eager to learn and very respectful of authority, at least within that particular community. Strangely, this openness to learning is combined with a high degree of self-confidence. Even if they don’t know everything they “know” they are on the right track. So stage two believers can suffer a bit from spiritual inflexibility. But this is not a problem unless they get stuck in stage two. Normally as people mature spiritually, the inflexibility will lessen, it is a natural stage in a growing spiritual experience. Another weakness of this stage is a tendency to like easy answers. Stage two believers are not very fond of nuance. But as they grow spiritually, they will want more and more solid food.

There are some points of concern with this stage. It is very common for people to get spiritually stuck at this point and have difficulty moving forward. Stage two believers can become very legalistic and judgmental. Their lives can be governed by “should” or “ought” or “must” and they can be quite frustrated with believers who don’t see things quite the way they do. If they don’t grow out of their initial inflexibility and simplicity of thought they can become rigid in their approach to faith. If they have been taught one particular perspective by an influential teacher or mentor, they may conclude that their teacher’s way is the only way to think or act. They may feel that everybody needs to do things that way. They may even be incline to “punish offenders” if they are in a position to do so. And worst of all, they cannot see their own rigidity. They see things in terms of black and white, us against them. They feel right and strong, while other perspectives are wrong and weak. Every spiritual community has some stage two members that have become stuck there.

So what can spiritual leaders do about it? How can mentors help stage two believers to move ahead spiritually? While stage two believers who are stuck can be unpleasant to deal with, the only way forward is through nurturing relationships with the community and with godly mentors. Rigid believers have placed head ahead of heart and certain beliefs ahead of relationships. Such rigidity will remain unless through spiritual nurture they gain some self-awareness of what is wrong and the find encouragement to repent and renew relationships that have been broken. The mentor must resist the temptation to strike back in kind, but instead be gentle, humble and teachable (2 Tim 2:24-26).

Another important element to growing stage twos is providing opportunities for them to serve. Help them discover their spiritual gifts. Give them opportunities to discover leadership gifts. This will involve some risk, but the reward is also great. Help them to become contributors and not just spokespeople for certain viewpoints. As they learn and grow for themselves and find God using them in positive ways, they can begin to make the transition to the third stage, which will be our topic next time.