What is the place of spiritual development in our life? For most Christians, from a young age they are taught in the ways of Christian spirituality and faith development. At the point of adulthood, it is necessary that they are able to carry on the faith practices that they learned in their younger years in order to mature their faith even as their own lives mature through varied life experiences. It is the goal of the church to be able to help young people cultivate a spirituality and Christian lifestyle that they will carry with them throughout their life.
Faith Development from Childhood to Adulthood
How do we understand the Christian faith in our childhood? Those who grow up in the Christian church are taught by their parents, the clergy and bishops of the church, and the Sunday School and its teachers. At home, the parents teach the children how to pray and how to read the Bible. At church on Sundays, they attend the worship, sing songs, pray the liturgy, and participate in the Fellowship of the believers in Jesus Christ. They learn about Jesus and they hear the testimony of those who have experienced the work of Jesus Christ in their life. They go to Sunday School where they are taught about the Bible and the Christian faith. When they come of a reasonable age, they are given the opportunity to confess their faith in Jesus Christ and partake in the gift of the Holy Communion. Youth fellowships exist in every church to provide the children who are in their teenage years with Bible studies and opportunities to ask questions that are relevant to their lives. This youth ministry provides a space for young people to gather and discuss a variety of topics that are relevant to their own daily life but may not be discussed in their homes or Sunday Schools. Youth ministry in the Mar Thoma Church is from ages 13 to 35 but the realities of college and early career life will mean that many young persons will not be reached by the youth ministry because it is localized to a particular parish or area. Many young people travel out-of-state for college and a Mar Thoma Church may not be nearby. Yet in their childhood, they were given a Bible and they were taught the ability to read. They should have been taught how to properly read the Bible as a book of faith and also how to lead a prayer life. These practices should be carried on wherever the young people travel to.
The one thing that separates childhood from adulthood is the greater freedom and independence that one has. Children and young adults in high school are molded by their parents and elders. In adulthood, especially when the family pressures can be avoided through long distances, a young person may have the tendency to choose new ways of living. It may even be contrary to the way they were taught. The world around us provides a variety of options, many of which may be detrimental to our life. The childhood training is meant to equip young adults to have discernment and wisdom to make decisions which will lead them to a productive and blessed life.
Holy Spaces & Holy Time
As a Christian, we are taught from a young age about the concepts of holy space and holy time. Holiness in the Bible is not simply about right moral living. In popular culture, holiness may be thought of as being an upright person. In the Bible however, holiness means “to be set apart”. The Lord God called the Israelite people to be holy because they are a nation set apart from the other nations. Deuteronomy 14:2 says, “For you are a people holy to the Lord your God, and the Lord has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.” We can differentiate between what is holy and what is secular. This has been studied as the contrast between the sacred and the profane, or those things are related to religious life and those of the mundane daily life. However, the faith and development stresses the importance of living in this world according to the principles of the faith life instead of the way of the world. For a Christian, the faith life is informed by the Bible while the worldly living is a lifestyle ignorant of the way of God.
It is possible for us to see that there are holy spaces and there is holy time. Space and time can be ordinary and secular. It can be unrelated to any spirituality or God experience. This is known as the way of the world or worldly living. There is nothing wrong in being part of the ordinary life. Yet for a Christian, there are holy spaces and there is holy time. Christian faith maturity leads to finding holiness as a way of living, even as we go through this secular world. What is a holy space? It is an ordinary place where the presence of God is experienced. It is a place that is set apart for spiritual practices. It can be any place, from the living room to the corner office. A church is a holy space because it has been consecrated for the purposes of worship. What is holy time? Our day consist of 24 hours, 365 days, and 56 weeks. Each minute of the day may be spent for a variety of pursuits, from taking care of personal and family needs to working at one’s place of employment. The holy time then is the time that is set apart for the development of the spiritual self. As any can be transformed into a holy place through the pursuit of God, any or all parts of our day can be transformed into holy time. Initially, we may designate a part of our life for the spiritual pursuit. However, as we mature, we realize that our whole life can be set apart for God. In fact that is what God desires of us. In the liturgy of the sacrament of holy baptism in the Mar Thoma Church, we find that the child is immersed in water and the scriptural connection can be found in the reading of the Epistle to the Romans 5:20 – 6:8. Both of the immersion of the whole body in the water and the words of the Epistle point to the holistic transformation of an individual. It is not a part of the life that is transformed through Jesus Christ but the whole person. It is a regeneration of the whole life. Sanctification, or the process of regeneration through the work of the Holy Spirit, is not an immediate and one-time event but rather a lifelong process leading to the perfection of a human being into the fullness of the image of God.
When space and time are set apart as holy, their intersection is the place where we find the presence of God. A secular space and time becomes holy when it is set apart as a place where one can spend time with God. The bustling coffee shop may distract us through its noise from the pursuit of God, but even that place can be a space where we spend time with God, if we so desire that. We may also wish to spend time with God through various spiritual practices at particular times of our day. This is not wrong either, but the continued pursuit by finding a time to seek God eventually will lead us to think and live in a full-time holy life. For such an individual, there is no time, space, or activity that is independent of God and His Divine Word. For such an individual, their whole life is set apart for God, or in other words their life is holy to the Lord.
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