Churchgoers, Pastors Struggle to Define Spiritual Maturity

The Barna Group reports that many people in the pews have no idea what “spiritual maturity” actually means – possibly because their pastors can’t define it either. A new Barna study found that half of churchgoers cannot describe how their church defines a “healthy, spiritually mature follower of Jesus,” including those that call themselves “born again Christians.” The most common answers included “trying hard to follow the rules described in the Bible,” even among Christians who say that good works are not a prerequisite for salvation. Born again Christians were more likely to point to “a relationship with Jesus” as a sign of spiritual maturity, but more than half said following the rules translates into spiritual maturity. Pastors also struggled to point out specific Bible passages describing the measure for spiritual maturity – one third simply said “the whole Bible.

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