How an awareness of spiritual styles can help you engage everyone and nurture their spiritual development
Across the broad spectrum of Christian experience, people connect with God and make sense of the world around them in different ways.
In books and articles, notably Educating Faith and Conversations that Change Us, Joyce Bellous identified four pathways of spiritual expression, four spiritual preferences or styles: Word, Emotion, Symbol and Action. David Csinos relied on these styles in his research into children's spirituality and religious expression in his book Children’s ministry that fits: beyond one-size-fits-all approaches to nurturing children’s spirituality. They proclaim that difference is healthy, natural, valuable and creative."
An understanding of the different ways in which people make meaningful connections with God can be a valuable tool in devising and preparing worship that can engage everyone – whatever their age, wherever they are on their spiritual journey.
Roots commissioned a series of six articles from Dave Csinos to introduce leaders to the spiritual styles and discover practical ways to prepare worship. By way of introduction to spiritual styles, why not take a look at three of these articles?
Introduction
'The shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no recipe for living that suits all cases.’ Carl Jung
In this overview, David Csinos introduces the concept of the four spiritual styles or preferences:
Meet the styles
In the introduction we found out how different people use the spiritual styles – Word, Symbol, Emotion and Action – in different ways to experience God and make sense of the world around them.
Let’s meet some adults and children and find out how their spiritual preferences affect their experiences in church.
Praying with style
'When prayer practices that reflect different spiritual styles are experienced and encouraged in a faith community, a balance is achieved – a balance that nourishes and challenges all towards further growth.'
David Csinos unpacks how to nurture different styles of prayer in your gathered worship, small groups, children's and youth groups.