The Journey-Based Paradigm is a concept I have coined to articulate a different method for creating authentic Disciples of Jesus Christ. The current academic based paradigm focuses on a systematic approach to learning the substance of faith. My proposed paradigm focuses on the stage of the journey each heart is currently experiencing.
Both paradigms seek to accomplish the same goal– disciples having a mature understanding of the faith– but the Journey-Based paradigm is not solely focused on the attainment of knowledge. It has a broader focus that seeks to provide whatever is needed at any particular juncture of the disciples’ journey into the life of Christ.
When Jesus left the Apostles to ascend to Heaven, he promised them that the Father would send them the Holy Spirit who would teach them and provide all that they needed to grow into Christ. (John 16:13, Acts 2:1-4) The Apostles did not have degrees in Theology, nor did they have a “one size fits all” program to establish the Church. The only instructions they were given, beyond the teachings of the faith, were to go make disciples. Jesus gave them no plan or process. But He gave them THE HOLY SPIRIT.
He is the one who is to enter every heart and set it on fire for love of God.
He is the one who inspirers, equips, empowers and activates the sleeping heart to faith.
He gives us the virtue and he nurtures it.
He is the best-kept secret of the Catholic Church.
While we have been marching on with our systematic approach, which made great sense at the time of its inception, we have lost sight of the role of the Holy Spirit.
The journey-based paradigm seeks to evaluate where a person is in the journey and supplies the needs for that specific step of the journey.
Why should we provide information about a location in a journey when the pilgrim has no desire to travel?
Yet that is what we have been doing with our youth.
They don’t want to learn about Jesus because they don’t believe in Him…because they’ve never met Him.
Before a pilgrim can begin to make plans for a journey, they must desire to take a trip. Absent of that desire, you don’t have a pilgrim you have a servant forced into a trip they never wanted to take. Taking this into consideration, we might understand why our teens are leaving the faith in droves after Confirmation. Of those surveyed in a 2005 National Catholic Reporter Survey – only 26% of generation X and 15% of the millennial generation stated that they attend mass weekly or more. Read more about the statistics we know about church attendance here.
Satan has our number and has effectively inoculated our membership to the messages of the Gospel. I believe we need to go back and evaluate the effectiveness of our methods and see if we might be able to transform them into a new system that takes an individual from not knowing anything about God to knowing him intimately through the power of the Holy Spirit who actively resides in their hearts. We want each baptized member to be not only motivated but also capable of evangelizing his or her neighbors!
In the next blog entry, we will look at how to do this practically…