Narrative Discipleship: Guiding Emerging Adults to “Connect the Dots” of Life and Faith

Abstract

The challenge of creating an effective, lasting transformative Christian discipleship has become more difficult in our current cultural milieu. During a narrative study of emerging adult faith development, participants connected disparate life experiences in the process of developing and discussing their faith biographies. These narrative connections created an environment for transformative learning to occur. In this article, I use narrative methods to inform the practice of emerging adult discipleship to encourage transformation. This article forwards narrative as useful in developing an effective method of discipleship for emerging adults.

Connecting Spiritual Formation and Adult Learning Theory: An Examination of Common Principles

“…50). In essence, the focus on identity in missional discipleship is in response to educational models that greatly resemble the "banking model" critiqued and rejected by Freire (1970), models that are used in traditional spiritual formation efforts which focus on the transmission of knowledge from one person to another (Anderson, 2013;Byrd, 2011). The holistic view of formation and the focus on identity in missional discipleship is consistent with a philosophy of adult education concerned with the development of the entire person, rather than just the transmission of information (Cranton, 2006;Darkenwald & Merriam, 1982;Elias & Merriam, 2005;Knowles, 1980;Lindeman, 1926;Merriam & Bierema, 2014;Mezirow, 1991).…”

The Christian Story and our Stories: Narrative Pedagogy in Congregational Life

“…Narrative pedagogy can serve as a means of identity formation. Narrative identity theory, in short, posits that identity is composed of the stories we remember and choose to tell about ourselves (Byrd, 2011;McAdams, 1997;Polkinghorne, 1996). Narrative identity theory also suggests that we are the stories that we tell about ourselves (Kenyon, 1996).…”

Discipleship through Literature: A Case Study of the Selamat Series in Indonesia

“…Hess (2004), and Roncace and Gray (2007) emphasize that in responding to present popular cultures, Bible teaching needs to occur through music, film, art, literature, poetry, prose (both fiction and nonfiction), cartoons and comics, and animated television. Byrd III (2011) indicates the usefulness of both oral and written personal, communal and biblical narratives in discipleship (pp. 244-262).…”

“…As Edwards (2010) points out, Andar provides the Selamat Series for adult independent learning. As Hess (2004), Roncace and Gray (2007), Byrd III (2011) and Moon (2017) maintain, Andar's literature contains biblical narratives, stories, poetry, commentaries on fiction, rituals, symbols, music and drama. To provide more evidence and to uncover significance, this paper explores the Selamat Series.…”