Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.

Human development can be understood to progress in stages. We need first this, then that, and after that the next thing. Ideally, development follows age, and we continue to move forward on a path to maturity and growth. But this movement forward is seldom smooth, seldom uninterrupted. We falter, we hesitate and pause. We become stuck.

There are different ways to talk and think about these stages. One way to map the progression is in three stages: child, teen, adult. Stages one, two and three.

In the first stage we are children, existing in a vacuum of self-determination or self-guidance. We follow our most basic, animalistic urges to feed, play and sleep, or not sleep. No ethical restraints or self-imposed limits are understood or desired.

In stage two, the teen stage, we become conscious of good and evil, of choices and conscience. We understand our actions have consequences beyond the immediate. We have become self-aware, self-conscious, and with this awareness comes the anxiety of morality. We wrestle with guilt, with a sense of conflict and internal struggle. We begin to desire freedom, goodness, God. 

In stage two, with the growing awareness of both the obligations and opportunities presented us we crave the safety of being managed by others while simultaneously craving freedom and autonomy. In stage two we pendulate, pinballing back and forth between dependence and defiance, both of which are sides of the same, stage two coin. We are constantly in flux with the people in our lives, part-child, part-adult, with our self-determination unformed and immature. 

In stage three we have mature thinking processes and mature relational skills and positions. We see others as we see ourselves: flawed humans who both need us and help us, who possess both admirable qualities and poor life habits simultaneously. No one has all the answers, everyone has some. No one has control of anyone else, yet we all are called to love, respect, defer and submit to each other. Neither dependence nor defiance are appropriate, Christ-centered responses. We live as free, as Peter tells us. As free, yet as suffering and subject to each other.

Our self-serving impulses often contribute to stage-two stagnation in people around us. Our sense of self-importance enjoys the presence of an unsure, hesitant, volitionally immature person who clings to our advice, our guidance, our management of their selves. These relationships may seem healthy to us to us until things go wrong and this person who seemed “teachable and submissive” now flips over into defiance and rebellion. In this all-too-common situation, both leader and follower are operating in the limiting, stage-two mudflats of acute immaturity.

Stage two, the teen stage, where we borrow world views and perspectives from others, and lean on them for guidance, is a necessary layover in our developmental journey; but it is only a pause, a place to catch our breath. We must cultivate and grow our own, independent, mental infrastructure. Often stage-two stuckness is lived in good faith with good intentions of being humble, teachable and submissive. We watch people self-harm in rebellion and pride and we turn to what feels like the antidote: dependency. But dependency moves from well-meant gestures of humility to crippling emotional addictions very quickly, and when it infects large blocs of a congregation, brotherhood health and vitality pays the price. Maturated immobility is dysfunction, not virtue.

Moving ourselves and those around us on to maturity is a way of deep love and care. The fulness of Christ invites and calls: Will we grow together, hand in hand, or are we stuck in cycles of dependence and defiance?