For our faith to become mature today, something more is needed.

My earliest memory of church takes place in a Sunday school classroom. I am 3 years old, seated at a low, rectangular, wooden table with a half-dozen other children my age. Our kind, smiling Sunday school teacher has just finished telling us a Bible story. Then she removes the tabletop, and inside the table we discover an amazing surprise—a sandbox. For the rest of the class session, we play together busily.

One could do worse than have such a warm and happy first memory of church.

In many Mennonite congregations, Sunday school classes have nurtured the faith of children, youth and adults for many generations. Dedicated teachers who open the Scriptures with clarity and wisdom have been among our most revered lay leaders. Yet if the faith of 3-year-olds is to grow to mature faith, something more is needed today. It takes more than Sunday school to form the people of God.

In past generations, the institution of Sunday school was supported by other strong elements of congregational life: two worship services every Sunday, leisurely conversation around dinner in the afternoon, Wednesday evening prayer meeting, two weeks of vacation Bible school, perhaps a week at summer church camp, daily family devotions, strong communal ties and explicitly shared values. Secular influences—media, popular entertainment and even books and magazines—were carefully monitored. In such an environment, the congregation’s faith was shaped and formed, both implicitly and explicitly, toward gospel values.

Most of those strong supports are gone today. In such an environment, it’s no wonder that Sunday school—as good as it may be—can’t carry all the freight needed to form and transform growing Christians.

While Mennonite congregations still do a reasonably good job of creating a warm nest for nurturing children and youth (our educational and mentoring resources are second to none), I believe we do a far less adequate job with adults. In fact, we may be inoculating adults against the kind of growth required for maturity by failing to imagine what new or additional forms of spiritual nurture are needed for our time.

In many churches, those who want to grow beyond conventional faith can’t count on support. In fact, such people may face opposition if they admit that old formulations of faith fail to satisfy their questions or if they express a need to engage more rigorously with Scripture or theology, exploring and testing new territory. One 70-year-old told me matter-of-factly, “I go elsewhere [than the church] for spiritual growth.”

How do congregations form faith? Our congregations have many built-in opportunities for forming faith—for both beginners and for mature Christians. The most powerful arena of formation obviously is corporate worship. All of us—children, youth, adults and elderly members—are here together waiting in God’s presence. As we pray, sing and hear God’s Word proclaimed, our vision of God is formed, and we become God’s people.

In addition, our life together as the body of Christ nurtures our faith in significant ways. When we visit each other in sickness or trouble, offer mutual aid, support the youth at their fund-raising dinners or gather in small groups for Bible study, we are being formed and shaped as Christ’s followers. In those settings, our self-centeredness is challenged, and the virtues of love, generosity and “Gelassenheit” are called forth.

Further, our faith is challenged by the demands of our daily work in the world and the needs of sisters and brothers nearby and around the world. We learn to follow the Spirit’s guidance, discern our gifts for ministry (within and beyond the church) and give witness to our faith in both words and deeds.

Together, these three central arenas—our corporate life with God, our life together as the body of Christ and our life of witness and service in the world—form a firm foundation for faith.

What is still needed? As important as these central arenas are, however, they are not enough. For faith to become mature today, something more is needed.

What sustained and enlivened the church in the past were carefully discerned practices; these were daily choices and intentional postures and actions that, over time, formed deeper faith and commitment to God’s vision for the world. Just as a pianist becomes proficient by continuing to practice musical scales along with more demanding musical works, so a Christian grows to maturity by engaging in the basics—worship, community and witness—but also by discerning and engaging in particular practices that bring about new growth.

Such discernment takes into account the demands and challenges of everyday life as well as the persistent inner call of God’s Spirit. If we are feeling lethargic in our faith or restless or unfulfilled, how might God’s Spirit be nudging us to grow? How might our congregations pay attention to such restlessness and take the risks needed to confront and convert us?

A vision for renewing practices: Among the most promising developments in Christian churches today is renewed attention to spiritual practices. While faith can be deepened in many ways, several practices seem especially pertinent for Mennonite congregations: the practices of hospitality, prayer, discernment and pilgrimage.

Hospitality across boundaries: In her extensive study of American churches in which spiritual growth is flourishing, Diana Butler Bass found that hospitality ranked as one of the strongest practices (Christianity for the Rest of Us). She notes that in too many churches, hospitality follows a secular model—friendly greeters and welcoming committees. While these practices are worthwhile, they are not enough to form and shape the people of God. Instead, the hospitality of Christ is a profound acceptance of others that creates space where strangers and even enemies can become friends. Among the first Christians, the practice of hospitality was so generous and daring that it awed even the Roman opponents of Christianity.

Perhaps nothing could do more to bring peace in our world than a renewal of the ancient practice of hospitality. And Mennonites are well equipped for such ministry—we love to gather at tables, we enjoy hearing people’s stories, and we are skilled at offering care. For these capacities to be truly transforming, however, we need to offer hospitality beyond our own circles—a practice that can be risky and costly but that also opens us to deeper conversion.

The small group in my own congregation I meet with weekly has accepted such a challenge. A core of six people have been part of this group from its beginning, but over the years we’ve invited temporary residents in our community to become part of our group while they are here. These have included international families, young adults in transition, a person struggling with mental illness, another person going through separation and divorce, singles as well as married people, and some who simply needed a home-away-from-home. By opening ourselves and our homes to strangers, we’ve received many wonderful gifts and have also struggled with the demands of such discipleship. Yet along the way, the practice of hospitality is slowly changing us—our image of God, our image of ourselves and our vision of what God desires in the world.

Prayer as listening: Another growing edge for spiritually vital churches is the practice of prayer. Our growth as Christians stagnates if prayer fails to develop. Just as any thriving human relationship requires ongoing effort and commitment, so our life with God requires such attention. Yet the ways many of us learned to pray as children and youth no longer seem adequate. We stumble over theological questions: What does God do when we pray? What are we doing? What outcomes do we expect? And even though we know prayer is essential, it’s easy for busy, productive, self-sufficient North Americans to carry out the church’s business without being connected to God in life-giving ways.

It’s not a dearth of resources that keeps our prayer anemic today. Rather, we fail to teach, model and train people in prayer, especially the listening modes of prayer—without which our faith cannot grow to maturity. One way people are nurturing the practice of prayer is in retreat experiences. While we don’t need to escape from our daily lives to learn to pray, many of us will not discover the deeper dimensions of prayer without such intentional structures as retreats.

A group of women in our area (many of whom are pastors) meet monthly at a nearby retreat center. In these days together we focus on a particular theme, spend the morning in solitude, prayer and journaling, visit with each other over lunch, spend some more time in silence and prayer, then end the day with conversation in small groups, where we reflect on our life with God and our lives of ministry. More than one participant has confessed, “I knew I needed this day apart, but if I hadn’t been committed to the group, I wouldn’t have done it on my own.” Dedicating a day each month to prayer is one way of keeping on the path to a mature relationship with God.

Discernment for action: Noticing and responding to the Spirit’s lively work in our lives and in the world is essential for maturing faith. It’s not enough to be converted and baptized and to settle into the comfortable routines of church life. Frederick Buechner reminds us, “If God speaks to us at all other than through such official channels as the Bible and the church, then I think that God speaks to us largely through what happens to us” (Now and Then). In the ordinary and extraordinary events of our lives and the congregation’s life, God continually calls us to turn away from death and turn toward life.

A key spiritual practice for learning and practicing discernment is spiritual friendship or spiritual direction. In personal conversation with a trusted friend or mentor, we open our lives—reflecting on the grace we have received from God, confessing our failures and brokenness, and committing ourselves to Christ’s way in daily life. While small groups and Sunday school classes can also be contexts for such conversation, we are often pressed for time in these settings and also find it difficult to be vulnerable and truly transparent. To grow to maturity, each of us needs a trusted companion who will listen deeply and hold us accountable for following the Spirit’s guidance.

Pilgrimage of faith: A practice that is becoming increasingly popular in many churches is pilgrimages. These may take the form of learning tours to other parts of the world, service projects in places near and far, disaster relief, or more classic pilgrimages to holy places. A pilgrimage presents opportunities for conversion and growth—if we are attentive to the call to transformation. When we leave our familiar settings, we also leave behind our illusions of control and self-sufficiency. In new and strange environments, we must depend on others—often people of other classes or racial-ethnic backgrounds. New experiences in unfamiliar environments also encourage us to examine the assumptions of our faith and can lead us to fresh experiences of God.

Behind the practice of pilgrimages is the notion that the Christian life itself is a journey of letting go, of trusting more deeply in God’s mercy and grace. By going on pilgrimage, we open ourselves to the Spirit’s transforming work in our lives, preparing us for our ultimate journey to be with God.

Does Sunday school have a role to fulfill? Certainly Sunday school classes can still fulfill a significant purpose in congregational life—if we are clear about what we want Sunday school to accomplish and if we train teachers for their leadership ministry. What Sunday school cannot do, however, is carry the entire freight for forming and transforming people in their faith. For that to happen, we need intentional spiritual practices that engage our minds, hearts and hands in loving God and our neighbors as ourselves until we “grow up in every way … into Christ” (Ephesians 4:15).

Marlene Kropf is a Mennonite Church USA denominational minister. She lives in Elkhart, Ind., and is a member of Belmont Mennonite Church in Elkhart.