Faith Formation and Discipling for Metamoderns

What does the future of faith formation and discipling look like for “Metamoderns” with their cultural logic of toggling, which presents both a challenge and opportunity to the corporate and the local church? The unique cultural logic of Metamodernism has the potential not to weaken faith but rather create a deeper faith than that seen in previous generations and will suggest how the church can create a space for that faith to develop. Metamodernistic spirituality is still in its nascent formation. Depending on how the church, corporately and locally, responds on both levels will either lead Metamoderns into a deeper journey that discovers a more authentic faith or it will continue to drive Metamoderns away from the church, forfeiting the opportunity for the church’s own growth. The effective discipling of Metamoderns necessitates at least four major shifts. First, a more dynamic understanding of faith and faith development that defines faith as loyalty to a transcendent center that embraces questions and doubts rather than unflinching attachment to doctrinal creeds. Second, viewing individual preferences not as right and wrong but simply different. Third, a new paradigm of belonging in faith communities based on a shared commitment to the same transcendent center instead of 100% orthodoxy to creedal statements and doctrinal formulations. Fourth, a methodological shift that presents truth aesthetically and phenomenologically rather than epistemologically. These shifts will require the active engagement of church academics, administrators, and practitioners.