Jared Wilson leads a ministry called Element in the Nashville area and has a blog called “The Gospel-Driven Church“.  His post today had some interesting food for thought for the weekend:

And here’s where I get hung up: I’m not sure spiritual maturity can be quantified that way. I do think that the more spiritually mature a person is, the more connected and invested in Christian community they are, and I do think that the more spiritually mature a person is, the greater sense of their own maturity they may have. But the way this gets boiled down so often amounts to “How much church stuff do you do?” and “How do you feel about yourself?” And frankly, some of the most spiritually mature people I know are very insecure about their sin and their own brokenness and are struggling to find their place in the modern church. This is an extension, I think, of the Church’s previous equation of discipleship with knowing more information. We are better these days at realizing that people who know their Bibles inside and out, or who have all their theological p’s and q’s minded, aren’t necessarily any more spiritual than anybody else.
And yet we persist in measuring spiritual maturity by how further invested in church programs a person is. Someone who only attends a weekend “open community” service is considered new or young or shallow in their faith, while someone who’s at the church every time the doors are open is considered farther along. This may be generally true, but it’s still not a reliable measurement.

And I’m not sure there is one. I think spiritual maturity = “new faith” + time. And a program can’t add years to someone’s faith. Faith must be time-tested to mature. Life is what matures us. Nothing has matured me more spiritually than to be married and have children. And that’s a program I can’t get in a theology book, Bible study guide, midweek service, small group, or discipleship program.