The five practices

Intentional faith development: learning in community, on purpose, for years

The five practices · Published 2026-10-29

Many churches have a Sunday school hour, a Bible study on Wednesday and a shelf of curriculum in a cupboard. Fewer can say how a person who walks in today might, over five years, grow into a mature, generous and serving disciple. The third of the five practices, "intentional faith development", names the difference: learning in community that is chosen deliberately, sustained over time and expected of everyone, not only of the enthusiastic few.

Vine & Lintel is an independent publication. This explainer discusses a public framework in our own words and is not affiliated with its author or publisher.

What the practice covers

In Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations, faith development refers to the ways a congregation helps people grow in understanding and in Christian character outside worship: Bible studies, classes, prayer groups, retreats, youth and children's ministries, support groups and mentoring. The adjective "intentional" carries the weight. It means that growth is planned rather than left to chance, that there are entry points for beginners as well as depth for long-time members, and that the congregation keeps asking who is not yet connected to any group.

In a 2007 interview with the Lewis Center for Church Leadership, Schnase noted that many readers found this chapter clarified how the practices fit together. That fits the shape of the framework: hospitality and worship gather people, but it is in smaller, sustained communities that they become known, are encouraged and are held accountable, and from there they move into service and generosity.

An old Methodist idea

The emphasis has deep roots in the Wesleyan tradition. In the eighteenth century John Wesley organized early Methodists into "classes" of about a dozen people who met weekly under a lay leader, and into smaller "bands" for more searching mutual confession. Members were asked, in effect, how their souls were prospering. The class meeting was a practical engine of the movement: it gave newcomers a place to belong, trained lay leaders in large numbers and kept faith connected to daily conduct. Many contemporary small-group movements, Methodist and otherwise, consciously draw on that model.

What the vitality research found

When The United Methodist Church's 2010 Call to Action study analyzed more than 32,000 congregations, small groups and programs were one of four clusters of factors associated with vitality. The Christian Post's report on the study noted that 60 percent of churches with more than five small groups ranked as highly vital, against 19 percent of churches with three or fewer. Programs for children and youth were also part of that cluster. Again, correlation is not causation: vital churches may simply have the energy to run more groups. But the finding is consistent with the tradition's long intuition that faith grows best among people who meet often enough to know one another.

Building real paths for growth

Congregations that work at this practice usually focus less on adding programs and more on designing pathways:

• Clear first steps. A short, recurring course for newcomers and the curious, with a natural invitation to continue.
• Variety of forms. Groups that study a book of the Bible, groups built around a shared life stage, groups organized around service, and online options for people who cannot attend in person.
• Trained leaders. Group leaders who are supported, given simple tools and not left alone for years.
• Seasons and rhythms. Lent and Advent studies, summer reading, short-term groups that make commitment easier.
• Every age. Children, youth and older adults treated as learners in their own right, not as an afterthought.
• Mentoring. Pairing newer members with experienced ones, especially around prayer and service.

Common obstacles

• Closed groups. A Bible study that has met for twenty years with the same eight people may be precious to them and impossible for anyone else to join. The answer is usually to start new groups rather than break up old ones.
• Information without formation. Learning about faith without any expectation that it will change how people pray, spend or treat others.
• Clergy as the only teachers. A pastor can teach only so many classes. Congregations grow when lay people are equipped to lead.
• Measuring attendance only. Counting heads in classes says little about whether people are growing. Some churches use simple self-assessments or conversations with leaders instead.

Personal practice and congregational practice

Schnase later applied the same five practices to individual discipleship in Five Practices of Fruitful Living (2010), where faith development becomes a personal commitment to learning in community over the long term. The two levels belong together: a congregation can offer groups, but people have to choose to belong to one, and a person's growth depends on a congregation that makes belonging possible.

Questions for a leadership team

1. What percentage of our regular worshippers belong to any small group, class or team? How do we know?
2. If someone joined our church tomorrow, what would we invite them to next month? And the month after?
3. Which of our groups could a newcomer realistically join this week?
4. Who are the next five people we could train to lead a group, and what support would they need?
5. Where do children and youth learn alongside adults, and where do adults learn from them?

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