Affective Language Acquisition and Engle's Scale
Engle’s Stages of Conversion
-8 Awareness of supreme being – no knowledge of the gospel
-7 Initial awareness of the gospel
-6 Awareness of fundamentals of the gospel
-5 Grasp of implications of the gospel
-4 Positive attitude toward the gospel
-3 Personal problem recognition
-2 Decision to act
-1 Repentance and faith in Christ
0 Conversion
+1 Post-decision evaluation
+2 Incorporation into the body of Christ
+3 A lifetime of conceptual and behavioral growth in Christ
People are more willing to belong before they are willing to believe. At the early stage of sharing the gospel of Christ the language of Christianity must come at the basic levels. People can not understand words related to repentance, sanctification and redemption if they have not first heard and seen the words of love, kindness and acceptance. Even God's word suggests such things. His word says, "it is God's love that leads to repentance." Likewise it is our embracing words that will lead to the deeper things of the gospel, or good news. Paul recognized you first give milk to babies before you give them meat - and so he presented the words of the kingdom at different levels according to those he was ministering to.
Even modern physchologists like Maslow and Piaget recognized the different levels of cognitive and behavioral development patterns that are dependent on various stages of maturation and growth. In Maslow's hiearchy below you can see how he recognizes that basic needs such as physyical environment and security must come before people can develop normally socially and then start developing even further into understandings about who we are and who we were created to be.
Piaget also described three types of knowledge that children acquire:
1.) Physical knowledge - "knowledge about objects in the world, which can be gained through their perceptual properties,"
2.) Logical-mathematical knowledge - "abstract knowledge that must be invented."
3.) Social-arbitrary knowledge - "culture-specific knowledge learned from people within one's culture-group" (
In his theory he outlined the distinct areas of development that people must go through suggesting that without basic knowledge of the world in which you exist you will not be able to grasp the socialogical implications of both verbal and non-verbal concepts in a given culture.
This same gap that exists between the real world of unbelievers and those who are believers. Often times the "Social-arbitrary knowledge," or "culture-specific knowledge of a group of people (in this case Christians) is so thoroughly developed that they become completely alien to the rest of the world. Such Christians begin to unconsciously use terms and "Code," that only they (in the circle) can relate to since they have already learned the basic knowledge of the culture of Christianity. Those who profess a belief in evangelical Christianity have to then learn how to reframe their life, actions and speech in a way that is relevant to those who have not developed a grasp of such highly developed paradigms of culture. In other words, we must learn as Paul said, "To become all people to all people, so that by all means, some might be saved." This extends to even our very speech. Paul in his sermon at Mars Hill takes cultural icons of the age (gods and idols and the poets of the age) to make his case. He refers to the statue of the unknown God and to their poets who said, "We are his offspring," in order to speak at a level of culture that is relevant and meaningful to those he is reaching out to.
In "The Shaping of Things to Come," by Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch they use the graph below to explain how non-believers must overcome the culture gap of God before they can cross the discipleship gap which all believers eventually must make.
If indeed people go through stages such as Engle suggests above, and there is plenty of practical and research from well respected phsycologists in their fields, then we must begin examining how and when we present the verbal and non-verbal cues of the kingdom of God. Even Jesus did it this way. When he insisted on talking to the young kids when his disciples were trying to shoo them away - he taught them both verbally and non-verbally that one's heart must be like a child to enter the kingdom of heaven. When he talked to the adulterous woman at the well he didn't enter the conversation with her sin and tell her that she must repent. Instead he addressed her at the physical level: will you get me water. Then he addressed her at the real life level of where she was: she had multiple husbands. He then addressed a real need of hers, which was to find satisfaction, to drink of all that is good. And he made such an offer to her, to drink of living water. It wasn't a Christian cliche at the time, it was an offer to meet a current need in her life.
We must as Christians consider our words. Our words may sometimes come from a point of need in our life, we who are mature Christians perhaps. But those we are encountering to not have the same needs. They may not need church right now, they may need someone to demonstrate God's love through kind words and non-verbal cues such as action and service. These socio-liguistic factors of concern shown on our face, and how we frame words and propositions may be the difference between us appearing repulsive in our pride and abstract "Church talk," or kind and gentle in our genunine concern for the basic needs of our nieghbor.
-8 Awareness of supreme being – no knowledge of the gospel
-7 Initial awareness of the gospel
-6 Awareness of fundamentals of the gospel
-5 Grasp of implications of the gospel
-4 Positive attitude toward the gospel
-3 Personal problem recognition
-2 Decision to act
-1 Repentance and faith in Christ
0 Conversion
+1 Post-decision evaluation
+2 Incorporation into the body of Christ
+3 A lifetime of conceptual and behavioral growth in Christ
People are more willing to belong before they are willing to believe. At the early stage of sharing the gospel of Christ the language of Christianity must come at the basic levels. People can not understand words related to repentance, sanctification and redemption if they have not first heard and seen the words of love, kindness and acceptance. Even God's word suggests such things. His word says, "it is God's love that leads to repentance." Likewise it is our embracing words that will lead to the deeper things of the gospel, or good news. Paul recognized you first give milk to babies before you give them meat - and so he presented the words of the kingdom at different levels according to those he was ministering to.
Even modern physchologists like Maslow and Piaget recognized the different levels of cognitive and behavioral development patterns that are dependent on various stages of maturation and growth. In Maslow's hiearchy below you can see how he recognizes that basic needs such as physyical environment and security must come before people can develop normally socially and then start developing even further into understandings about who we are and who we were created to be.
Piaget also described three types of knowledge that children acquire:
1.) Physical knowledge - "knowledge about objects in the world, which can be gained through their perceptual properties,"
2.) Logical-mathematical knowledge - "abstract knowledge that must be invented."
3.) Social-arbitrary knowledge - "culture-specific knowledge learned from people within one's culture-group" (
In his theory he outlined the distinct areas of development that people must go through suggesting that without basic knowledge of the world in which you exist you will not be able to grasp the socialogical implications of both verbal and non-verbal concepts in a given culture.
This same gap that exists between the real world of unbelievers and those who are believers. Often times the "Social-arbitrary knowledge," or "culture-specific knowledge of a group of people (in this case Christians) is so thoroughly developed that they become completely alien to the rest of the world. Such Christians begin to unconsciously use terms and "Code," that only they (in the circle) can relate to since they have already learned the basic knowledge of the culture of Christianity. Those who profess a belief in evangelical Christianity have to then learn how to reframe their life, actions and speech in a way that is relevant to those who have not developed a grasp of such highly developed paradigms of culture. In other words, we must learn as Paul said, "To become all people to all people, so that by all means, some might be saved." This extends to even our very speech. Paul in his sermon at Mars Hill takes cultural icons of the age (gods and idols and the poets of the age) to make his case. He refers to the statue of the unknown God and to their poets who said, "We are his offspring," in order to speak at a level of culture that is relevant and meaningful to those he is reaching out to.
In "The Shaping of Things to Come," by Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch they use the graph below to explain how non-believers must overcome the culture gap of God before they can cross the discipleship gap which all believers eventually must make.
If indeed people go through stages such as Engle suggests above, and there is plenty of practical and research from well respected phsycologists in their fields, then we must begin examining how and when we present the verbal and non-verbal cues of the kingdom of God. Even Jesus did it this way. When he insisted on talking to the young kids when his disciples were trying to shoo them away - he taught them both verbally and non-verbally that one's heart must be like a child to enter the kingdom of heaven. When he talked to the adulterous woman at the well he didn't enter the conversation with her sin and tell her that she must repent. Instead he addressed her at the physical level: will you get me water. Then he addressed her at the real life level of where she was: she had multiple husbands. He then addressed a real need of hers, which was to find satisfaction, to drink of all that is good. And he made such an offer to her, to drink of living water. It wasn't a Christian cliche at the time, it was an offer to meet a current need in her life.
We must as Christians consider our words. Our words may sometimes come from a point of need in our life, we who are mature Christians perhaps. But those we are encountering to not have the same needs. They may not need church right now, they may need someone to demonstrate God's love through kind words and non-verbal cues such as action and service. These socio-liguistic factors of concern shown on our face, and how we frame words and propositions may be the difference between us appearing repulsive in our pride and abstract "Church talk," or kind and gentle in our genunine concern for the basic needs of our nieghbor.
posted by friend at 9:57 PM
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