A few years back I spent a season learning Tae Kwon Do (TKD). I was in a class of adults, but honestly most of them were teenagers, some of whom were black and red belts, that is they knew what they were doing all the way down to me: I was the lowest of the white belts.

I was struck, even in my first session as I walked in, I knew exactly how good everyone in the room was. Not because I am an expert in martial arts, but because of what was tied around their waists. The belt system lets everyone know where they are in the learning process, no matter how old they are or how big they are or any other characteristic for that matter.

The second thing took a little longer to notice. It was that although everyone had a go at learning new things or “touch sparring” with each other, the higher belts helped the lower belts on things like technique, pointing out how to punch, block and kick better. That is, everyone but me, I was the bottom of the class. But the assumption of the culture of TKD is that you help those with lower belts, no matter where you are. Of course the idea was that you would progress up the colours of belts to the coveted black belt.

But what if this was a church?

Come with me on another thought experiment.

The room where maturity is visible

Here’s the strange thing about a TKD class (a dojang in Korean): everybody’s maturity is public, and nobody dies of embarrassment.

The white belt isn’t ashamed to be a white belt. The black belt isn’t smug. Nobody is pretending. The instructor would often divide us into lower, middle and upper belts. No one took it personally. It did not worry me that I was being both taught and beaten by someone who was half my age, we both knew that they knew more than me by the colour of our belts. Everyone knew where they were, and the room runs better for it having been said out loud.

Now walk into your church.

We actually have a similar spread of people. Some people have walked with Jesus for forty years and have suffered things that would break you, but they have been shaped by it. Others walked into church six weeks ago for the first time and still have trouble working the difference between the gospel of John and 1 John. But we treat them identically. Same sermon, same small group material, same everything. We are radically, sincerely, disastrously egalitarian about maturity — and we call it grace.

The writer of Hebrews doesn’t call it grace. He calls it a problem. By now, he says, “you ought to be teachers” — instead you need someone to walk you through the basics all over again. You need milk, not solid food (Heb 5:12). That’s not a rebuke for being a beginner. It’s a rebuke for being a twenty-year beginner. He is expecting maturity. But maybe it’s the structures of church that are working against us here.

There are a number of questions were need to look at here.

How do we distinguish between the equality of grace from the difference of maturity?

There is an immediate problem with what I am saying. Hopefully you are shouting out “But that sounds like a legalistic meritocracy!” The higher up “the belt system” I go the better a Christian I am. Those at the top who can look down on people at the bottom. 

While this is a danger, it wasn’t for the TKD class I was a part of. 

Everyone comes in the same door, bows the same bow, does the same warm up. We all wore the same uniform, showing which dojang we were a part of. It’s only the belt that is a strip of cloth lying on top of a uniform everybody already has that is different. If someone came in wearing a different uniform, we might have questions, their presence would have to be explained. 

The belt doesn’t change you, it doesn’t change your presence in the class. Yes, at the end when we stood in lines to show our respect to the teacher, we were in lines of order of training. Blacks and reds at the top, whites and yellows towards the back and I was at the end. But if you were in the uniform, no matter what your experience and training, you are welcome here.

The belt isn’t grading your acceptance. It’s grading your training. And that distinction is the entire Reformation in a strip of cloth. You are in because of the uniform, you show your maturity because of the belt.

If you grade justification and, yes, you get a legalistic cult. But if you grade nothing and you get a spiritual creche. Grade or at least recognise levels of maturity — carefully and gladly — and you get a school.

Every Christian in your church is wearing the same uniform. Identical. Christ’s righteousness fits everyone perfectly, and nobody’s is whiter than anybody else’s. Nothing you do this year will make God love you anymore than he did on the day he adopted you.

But it is precisely because that’s settled, we’re free to be honest about the belts. You cannot lose what you never earned — which is exactly what makes it safe to have a truthful conversation about how you’re going.

Here’s my worry. The reason we can’t say “you’ve been a Christian twenty years and you still can’t open a Bible with a friend” is that we’ve secretly made the belt into the uniform. We’re afraid that naming the belt would be denying the uniform. So we say nothing. They stay a white belt for two decades. And we call our cowardice kindness.

Here are some “What if…” questions. Maybe they are not realistic, but they should get us thinking:

What If….

What would church look like if we had different expectations for different people?

What would happen if we addressed the idea that not everyone is the same and not everyone is at the same place maturity wise? The writers of the New Testament seems to be able to navigate these distinctions: Older women are to be taught in certain way so they, in turn, can urge younger women to live well (Titus 2:3-5).  Older men, younger men, slaves are all given slightly different instructions in Titus 2. 

The writer to the Hebrews goes further, rebuking his readers who should be more mature than they currently are (Hebrews 5:11-6:3). Spiritual plateauing is not an acceptable state to be in. Further, he shows that maturity comes from constant practice (Hebrews 5:14). This is not something that just appears, but is something that is worked for.

What would our churches look like if we took this into account in the way we do church?Currently for most churches everyone hears the same sermon with the same application points, often doing the same Bible study, etc.  It is like we are treating everyone the same.

What would happen if we treated discipleship as a part of maturity?

Back to TKD: I remember watching some of the red belts get examined to see if they were worthy of the black. One of the things that I found curious was that they were examined not merely on what they knew: patterns and techniques, but whether they could teach it to others. Could they pass on what they were taught?

I still don’t know if this was a distinctive of our school or whether it was something that is  a requirement for all TKD schools, but imagine if this was a part of church. Imagine normalising people who are mature, passing on what they know to others.  Imagine what our churches would look like if discipleship was expected from mature people?

However, this does not mean you need to get to a certain place to be able to do this. In TKD, you only needed to be a grade above to help those below. Anyone who knew something you didn’t passed it on. Anyone who was just ahead of you taught you something, even the yellow belts taught me!

Nor does this have to be a formal relationship. Often when we speak of discipleship we think of the formal 1 to 1 weekly meeting of discipleship.  It can be as simple as a conversation after church of “here is something God taught me this week”. 

Where to start?

Perhaps the concept of giving physical belts to people as they walk to church borders on ridiculous. But  this does, or should raise some questions you should be considering, the first two are more pointed towards church leadership, however, they are questions everyone should be considering:

How are you triaging maturity?

Many churches are introducing the idea of a pathway to help people move from “new” people to being integrated into church community. No longer are we assuming that this is happening. In doing so we are grading or triaging people, for want of better terms from “new” to “member” to “connected” or some other categories you have found useful.

Can we do that with maturity? Maturity is hard to measure for several reasons. One is that it is primarily internal, we cannot look at the heart in the same way that God can. Another is that maturity is often the combination several factors. 

One solution is to start with a list of people you have, then think about whether they are good, warm or need help in the categories of “mission”, “knowledge of the Word”, “loving community”, “serving”, etc. To be honest, when I have done this there are often huge gaps where I don’t know the answer. The simple solution is to ask: E.g. “Are there people who don’t know Jesus you are praying for and taking to?”. There are probably more solutions, what matters is are you doing anything?

Keep in mind that this is not about comparison: this person rates better than this person. It is about looking at each individual person to work out what do they need to be able to grow to be more mature?  And then: what can I do to help them?

Have we set things up for people to get to a certain point and plateau in maturity?

There are too many people when I ask them about what has God taught them in the last week or year, look at me blankly and have to really think about it. There are too many people when I ask them how long have they been doing the ministry they are doing who answer longer than 10 years. Why have they not passed it on to others? Why have churches normalised this?

Actually when we step back and look we see we have not normalised this for all ministries. Children’s ministries are graded from creche to primary school in most churches.  Kids are taught the same gospel at different levels they can understand. Youth ministries then are often, likewise, graded by year at school. However, we get to young adults, some are recruited into career ministry, apprenticed and sent to college.  But most adults start into a discipleship system, when they leave school, that they will stay in for most of their adult life.

Have our structures helped us mature people or have they helped keep people in a plateau? 

There is a danger when this has been addressed and that is to simply add more things. We start with church, then add a small group, for people who are mature we add training and then add more and more structures, and then wonder why people are feeling burned out.

Perhaps this is a lead balloon, but what if we “graded” our small groups somehow. So people who are in a similar place are being encouraged and guided to be more like Jesus rather than plateau.

Why not start with yourself?

What if you started this whole thing with yourself? How would you grade your own maturity as a disciple of Jesus? What do you need to work on in the next 6 months? But keep in mind maturity is about passing it on. Who are you helping and how?

TKD is about growing in your skills and technique and then passing it on. That is exactly what discipleship should be. Grace isn’t what makes a belt system impossible. Grace is the only thing that makes it bearable.