Research & Theology

A Christian purpose.
Based in the Evidence.

7Mile brings Christian formation, adult development, leadership practice, and systems thinking into conversation. These foundations inform questions and choices; local evidence determines the recommendations.

01 / What formation is for

Life in Christ is the purpose.

The theological foundations

Created for communion

The Christian understanding of growth begins with who God is and what human beings are created for. God’s life as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is relational communion. Created in God’s image, we receive our life, identity, and calling in relationship with God, one another, and the created world. Maturity involves becoming more fully able to give and receive love while retaining the particular person God has made us to be. Our dependence on grace, community, and care belongs to this created life. Receiving help, acknowledging limits, and living faithfully within circumstances we cannot control are expressions of maturity.

Grace, new creation, and sanctification

Through Christ, the indwelling Holy Spirit unites us with God and makes us a new creation. Discipleship is our lifelong participation in this received life. Repentance is the continuing turn toward God through which our convictions, desires, habits, and actions are opened to renewal. Sanctification is the Spirit’s transforming work in those united to Christ, shaping the whole person into his likeness. Prayer, Scripture, confession, worship, Sabbath, and service are practices through which we participate in that work.

Christlikeness gives growth its purpose

Christlikeness is the purpose toward which development is directed. Scripture describes being conformed to the image of the Son, transformed by the Spirit, and growing together as Christ’s body in love (Romans 8:29; 2 Corinthians 3:18; Ephesians 4:13–16). This life takes shape in the fruit of the Spirit and in love, justice, reconciliation, faithful service, and participation in God’s mission. Growing capacities for reflection, judgment, and responsibility matter because of what they make possible for that life. Their Christian significance lies in how they are exercised for God and the good of others.

Mature agency deepens communion

Discipleship calls people to own their convictions, exercise discernment, and take responsibility before God and others. Such agency makes willing self-giving possible: a person can offer love freely, maintain truthful boundaries, and remain accountable through disagreement. Mature interdependence is the capacity to give and receive care while retaining a responsible sense of self. Growth can deepen belonging by making room for honest questions, reciprocal relationships, and shared responsibility. As people become able to examine their own commitments, they can also become more open to correction and transformation through relationship with others and with God.

Development serves this theological purpose

Vertical development is a reality of human experience and describes changes in how people organize identity, authority, relationships, and meaning. These changes concern matters already central to discipleship. Greater capacity can support faithful discernment, responsible action, and engagement with difference. Yet the same capacities can also serve self-interest or the preservation of power. The theological question is therefore what a person’s growing capacity enables and whose good it serves. Developmental theory helps us understand aspects of human growth; it cannot measure grace, explain the Spirit’s transforming work, or determine spiritual worth. Communion with God and others is possible within every developmental order.

The church’s whole life participates in formation

A congregation forms people through what it teaches and through the life it makes possible. Its use of authority, distribution of responsibility, response to conflict, and treatment of questions communicate what faithfulness means. What the church permits, rewards, or excludes also shapes its members. Its formational calling therefore reaches into leadership, relationships, culture, and organizational systems. Churches can provide trustworthy settings where people encounter meaningful challenge, receive support, reflect on experience, and practice faithful responsibility. This is why 7Mile begins with leadership and systems assessment: to help a church bring its shared life into closer alignment with its calling to form people in Christ.

02 / Four connected foundations

Different lenses.
A holistic framework.

Christian formation

Within discipleship, Christian formation describes the Spirit’s work of making us a new creation in union with God through Christ and shaping the whole person into Christlikeness. Balswick, King, and Reimer’s theological account of relational development helps articulate why communion and self-giving love orient that growth. For a church, this invites attention to relationships in which people give and receive, exercise responsibility, and grow together.

The Reciprocating Self

Adult meaning-making

Meaning-making is how people understand experience and decide what matters. Kegan’s developmental account attends to changes in the way identity, relationships, and commitments are organized. Its practical contribution is to ask what an invitation requires of a person and what challenge, reflection, and support may be appropriate.

The Evolving Self

Adaptive leadership

Some problems can be addressed through existing expertise; others involve changes in habits, priorities, or loyalties. Heifetz, Grashow, and Linsky provide language for that distinction. In a church, it helps leaders consider when a practical fix is sufficient and when people also need to learn new ways of working.

The Practice of Adaptive Leadership

Organizational systems

Systems thinking draws attention to recurring structures, feedback, delays, and consequences. Meadows’ work helps us look beyond isolated events. Applied to a church, this prompts questions about how authority, information, roles, and resources support or constrain the practices leaders hope to encourage.

Thinking in Systems

03 / Sam’s Doctoral Research and Writing

Beyond Belonging

A book in progress by Sam Osborn

Growing in faith. Deepening communion.

Beyond Belonging explores how churches can become communities where people grow in Christlikeness while deepening their capacity for honest, responsible participation in shared life. At its heart is a question: how can belonging make room for people to examine their faith, own their convictions, and offer themselves freely in love?

Drawing on Sam’s doctoral research, pastoral experience, and theological reflection, the book considers how questioning, discernment, and growing responsibility can become part of a maturing life with God and others. Its vision is a church where growth strengthens communion and equips people for faithful service.

A practical vision for church leaders

The book brings this vision into the everyday work of leading a congregation: receiving difficult questions, accompanying people through change, sharing meaningful responsibility, and creating relationships that provide both challenge and support.

It also examines how a church’s communication, decision-making, and response to conflict shape the faith its members live. Written for pastors and church leaders, Beyond Belonging connects the purpose of discipleship with the leadership practices and organizational conditions that can support it.

04 / Selected reading

Sources for further inquiry.

Common questions

Keep the distinctions clear.

Does vertical development measure faith?

No. It concerns changes in how people organize meaning, identity, and commitments. It does not measure faith, grace, or spiritual worth.

Does the Subject-Object Interview measure holiness?

No. The SOI is an approach to understanding adult meaning-making. Sam is SOI trained. Any formal assessment requires appropriate administration, interpretation, feedback, and confidentiality arrangements.

Is this a scientifically proven discipleship program?

No. 7Mile’s approach is research-informed. Sam’s dissertation did not test a commercial intervention, and the proposed service model should not be presented as a demonstrated cause of developmental or spiritual change.

Why include belonging if it is not enough to explain development?

Belonging, care, and worship are meaningful parts of congregational life. Asking about particular conditions of development does not diminish their worth. It helps a church understand how support, reflection, responsibility, and challenge may work together.

Bring the foundations into your context.

Explore how leadership and systems assessment can inform your church’s discipleship framework.

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