What is Spiritual Development?
Spiritual Development is, in part, a constant, ongoing, dynamic, and sometimes difficult interplay between three core development processes:
- Awareness or awakening—being or becoming aware of or awakening to one’s self, others, and the universe (which may be understood as including the sacred or divine) in ways that cultivate identity, meaning, and purpose
- Interconnecting and belonging—seeking, accepting, or experiencing significance in relationships to and interdependence with others, the world, or one’s sense of the transcendent (often including an understanding of God or a higher power) and linking to narratives, beliefs, and traditions that give meaning to human experience across time.
- A way of living—authentically expressing one’s identity, passions, values, and creativity through relationships, activities, and/or practices that shape bonds with oneself, family, community, humanity, the world, and/or that which one believes to be transcendent or sacred.
Search Institute is involved in the ongoing process of developing a shared understanding of how spiritual development is understood.
Read more about our efforts
Why is Spiritual Development Important?
These dimensions are embedded in and interact with other aspects of development; personal, family, and community beliefs, values, and practices; culture and cultural and sociopolitical realities, traditions, myths, and interpretive frameworks; and significant life events, experiences, and changes.
This framework suggests that spiritual development is a core developmental process that occurs for all persons, regardless of their religious or philosophical beliefs or worldview. Young people engage in these processes in many different ways with different emphases and levels of intensity (from highly engaged to passive). And many young people tap their own culture or religious tradition’s belief systems, narratives, and community to give form to this process.
Search Institute conducts much of its work and research on spiritual development through the Center for Spiritual Development.
Spiritual Development Resources
- You can find additional resources on our Downloadable Resources page
- For more information, visit the Center for Spiritual Development.
- To read about the research Search Institute has conducted on spiritual development, visit our Research on Spiritual Development page.
- You can also visit the Search Institute Store to browse and purchase additional resources.
