Understanding how a child’s faith forms is crucial to knowing how adults can most significantly enhance the child’s spiritual development. Joining Children on the Spiritual Journey provides parents, teachers, and Christian education leaders with valuable insights into spiritual formation during childhood.

With a biblical perspective as a starting point and a recognition of the crucial role of both the family and the faith community, Stonehouse reviews important contributions from noted child development experts Erik Erikson, Jean Piaget, Lawrence Kohlberg, and James Fowler. This overview gives insight into the processes of psychosocial, cognitive, and moral development in children and adolescents.

Stonehouse concludes with solid guidelines for designing children’s ministries. By carefully "setting the stage" through liturgy, sacred stories, and parables, Christian educators can help children meet with God. Quiet times of "godly play," carefully adapted to the age level of the child, enable adults to join with children on the journey toward deeper intimacy with God.

The love of God and children shines through these pages which extend Jesus’s call for us to be like children. This book helps us prepare for kingdom entry by both illustrating and carefully describing how and why the spiritual journey begins at childhood. . . . It is open-eyed adventure and deeply fun.–Rev. Jerome Berryman

There is nothing more important than [children's] spiritual formation, yet we often leave this most important function to untrained persons. Dr. Stonehouse’s book provides clear and understandable teaching for children’s teachers and parents and also for teacher’s teachers.–Rev. Marti Ensign