Greg Hawkins and Cally Parkinson, Reveal: Where Are You? Willow Creek Association, 2007.
Companion volumes:
- Hawkins and Parkinson, Follow Me: What’s Next for You?
- Hawkins and Parkinson, Focus: The Top Ten Things People Want and Need from You and Your Church
- Hawkins and Parkinson, Move: What 1,000 Churches Reveal About Spiritual Growth
Referenced in: Strategies Congregational Renewal: Diagnostic/Prescriptive, Disciple-Making
LifeandLeadership.com Summary
Most church leaders are familiar with the story of the Willow Creek Community Church and its seeker-sensitive philosophy. REVEAL was a courageously honest look at a deeper dimension of Willow Creek and 5,000 members from seven like-minded churches. They asked probing questions like, “Are things we’re doing really making a difference in helping people become more like Christ?”
To get answers to such questions, they contracted with a consulting firm that specialized in attitudinal-based research to measure where the members were in their spiritual journey, i.e. to “measure hearts.” Many types of churches were surveyed – traditional churches with Sunday Schools, missions-focused churches, mainline denominations, African-American churches, etc. They assessed issues such as the disciplines members practiced to grow spiritually, the barriers to growth they faced, how the church fit their needs, which ministries were meeting their needs, how many people were spiritually stalled or dissatisfied, and how they perceived the church’s leadership.
In the year following the initial research, they expanded the data to cover over 150,000 church members in 500 churches including small (less than 500), medium (500-1000), and large (1000+) congregations. The findings of the research were astonishing, not only revealing issues of the heart that conventional research has not been able to measure in the past, but also suggesting the specific things that churches can do to facilitate spiritual growth in their people.
At its core, REVEAL is substantive, well-researched presentation of four successive stages of spiritual development: Exploring Christ, Growing in Christ, Close to Christ, and Christ-Centered, and then the three special movements that catalyze the progression from one stage to the next. A key to the program is a Spiritual Life Survey Tool that measures spiritual vitality and pinpoints the special focus areas leaders should emphasize to take the congregations to the next level.
To read more about REVEAL, visit the website. Pay special attention to the videos and podcasts to discover how impacting this project was on the ministry of Willow Creek Community Church.
The companion volume, FOLLOW ME, takes up where REVEAL leaves off. It builds on even more data from thousands of additional survey respondents, and provides more detail on the three “movements” that help people progress from one stage of spiritual growth to the next.
The third volume, FOCUS, integrates the findings of the research into ten strategic insights for congregations that are serious about facilitating their members’ spiritual journeys.
The fourth volume, MOVE, reports on additional data collected from over a quarter million people in over a thousand churches of every size.
From the Publisher for REVEAL:
Is your church really making a difference? How do you know? Do you ever lie awake at night wondering … Do our programs really help people grow? Are we putting our resources into ministries that genuinely change lives? Are we helping people become more like Christ, or just keeping them busy? For years, church leaders have relied on numbers to help answer questions like these. In other words, we ask the “How many?” question. How many…members? Baptisms? Decisions for Christ? How many attend each week? Are in small groups? Actively serve? Tithe?
Numbers can be helpful, but they don’t reveal the whole story. Numbers can’t peer into the human heart. When it comes to spiritual growth, we need to be able to measure more than numbers. We need a glimpse of people’s attitudes, thoughts and emotions. We need a tool that reveals the heart of each person.
Now Willow Creek invites you to learn what it discovered in a three-year process of study and research—involving six other churches as well as congregants from Willow Creek.
- Discover the four segments that characterize the journey of spiritual growth.
- Learn more about what catalyzes and stunts spiritual growth.
- And understand how the church needs to change in order to help people become more like Christ.
What you discover here may challenge you. Or confirm nagging suspicions you’ve had all along. Either way, the findings in REVEAL will undoubtedly change the way you think about church—and what it really takes to make a difference.
From the Publisher’s for FOLLOW ME:
Four years of cutting-edge research: 200 churches, 80,000 people, and the breakthrough findings that will change the way you do church. What began as a congregational survey in a few churches has become a revolutionary initiative talked about by church leaders around the world. The startling results were published in Reveal. But that was just the beginning.
Follow Me draws on the latest research to provide unprecedented insights into what drives—and derails—spiritual growth. It addresses questions every ministry leader wrestles with: How does spiritual growth happen? How do we help people move toward a more intimate and committed relationship to Christ? And it reveals the astonishingly honest responses people gave to questions about their spiritual lives.
More than anything else, what people really want is change—they want to become more like Jesus. And they’re looking to the church—to you—to help them grow.
In Follow Me, you’ll discover what the latest research reveals about:
- Core beliefs that promote spiritual growth
- Key sources of church dissatisfaction
- Three spiritual growth “movements”
- Catalytic church activities and personal spiritual practices
- Ways to overcome spiritual stumbling blocks
When Jesus says, “Follow me,” he calls us to a journey of faith and growth. Now you have the breakthrough insights that will help you lead your congregation with confidence, knowing that the next steps you take together really will move people closer to Christ.
From the Publisher for FOCUS:
Businesses focus on giving people what they want. “The customer is always right” is their motto. But we’re church leaders, not business executives. And our mission is to make fully devoted followers of Christ, not just to give people what they want.
Sorting out wants from needs is messy business. One group wants different music. Another group wants more ministries. And your church has time constraints, not to mention budget considerations. In light of both mission and limits, how does a leader make tough decisions about a church’s priorities?
Drawing on REVEAL research from hundreds of churches and thousands of congregants, Focus presents fascinating answers to the persistent and perplexing question of wants versus needs. You’ll discover what the latest research reveals about:
- What drives satisfaction with the church
- What defines the church’s unique role in spiritual growth
- What people want and need most from their senior pastor
- What a senior pastor’s top priorities must be
As a leader, you want a vibrant, happy congregation. But you also want people to grow spiritually. Now you can focus on what matters most—helping people draw closer to Christ by meeting both their wants and their needs—even with limited resources.
From the Publisher for MOVE:
One of the church’s primary responsibilities is to foster genuine spiritual growth in people’s lives. Today’s pastors bring tremendous effort and passion to this task, but they are often disappointed by people who sit in the pews for years, knowing about Jesus but never really knowing him. In 2004, Willow Creek Community Church in suburban Chicago undertook a three-year study to measure spiritual growth called the REVEAL Spiritual Life Survey. Over the next six years, additional data was collected from over a quarter million people in well over a thousand churches of every size, denomination, and geographic area. Move presents verifiable, fact-based, and somewhat startling findings from the latest REVEAL research, drawing on compelling stories from actual people—-congregation members of varying spiritual maturity, as well as pastors who are equally candid as they share their disappointments and their successes. It provides a new lens through which church leaders can see and measure the evidence of spiritual growth. The local church is uniquely equipped to foster spiritual growth and challenge people to pursue a life of full devotion to Christ. Move helps pastors and church leaders inspire and direct that challenge with confidence as they lead their congregations to move closer to Christ.
About the Authors
Greg Hawkins is Executive Pastor of Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois.
Cally Parkinson is managing director for REVEAL, a Willow Creek Association ministry that utilizes research tools and discoveries to help churches better understand spiritual growth in their congregations.
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