REVEAL in the Christian Standard

A recent issue of the Christian Standard contained an article that talked about the REVEAL study that Willow Creek Community Church has been talking about a lot recently. (Also the subject of my previous post)

I thought the article was a good summary. So here is a link: Changing the Way We Do Church, by Darrel Rowland.

Let me just say that there is a tendency to “bash” Willow, and I personally am not sold on their seeker model, but this study is not about abandoning the seeker model as some have proposed. If you have questions about that last statement, leave a comment and I will clarify.

Jason Cooper

REVEAL-ing Insights from Willow Creek

One of my frustrations in ministry is how to sort through all the different programs, groups, campaigns, curriculums, conferences, bookd, etc., that are available out there. There seems to be a self-imposed pressure within churches to do the latest, greatest, trendy thing that churches are doing. We get so focused on creating programs that will draw bodies that we forget about purpose and philosophy of ministry and strategies for creating real growth in individuals.

Several years back I was able to participate, along with my church at the time, in some ongoing discipleship training that attempted to force churches to look at everything they are doing in order to come to a discipleship focus as a church. This meant defining discipleship, clarifying discipleship as THE purpose of the church, and developing a unified philosophy of ministry and therefore a strategy for facilitating real spiritual growth in individuals. Ever since then, this has become a lens through which I filter everything I encounter regarding ministry.

In this process, we took a survey that evaluated how our people were doing in terms of a four phase discipleship plan. We found that true growth had nothing to do with how long someone had been a Christian, or how long they had been going to church. True growth had to do with how much the individual “owned” their own personal, spiritual growth.

Over the last year or so, Willow Creek has begun putting out some of the best material I have seen in regards to ministry…they call it REVEAL. It is not a program to mimic, or curriculum to use, or small group material, or any of the traditional stuff. It is the results of asking the question “Are we accomplishing our purpose of making disciples?” The answer to that question was…no, not really. They found that spiritual growth was happening at their church, but that it had no correlation to a person’s involvement in church activities. The people that grew were the ones that “owned” their own personal growth.

Notice that this is not a condemnation of their seeker-driven philosophy as some have wrongly asserted. Their results paralleled the results my church had discovered. The difference is that we discovered it with the help of a much lesser known parachurch group utilizing a much more basic survey than the REVEAL survey. The great thing about REVEAL is that it is getting noticed on the national scene.

In both the survey I participated in and the REVEAL survey, the results hold true in churches across the board. So, if you are a church leader of any sort, please take time to check out what they are finding. If you have comments or questions, please leave them and join in this discussion.

I hope to write more about REVEAL in the future.

Jason Cooper

Spotted, speckled, and dark colored...Gen 30

In my reading, I have been working through Genesis. And Genesis in many ways is a difficult book. Not because I struggle to believe it, but because we see things in the lives of some of the patriarchs that are so different from our own culture that we are not sure how to handle them.

For example, I my previous entry (Fetching Rebekah…) we have the swearing of an oath by the putting of a hand on the inner thigh….how strange. And in Genesis 30, we have Jacob increasing his flock by what appears to be, at the very least, deceptive.

Jacob comes to an agreement with Laban that he will get all the spotted and speckled goats and sheep. But in the making of the deal he says “my honesty will testify for me in the future” (30:33). However, the story suggests that he takes intentional measures to insure that he comes out ahead in the deal by manipulating the breeding process in his favor. This seems less than “honest.” Yet, Jacob receives God’s blessing. So, were Jacob’s actions questionable? Or are they simply recorded as fact and not evaluated in the text? Good questions to ask in heaven.

Jason Cooper