Move: What 1,000 Churches Reveal about Spiritual Growth [Hardcover]

Greg L. Hawkins (Author), Cally Parkinson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 2011

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.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Greg L. Hawkins is executive pastor of Willow Creek Community Church. He is also co-creator of REVEAL, an initiative that utilizes research tools and discoveries to help churches better understand spiritual growth in their congregations. Greg and his wife, Lynn, live in the Chicago suburbs with their three children.

Cally Parkinson is brand manager for REVEAL and previously served as the director of communication services at Willow Creek Community Church, a role she undertook following a twenty-five-year career at Allstate Insurance Company. Cally and her husband, Rich, live in the Chicago suburbs and have two grown children.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Zondervan (August 1, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0310325250
• ISBN-13: 978-0310325253
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #20,384 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How to enhance ministry effectiveness, July 26, 2011

By 

John Gibbs (Melbourne, Australia) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Move: What 1,000 Churches Reveal about Spiritual Growth (Kindle Edition)

It may be impossible for us to tell the secrets of people's hearts, but it really is possible to know whether the people in church congregations are truly growing more in love with God and extending that love to other people, according to Greg Hawkins and Cally Parkinson in this book. The book describes findings from surveys which probe much more deeply than the typical "number of attenders", "number of baptisms", and "number of participants in small groups" figures which are traditionally used to gauge the health of churches.

The "Reveal" surveys used by the authors measure the state of respondents' spiritual growth by asking questions relating to spiritual beliefs, attitudes, motivations, behaviours and satisfaction. Based on their responses, the respondents from each church can be divided into four groups: Exploring Christ, Growing in Christ, Close to Christ, and Christ-Centred. Some 250,000 people from more than 1,000 churches have taken the survey, and the results allow the authors to draw some interesting inferences about the catalysts which move people in their spiritual journeys from one group to the next, and about barriers to growth and how to overcome them, and about what steps church leaders can take to help the spiritual growth process.

I recommend that church leaders get a copy of the book and study carefully the various catalysts of spiritual growth at each stage of the journey. The catalysts for growth from "Exploring Christ" to "Growing in Christ" are different from those for growth from "Growing in Christ" to "Close to Christ", and these are different again from those for growth from "Close to Christ" to "Christ-Centred". Apart from these catalysts, the authors identified some actions taken by churches which had markedly higher-than-average results in the surveys:

* Get people moving, by having a clear pathway for people on their spiritual journeys.

* Embed the Bible in everything the church does.

* Create ownership by inspiring people to adopt the vision of the church as part of their identity.

* Pastor the local community by taking responsibility for addressing local community needs.

Interestingly, the churches with the best results in the surveys ranged in size from small to very large. Some were predominantly white, some predominantly African-American, and some were multicultural. Very few of the pastors of those churches are famous, and most seemed surprised to discover that their churches ranked well above the average for spiritual growth.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars For church leadership..., October 8, 2011

By 

Charles H. Thompson III - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Move: What 1,000 Churches Reveal about Spiritual Growth (Hardcover)

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I admire the authors of this book as they are willing to go against the flow. Modern churches and ministries are often focused on attendence, buildings, and cash. This leads to gauging success on how full the building is, the state of the art facilities, and the offering amount. Nothing is farther from the truth as the Bible does not gauge success that way. God says, "Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you...", (Matthew 28:19-20a). Success in God's eyes is equated with the above Great Commission. It includes the balance of winning souls to Christ and discipling them so they will grow in their faith.

In the eyes of the world, Willowcreek Community Church is an tremendously successful. Yet, Greg, one of the authors asked, "Are all the things we do at Willow that these people so generously support really helping them become fully devoted followers of Christ or are we just giving them a nice place to go to church?" The research results to answer that question are as follows...

1.) Increased participation in church activities by themselves barely moved their people to love God and others more.

2.) They had a lot of dissatisfied people.

3.) They had a lot of people so dissatisfied that they were ready to leave.

4.) All the great things they were doing and their people were barely moved.

A survey was done to check out other churches and to get an overall picture of churches in America. This led to a comprehensive approach to re-focus Willow's ministry and assist other churches too.

The book, "Move", is about having an action plan to move people from exploring Christ to growing in Christ, from growing in Christ to close to Christ, and from close to Christ to Christ-centered.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Helpful evangelical study on spiritual development, September 28, 2011

By 

Clint Walker "Friar Tuck" (Hot Springs, SD) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Move: What 1,000 Churches Reveal about Spiritual Growth (Hardcover)

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This year, when I attended a simulcast of Willow Creek Church's Global Leadership Summitt, I heard the leadership of the church talk about this recent study they had done about spiritual growth, and how the people at Willow Creek wanted to share what they learned about spiritual transformation with leaders everywhere.

Now, they have recently released their gleanings of their study on how people grow spiritually in the new book Move. Move shares about a well thought out, revealing, and somewhat surprising picture of how people grow. One thing the study revealed is descrete describable phases of spiritual development. Another thing that the study revealed were best practices of churches that effectively help people mature in their faith, instead of feeling "stuck" in an immature, stagnant faith journey.

Many churches feel stuck. This fine book will be helpful for many leaders in identifying where their church has stalled, and it will help those leaders to think through how to wisely lead people to take thei next step(s) in their faith. A great purchase for pastors and churches across the country, and well worth the cover price.