Rich Tatum Nails the "Reveal" Study

Rich Tatum blew me away with his discussion of what Willow Creek’s ‘Reveal’ study really tells us. I agree entirely with his analysis: "The main takeaway is this: numeric growth does not equal spiritual growth." He goes on to write,

If we’re honest about it, the idea that numeric growth reveals a church’s health and its members’ own spiritual health has infected the American church for decades. The idea is captured in this syllogism:

Healthy organisms grow
Churches are like organisms
Therefore, healthy churches grow

But what this logical three-step logical tango fails to take into account is that healthy organisms stop growing when they reach maturity and a size appropriate to their nature. In fact, an organism’s failure to experience a growth plateau is one evidence of sickness.

By contrast, Rich asserts that

the chief problem with most (if not all) of the churches I’ve attended has been a failure to encourage, challenge, and provide for spiritual transformation and discipleship in individual believers within a transformed community.

He couldn't be more right. Rich moves on to an analysis of cultural shifts that have affected the church, both in terms of the assumptions that people bring to churches and the assumptions that church leaders bring to the direction and content of their leading. I strongly urge you to read the original article to follow Rich's points to their conclusions.

For my own part, I can't help reflecting on troubling church issues that are symptomatic of what Rich is talking about. Large churches that grew, to a significant extent, by abandoning the neighborhoods they were planted in and the people their founders were trying to reach. Small churches whose pastors worried more about the lack of numerical growth in their congregations than about actually discipling and developing the people God had given them to minister to. Pastors being more interested in presiding over an ever-increasing corporate entity than in nurturing the lives of those under their care. An anti-intellectualism that boils down to contempt for any spiritual and theological development other than learning how to get the next convert. An emphasis on conversions to the exclusion of what Jesus actually said that the Great Commission was: making disciples. A devaluation of those spiritual gifts which are not directly tied to the ultimate goal of numerical growth, and by extension, a devaluation of believers who have those types of gifts. A focus on "revival" as the ultimate goal of the church, as opposed to seeing seasons of revival as only one part of the ongoing processes that God uses to develop his people.

This is why the problems in the "Reveal" study are not limited to Willow Creek or other megachurches. They infect churches of all sizes. A disconcerting shallowness pervades Christian culture, in nearly every expression. Churches and denominations are largely one-dimensional: worship without theology, theology without experience, experience without reflection, reflection without action, action without worship. We choose our favorite flavor and point the finger at everyone else as lacking. We are not in the process of becoming whole, rounded, deep, substantive people who actually have an answer for the equally shallow and one-dimensional world around us. Rather than offering a real difference, we either accommodate or react to that culture, and either way, we're just as ersatz and vapid as the culture we're responding to. One way or another, we're being conformed to the world, rather than being transformed by the renewing of our minds. And that includes those who react the most strongly against that world: they're just a mirror image. Accommodate or repudiate: we're being defined by our surroundings. And that's not good.

The Bible presents a completely different view of life. One would think that Christians would be interested in discovering what it is. One would hope that Christian leaders would be enthusiastic about facilitating that discovery in others. If only.