LIBERTY BAPTIST THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY
BOOK CRITIQUE: Move: What 1,000 Churches Reveal
about Spiritual Growth
A Paper Submitted to
The Faculty of Liberty Baptist Seminary
In Partial Fulfillment for the Course
EVAN500
Spiritual Factors of Growing Churches
By
Lisa Monroe (L24856016)
Lynchburg, VA
1,000 Churches Reveal about Spiritual Growth By Greg L. Hawkins
and Cally Parkinson
Hawkins, Greg L. and Parkinson, Cally. Move: What 1,000 Churches Reveal about Spiritual
Growth. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011.
Summary
Move is designed to help pastors improve their Churches ability to increase spiritual
growth. The authors, Greg Hawkins and Cally Parkinson, combined with the leaders of Willow
Creek Church struggled to answer the same nagging question as most pastors “Is our church
really helping people to become devoted followers of Christ, or are we just giving them a nice
place to go to church?”1 Now this is not to say that there are not Churches out there in which the
majority of their congregation is growing spiritually and loving God and their neighbors.
However, for the rest Move servers as an attempt to answer that important question. Willow
Creek conducted a survey of their congregants to determine their spiritual vitality. The
attendance at Willow Creek was high but the leadership wanted to make sure that church
resources and efforts were being placed on what really mattered, transforming spiritual lives.
After conducting the survey, the leadership at Willow Creek was quite surprised at the results
they received. These results prompted changes from the leadership and the birthing of REVEAL
Spiritual Life Survey. The book MOVE is the result of five years of conducting this research tool
and studying the findings from over one thousand churches. The research tool draws a parallel
between behaviors, attitudes and beliefs. Surprisingly what the authors’ learned was that even
though some of the church activities produced spiritual growth in their congregants, most did not
have a transformational impact on their lives. Additionally, Hawkins and Parkinson, discovered,
what they refer to as a Spiritual Continuum as people walk through their journey of faith.
Critique
Move is comprised of three parts in which the authors present the findings from their
research and best practices. The first part presents the Spiritual Continuum which comes from the
responses of over a quarter of a million congregants. The authors discovered four categories that
1 Greg L. Hawkins and Cally Parkinson, Move: What 1,000 Churches Reveal about Spiritual Growth,
(Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011), 15.
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make up the spiritual continuum. These are: those Exploring Christ; those Growing in Christ;
those Close to Christ; and those Christ-centered. Those congregants which make up the
Exploring Christ are characterized by three characteristics: regular church attendance but no
personal relationship; slow pace in spiritual growth; and longer church attendance without a
commitment less likely to make that commitment. The Growing in Christ are comprised of
members with the following characteristics: largest segment on the spiritual continuum; active in
almost all church activities; and slow but steady spiritual growth. The third group being Close to
Christ are already walking close to Christ and depend on him every day. They are public about
their faith through a love for others. Finally, the group of Christ-Centered are identified by their
relationship with Christ as being the most important in their lives. They have some unique
characteristics in that they are Christ’s workforce, love for God exceeds that of everything else
but there is a gap between what they do and what they say.
The second segment of the book is where Hawkins and Parkinson discuss the catalysts of
spiritual growth. Their findings revealed that there are twenty-five decisions critical to moving
people from one segment toward a full devotion to Christ.2 The authors broke these catalysts into
four categories: Spiritual Beliefs and Attitudes; Organized Church Activities; Personal Spiritual
Practices; and Spiritual Activities with Others. They went further and determined three
movements that correlated to the four categories on the spiritual continuum. These are comprised
of the catalysts that are of most influence in occurrence as people advance from one spiritual
segment on the continuum to the next. These movements are: earliest stage of spiritual growth;
the intermediate stage of spiritual growth; and the more advanced stage of spiritual growth. As
Hawkins and Parkinson unpack these four categories and the critical decisions, they help the
pastor to understand better what is going on within the spiritual lives of the people within their
2 Ibid., 106.
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church. As Hawkins and Parkinson state: “[these] twenty-five spiritual catalysts…. are the key
decisions that open people up to God and help them collaborate with the work of the Holy
Spirit.”3
In the final part of the book, Hawkins and Parkinson discuss how to help congregants
move from group one all the way to group four. They determined “that the most effective
strategy for moving people forward in their journey of faith is biblical engagement.”4 Hawkins
and Parkinson found out from their research that the churches among the five best-practice
churches provided their members with a high-impact, nonnegotiable pathway of focused first
steps designed specifically to provide an impetus toward the Christ-centered life.5 This last
section is where church leadership is presented with what constitutes a best practice based upon
the findings of the REVEAL Spiritual Life Survey. These were determined based upon
comparisons of three categories: The Church’s Role; Personal Spiritual Practices; and Faith in
Action. “Based on the research, the factors in the Spiritual Vitality Indexes are those that are
most catalytic to advancing growth in attitudes about love of God and love for others.”6 This
Spiritual Vitality Index is the key that gives the church leadership a picture of the spiritual health
of their congregation. The REVEAL study discovered that there are four practices of the best-
practices churches produced genuine spiritual growth in the lives of their congregants. The first
of these is that they get people moving. They deliver a nonnegotiable pathway of concentrated
first steps designed to get people moving toward a Christ-centered life. Secondly, they embed the
3 Ibid., 123.
4 Ibid., 10.
5 Ibid., 107.
6 Ibid., 197.
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Bible in everything. Everything and every encounter within the church begins with what the
Bible has to say about that experience or encounter. But most importantly the church leadership
models living a life consistent with the answers to that question. Thirdly, best-practice churches
create ownership. Their people not only belong to the church, but they feel that they are the
church. Best-practice churches were found to inspire and hold people accountable for
transforming their spiritual life and becoming more Christlike in their everyday lives.7 Finally,
the high-energy churches are interested in pastoring the local community. The leaders are
involved in the issues within the local community. They are known for having living a Christ-
centered life.
In the remaining five chapters the authors unpack these four practices with strategies how
church leaders would implement them. For example, one of the key strategies for embedding the
Bible is to make the Bible the main course of the message. The pastor that they highlight teaches
five times a week: Sunday Bible school (all members participate in classes); Sunday worship
service (ministers and teaches); Sunday leadership development (short sessions to help leaders
present the Bible); Bible institute hour (mid-week class); and pastoral teaching (doctrinal
teaching of core Christian beliefs).8 Parkinson provides further insight into this practice than just
highlighting best-practice pastors. The key was to express your “passion for using Scripture to
unlock the glorious mysteries of our faith.”9 Finally, the pastor and teachers need to help the
members shut out the noise of the world and tune into voice of God. So that when they read
Scripture they are able to hear his still small voice.
7 Ibid., 207-208.
8 Ibid., 221-222.
9 Ibid., 224.
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For me the most important thing pastors can take away from this book is that they and
their leadership must be abundantly clear on what their number one goal is for their members.
The number one goal of all churches should be to help their people grow in spiritual maturity and
followers of Christ. They must instruct them on how to lead spiritually healthy lives, hold them
accountable, and help them persevere.
Application
The result from Hawkins and Parkinson’s research are beneficial to church leadership in
transforming lives for Christ. The ultimate goal for all pastors and leaders is to brings souls to a
life changing encounter with Christ. This book is a useful tool in understanding what activities
enhance the spiritual growth of people. “Move [is] a book that will transform how you lead your
church.”10 I understand how vital it is, as a leader, to not ignore information that I may not
necessarily want to hear. In preparation for taking a leadership role, it is vitally important to
improve your spiritual disciplines so that you can become more Christ-centered. We should be a
living example of the light of Christ to the world. Being in an area where there are many that
subscribe to the New Age world view, I focused more on the Exploring Christ segment. Even
though for most churches this is a small group, in my area I feel it is large than most. Therefore, I
plan to implement the framework from Rick Warren’s The Purpose Driven Life.11 In this
framework he advises that church leadership to teach the vision and beliefs of the church. How
many of us have visited a new church and never once does anyone mention their vision or
beliefs? Nor is it written anywhere. I remember a church I attended years ago, the pastor insisted
that the church vision be printed out above the door to the sanctuary. He wanted everyone that
entered to know what they were about. When in a leadership role, I plan to try to implement the
10 Ibid., 10.
11 Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Life, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002).
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same thing. Next step is for leadership to provide opportunities for people to connect with others
and serve the church. This needs to be strongly encouraged throughout the church body. We need
to come along side those that are exploring Christ for the first time or for a long time and mentor
them into a deeper understanding of the foundations of Christian faith. The final step is to
introduce the fundamentals of personal spiritual practices. We need to make them “self-feeders.”
As church leaders we need to help them take responsibility for their faith and walk with Christ.
This is critical to moving them into deeper spiritual growth. For the local church is to be the light
and hope for the world.
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