(Part 12 in a series)
It’s worthwhile, then, to step back and think about the endeavor undertaken by Reveal and Follow Me. These two books explicitly seek to find what causes Christians to grow spiritually and what the church can do to foster it. This is a noble goal, but they are certainly not unique in pursuing it.
“There is a rich literature on sociological study of congregations (Mark Chaves, Nancy Ammerman, Stephen Warner, Scott Thumma, Rodney Stark) available but "secrets" and "solutions" are rarely found there--generally their conclusions explode easy answers. There is no substitute for a wise leadership team who continues to experiment and pray and consult with the congregation on how to see the formation of better and more disciples.”
We can take this thinking one step further when we realize that some of the greatest minds in the past 2,000 years have struggled with these questions.
In short, given the considerable amount of research already done, is it reasonable to expect any one study to make “breakthrough” discoveries? I would be surprised then, and rather skeptical, if someone claimed to find something authentically new that no one in 20 centuries had come across. Frankly, I don’t know anymore “breakthrough” or “revolutionary” discoveries exist about spiritual growth.
The situation is analogous to the literature study of Shakespeare. For several centuries now people have been studying Shakespeare’s plays, and that means that it’s unlikely that anything truly new (and accurate) can be said about them. A graduate student entering into the study of Shakespeare probably won’t be making any groundbreaking discoveries.
I am not saying we shouldn’t study the processes of spiritual growth, but rather I suspect that the value of empirical studies in this area will be that of incremental, cumulative gain in knowledge and not the one, big, brand-new finding. Maybe empirical studies of spiritual growth should test time-honored assumptions about what does and doesn’t produce this growth. Reveal did this when they tested the effect of church services, and while I’m not sure that I agree with their conclusion, I applaud their addressing this issue.
Next: Summary
2 comments:
The language of "breakthrough findings" is more about marketing their book then describing their work.
Sales
Sales
Sales
There certainly is incentive with any book, especially follow-ups, to package it as new material...
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