I want you to consider these characteristics of an event and a process that I picked up from leadership expert Tim Elmore. My point is that both are needed to truly transform lives.
EVENTS
1. Motivate people
2. Are a calendar issue
3. Challenge participants
4. Usually about a big group
5. Encourage decisions
6. Become a catalyst
7. Easy
8. Informative
For most churches spiritual life evolves around the “event” of weekend worship services. The worship event pretty much fits all the characteristics listed above. I would add one more to Tim’s list, and that is “informative” events also provide a way for us to deliver information to a large group at one time. The event is an essential catalyst to bringing about dramatic life change.
PROCESS
1. Matures people
2. Is a consistency issue
3. Changes participants
4. Usually about a small group
5. Encourages development
6. Becomes a culture
7. Difficult
Perhaps the most significant catalyst to transforming both the individual and the culture has to do with a “process”. The process tends to be where the church isn’t quite as sharp mainly because it demands a high level of involvement and intentionality. When most people join our churches it is seen as the end rather than the beginning, and members tend to treat them that way. We forget that an individual has been “born again” and that it is important to provide an intentional process for growth.
In the last section of Jesus prayer in John 17 Jesus talks about His desire to be “in” us. That implies a deep level of intimacy and knowing that doesn’t happen overnight or with one event. Remember those Bible Camps, and Week of Prayer events you attended as a teenager? They provided a spiritual high that left a significant spiritual impression but generally faded a brief time later. The “process” is so significant when it comes to knowing Christ intimately, and moving toward maturity and full devotion to Jesus Christ. The challenge for our church and any church that truly wants to see lives changed is in how effective we can be in creating the process and not just the event.