REVEAL Spiritual Life Survey

Grace Church is privileged to one of just 500 churches out of thousands that applied to be selected to participate in the final development phase of REVEAL research (Phase 3) sponsored by the Willow Creek Association. REVEAL’s objective is to develop in-depth understanding of how people progress in their spiritual journey and how the church can more effectively help them grow in their relationship with Christ.

The findings from this research will help us understand the spiritual health of our congregation as a whole, as well as how our church is helping them grow spiritually. We will gain insight on the practices and activities that are most catalytic for spiritual growth in our congregation. We will also learn our church’s best opportunities for greater impact through the post-survey statistical analysis that includes comparison to a wide range of other surveyed churches.

REVEAL will survey 500 congregations from a diverse sample of churches across the U.S., as well as international churches from a handful of English-speaking countries. This research will create a benchmark of the stages of a person’s spiritual journey, and will also provide a way to gauge the most effective strategies for helping people grow spiritually. There is no fee for the Phase 3 churches to participate in this research.

During the month of October, REVEAL is connecting with each church, alerting them to the launch date for their Spiritual Life Survey and providing information about next steps. Our launch date is scheduled for January 14, 2008 here at Grace. Between now and the end of the year REVEAL will send each church a link to the survey prior to their launch date. Sometime then between February-April 2008, REVEAL will share the findings from the research with each participating church.

REVEAL will provide us with promotional guidelines for the survey, including suggested language for print and spoken announcements, along with an email template for distributing the survey link to your congregation. Following our launch date, the survey link will remain open for two weeks, allowing us two weekends to promote the survey through electronic, print, and platform reminders. We will launch the survey to our congregation with an email that includes the survey link. The survey will take approximately 20 minutes to complete and needs to be completed in one sitting. We will send out a follow-up email 3-5 days after we launch the survey as a reminder to our congregation to participate.

When our survey timeframe concludes, our congregation’s responses will be collected anonymously by an independent research organization. After tabulating our results and compiling our church’s report, REVEAL will share their findings with us. This is a wonderful opportunity for our church. The findings will have the potential to surprise us and transform us in more effectively fulfilling our purpose of meeting people where they are and moving them to where God wants them to be.