And, still worse news: no single curriculum or program could help us. We needed to fashion an introduction to church that worked in our setting. Adult formation would be a process, not a program. We needed to understand our own identity and communicate our vision of faith and vocation to the new members.

The congregation became more fully itself, more aware of God's call, in the process of thinking through and experimenting with adult formation. That awareness—of congregational identity and the practices that bound us together—translated into even more people coming into the church and an ever-being-revised cycle of evangelism, incorporation, formation, and practice. Creative processes are being re-worked and re-created as the church grows and changes.