Embracing the Process: Moving Beyond Event Thinking in Our Walk with God

Blog by Alan Fadling

One of my mentors, Chuck Miller, often said two simple words that have shaped how I think about my work: “Process matters.” The work we do is not isolated from the work we’ve done or the work we will do in the future. There is a difference between process thinking and event thinking.

Our life is a process, a pathway, a journey. Working with God is too.

We are invited by Jesus into a transforming journey: week by week, month by month, year by year. Over time, God is changing us little by little. Either we can learn to cooperate with this process or we can resist it. The process is there just the same.

One passage that helps me cultivate process thinking is Paul’s counsel to his friends in Galatia:

“Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.” (Galatians 5:25)

We are alive because God’s Spirit breathes life into us moment by moment. Paul says that since we are alive thanks to the work of God’s Spirit, let’s learn to keep in step with the guidance of that same Spirit.

This counsel is not about a static moral stance. It is a pathway, and along it we learn to more deeply commune and more fully collaborate with God.  We can learn to cultivate an attentiveness and responsiveness to the Spirit’s presence with us. This is one facet of what I’m referring to here as “process thinking.”

When we cooperate with God’s process in our lives, what we do in a particular moment may not feel especially productive. For example, if I was completely clueless about agriculture, seeing a farmer pouring water at the roots of a tree might look like he’s just making mud. But since most of us know how trees work, we realize that watering them is one way to help trees be as productive as they can be.

As I pray for people in my life and in my work, it doesn’t often feel profoundly productive. It may look and feel like words spoken into the air. I know it’s a good thing to do, but I don’t always realize that it’s an activity much like the farmer watering the tree. I am cooperating with the work of God’s Spirit in the lives of others. I am inviting the gracious presence of God to bless the one for whom I pray.

In contrast to process thinking is event thinking. Here, we imagine our lives as a series of events to manage rather than a process in which events are interrelated elements. We can become wrapped up in meeting after meeting, project after project, task after task. We may miss how they relate to one another or where they are heading or what is the goal of it all.

How do events play into process? Instead of seeing a long sequence of unrelated events that can overwhelm me, I learn to see all the events of my life as a divinely interrelated process. I’m on a single journey that involves many encounters, many gatherings, many projects, and many tasks. I see the one process God has me in rather than seeing the many events of that process as separate and unrelated.

But it sometimes feels easier to be event-focused instead. Events often feel productive in the moment. Getting something done feels satisfying. We accomplish something. Maybe we attract a group of people to participate in something we’ve planned. Maybe we earn a bit of income. These are all good, desirable outcomes.

But process thinking provides the larger context of the eventual “why” for all these events. Process thinking is about taking a longer view of productivity. One facet of the process God has me in is helping others become deeply rooted followers of Jesus. That takes longer than a few months.

In the final chapter of my book An Unhurried Leader, I talk about “Working with God,” and toward the end of the chapter I share a process way of thinking called CDER. (I usually pronounce it as “cedar.”) It’s an acronym for contemplation, discernment, engagement, and reflection. Having an event orientation to life and work can cause us to overlook elements like contemplation, discernment, and reflection, and just fill our lives with more and more engagement.

Do, do, do. Wayne Anderson, another of my mentors, talked about “Do Do Theology” (and the pun is fully intended). Our faith and our work are more than just doing lots of things for God. We are on a journey with God in all that we do. What we do is rooted in who God has made us. What we do is fruit of our communion with God.  

So CDER is a way of cultivating a process way of thinking about my life and work.

• I learn to cultivate a contemplative
• I learn to see my life and work with a discerning
• I learn to engage in my life and work in this contemplative and discerning framework.
• And then I grow in wisdom through reflecting on how God has guided me, encouraged me, and counseled me, and what I learned in those moments.

Making space in our way of living and working for contemplation, discernment, and reflection is, by design, unhurried. It can feel less productive because we imagine that these practices take time away from doing actual work.

But if we see our lives as the divine process that they are, then these practices are very much like the farmer watering a tree, weeding around it, feeding its roots. In the moment it doesn’t appear productive, but when the moment for harvest comes, we’ll likely find more and better fruit.

For Reflection:

• How do you typically view your life and work—as a series of events to manage or as a continuous process of growth and transformation?
• Reflect on a recent situation where you felt unproductive. Could it have been an opportunity to “water the roots” of a larger process in your life?
• What steps can you take to incorporate more contemplation, discernment, and reflection (CDER) into your weekly engagements?