Willow Creek Repents
Willow Creek Community Church has been, by all accounts, the most influential mega-church in the country, if not the world. Thousands of churches across America, in a variety of different denominations, have directly or indirectly been influenced by Willow Creek and its leader Bill Hybels.
Well, after 30 years doing business, Willow Creek is admitting that they’ve been doing church wrong.
Read that sentence again. 30 years. Thousands of people. Millions of dollars. And they’ve been doing it wrong.
Here’s how Hybels put it:
We made a mistake. What we should have done when people crossed the
line of faith and become Christians, we should have started telling
people and teaching people that they have to take responsibility to
become ‘self feeders.’ We should have gotten people, taught people, how
to read their bible between service, how to do the spiritual practices
much more aggressively on their own.
Perhaps we’re starting to turn the corner into a new paradigm for faith and practice.
4 Comments »
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI
Wow, I am stunned. And happy. Perhaps things are changing. Imagine an America without mass-marketed, entertainment-driven churches. Could it happen? We can always hope.
I was at a conference where Bill made this announcement actually, and showed us the data and thinking that went into it.
You know I’m FAR from being a mega-church type Christian, and each time I go there, its against my desires. But, I always end up being impressed. They don’t do things perfectly, but who does? They are doing what they do with the right heart, and its helping a lot of people nobody else is reaching out to.
I’m by no means saying that Willow Creek is wrong for doing what they’ve done. In fact, for a long period of time, I think Willow Creek was probably doing the exact right thing for the culture. Willow Creek is the perfect model for reaching baby boomers. But times are changing. Culture is changing. The methods and practices of a Willow Creek have probably been on a decline for nearly a decade.
I think the world we live in today simple doesn’t respond to slick programs designed to get people participating. It might get them into church. It might get introduce them to Jesus. But I think what Hybels, et al, are discovering is that these types of things don’t create disciples of Christ. Essentially, Hybels found the perfect formula to create fans of church. I know several Willow Creek members who are genuine in their commitment to their church but spiritually immature, not because they don’t want to grow. It’s because they haven’t been given the tools, teaching, or experience to do so.
This is where I would insert my advertisement for emergent / missional / post-modern models of church, as taught by Bob Webber, Brian McLaren, et al. But I’ll let you guys fill in that blank.
Well said. We agree!