The Willow Creek Dilemma: Why Our Association With Them Is Wrong: The following report, gleaned from various sources, was presented to an overseers committee at my. Part I -- The Market-Driven Church. The church, as observed throughout its history, reminds me a lot of a duffer's golf swing. She is constantly going from one. These excerpts were taken from Bill Hybels' weekend message, June 3, 2007. I've posted this video in well-meaning, thoughtful response to the mis. 7,687 Jobs: '' Distance to job: 5 miles 10 miles 20 miles 50 miles. Company: AA Service Company Heatin AAR CORP ABF Freight System, Inc ACH Food Company. Is Willow Creek the Way of the Future? Lyle Schaller calls Willow Creek . Variations on the seeker theme make up a new vocabulary: services are . Pritchard describes Willow Creek church, its ministries and its leaders, then offers a critique. He acknowledges that he has provided something for everybody—advocates of Willow Creek like the first part and lose interest in the analysis; detractors prefer the analysis and are impatient with the description. Pritchard describes himself as an evangelical whose basic discipline is sociology. Though his book was published in 1. Over 200 Ministries and 11 Locations, Saddleback Church's Mission is to be a Place of Family, Community, and Hope. A Place to get Help, Healing and Hope. Is this pragmatic, consumer- oriented approach to the unchurched the way of the future for churches in North America? If so, what is the cost to traditional understandings of church and ministry? My bias is similar to Pritchard’s—I’m an advocate of the intent but question aspects of the delivery. If I were 2. 5 years younger, I would undoubtedly be an enthusiastic member of the Willow Creek Association. In addition to worrying about straying over some theologically important boundaries, I have pragmatic reservations. My training in organizational behavior and experience with . Healthy congregations in the 2. But then Willow Creek itself will probably look different in 1. Using their market- driven approach, its leaders will likely learn to address the current weaknesses. Pritchard discusses what I consider to be Willow Creek’s most important innovation: its marketing focus on . He and unchurched Mary personify the baby boomers that Willow Creek is committed to reaching. The first step in reaching them is to understand them—how they feel and think, what they need and how they will respond. If an idea can’t pass the Harry test, it doesn’t go far in the seeker service. In some ways, Harry is in the driver’s seat. Personifying the person to be reached is a helpful staffing point, and a valuable corrective to doctrinaire approaches to outreach and worship. Effective church leaders of previous generations usually had a good intuitive feel for the people they wanted to reach. Welcome to Willow Creek! Whether you're new or just want to explore, we're here to help guide you in your spiritual journey. Get to know us on a deeper level.Today’s marketing emphasis relies on more explicit ways of identifying what innovative pastors used to assess instinctively. One of the most visible market researchers for churches is George Barna. He did some of his early research at Willow Creek and shares many convictions of its leaders. He is certainly a competent pollster. But I find that he overgeneralizes his data to fit with his agenda. The term for them in the . Although Willow Creek leaders encourage other churches to find the comparable profile for their own communities, much of the discussion among followers repeats the South Barrington impression of Harry and Mary. In Pritchard’s assessment, unchurched Harry represents only about 1. Willow Creek on a weekend. Most are what Pritchard terms . When criticized for leaving out components of a traditional worship service, Willow Creek responds that this is not a worship service; it is a seeker service. Wednesday evening is the time for the believers’ worship service, which includes the Lord’s Supper. The freshness of this approach is appealing. The problem of a society rapidly becoming unchurched deserves a radical solution. If Sunday morning is prime time for believers, why not recognize it as prime time for seekers? They too face the least competition for their time at these hours. Let the people who’ve made a commitment come at a less convenient time. This would be a reasonable accommodation if those involved in seeker services remain conscious that it is not yet worship as it ought to be. In practice this distinction often gets blurred for leaders in congregations that model themselves after Willow Creek. One result is what Sally Morganthaler, in her book Worship Evangelism; sees as a nonworship epidemic. How many of those efforts will ever get to the next step? Will those Willow Creek followers even remember what the next step is? In a true seeker service, attenders are not called on to participate or directly respond in worship. The theory is that Harry doesn’t sing any place else and resists having words put in his mouth. What Harry wants and gets is a polished professional performance. What he doesn’t get is a chance to see people like himself engaging in a worship relationship with God. Is a seeker service the best introduction to what a Christian church stands for? Addressing such reservations has led many churches to settle for being . Helping churches be sensitive in this fashion is Willow Creek’s lasting contribution. A third innovation is Willow Creek’s use of multimedia on Sunday morning. Sophisticated lighting, sound and visual imagery seem a prerequisite in this media age. I have heard of Willow Creek- like churches that have invested more than $1. Drama is not new to churches, of course. Willow Creek’s special contribution is to use theater as a springboard to the sermon. The five- minute drama that winsomely introduces the theme of the day is being increasingly utilized by churches concerned about effective communication. This is a plus, for any kind of service. Two other areas that Pritchard highlights in the descriptive part of his book are the emphasis on programs that appeal to the emotions and the packaging of the gospel as user- friendly Christianity 1. Both are noteworthy adaptations of basic church ministry to the Harry/boomer part of our culture. But probably neither will stand the test of time well. Reasons for such pessimism are underscored in the analytical portion of Pritchard’s book: . He worries about superficiality that can accompany a media emphasis on image, a simplistic self- help psychology, an uncritical marketing view of success, and displacement into the background of God’s demanding transcendence. There are two possible negative consequences. One is that biblical truth and power will be so diluted that the Christian church will lose effectiveness at ministering the gospel. This is the easiest criticism to make, and it may not be the most important. God has a way of raising new leaders and ministers to meet the needs of a changed day. The more worrisome consequence is that when the culture changes, as it will, Willow Creek may lose its effectiveness and not know how to adapt. Perhaps the folk in South Barrington will recognize what is happening and figure out how to change. But what about the hundreds of imitators who lack the creative drive, flair and energy to adjust? In a world of Willow Creeks, pop psychology can invert and ambush biblical truth about the relation between people and God. A firm foundation in scripture and in research- oriented psychology would generate a clearer recognition of the limits of such approaches. But cautions are not likely to receive much attention because of what Pritchard identifies as a strong pragmatic bias toward what is immediately useful. What doesn’t work now is not important. Will the Willow Creek way generate enough intellectual grounding among followers to help them spot and avoid the problems in the long run that come with attention only to quick fixes? The same goes for the attitude toward marketing. It is a tool that ultimately has to serve the higher truths of those using it. When I taught church marketing, I stressed the need for careful, informed engineering of the product chosen for the intended market; it has to perform as promised. Letting marketing techniques and vocabulary dominate church thinking, without critically assessing how needs will be met, is a good prescription for driving . It happens regularly with businesses that give engineering short shrift. At least they offer plenty of exposure to how theology and churches can go wrong. At the time of Pritchard’s research, few of the top leaders at Willow Creek had finished a seminary education, and this was considered a strength. More seminary- trained people have come on board since then. Those with a vested interest in theological education can’t help wondering how a church can remain effective over the long haul without a solid foundation of scriptural interpretation, church history and systematic theology among its leaders. Time will tell. It is interesting to compare Willow Creek with Robert Schuller’s Garden Grove Community Church. Twenty years ago everybody was talking about and criticizing Schuller, his Hour of Power television show and his . Church growth was a new and radical concept for many. The shallowness Schuller was accused of, caricatured as the Gospel of Success, revolved around his preaching of self- esteem without reflecting on sin and judgment, and his avoidance of controversy through relinquishing a . Schuller’s Institute for Successful Church Leadership did (and does) fill the role for an older generation of church leaders that the Willow Creek Association now fills for the younger. Schuller considers Willow Creek founder Bill Hybels his leading disciple, but Hybels is less excited about the relationship. As he once told Schuller, . Is this church phenomenon of the ? Willow Creek is less of a personality cult; you can talk about its ministries without talking about Bill Hybels, and that’s a plus. Willow Creek has not opted for national TV, even though it is very media- oriented. It considers itself primarily a community ministry—another plus for church modeling. And Willow Creek is more effective at reaching the boomer generation. Schuller’s packaging reaches the boomers’ parents, but has not broken the generation barrier very well. In terms of modeling how to understand a church’s target market, however, Schuller’s approach is more helpful. Those who want to learn about the people they are trying to reach should get out onto the street talking to hundreds and even thousands. This makes a more constructive impression than reading statistical trends and developing hypotheses about a mythical Harry.
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