My friend helped me understand WIllow in a new way. It's imitators and I missed some key details. It's more than an event.
For instance, Willow has a membership process that is quite involved. It's not what the early church had for sure - it's not two years long. But it requires hours of study, a signed commitment making many promises and acknowledging the responsibilities and duties of being a member of the church, and a face to face meeting with one of hundreds of trained membership counselors who go over the wanna be member's "homework" and reiterate the importance and specifics of the membership commitment being entered into.
This membership is reaffirmed every year with more study and meeting and another signature. Every year.
Members promise to be involved in learning, serving and giving and more. And they deliver. That massive auditorium at Willow was built by both outside professionals and Willow members. Members donated massive amounts of time and sweat to wiring, installing, painting, plumbing and constructing the place they would one day worship in together. That was their duty, as they saw it, as members of a family called Willow Creek.
And there's more. Lots more that goes unimitated and unnoticed. An aids office with a staff of more than a hundred, unpaid staff members who are just so stinking rich they've decided to donate their fulltime work to the church, hundreds of cars given away to single mothers, houses built, orphans fed, a robust missions department, mentoring programs, bible study, justice initiatives, racial reconciliation trips, and on and on. And it's not just programs - I think. If my friend is telling the truth - and I think he is - the leadership of the church measures its success not on the number of attenders each week but on the number of "participating members" who are actively taking advantage of tools and resources and relationship in the church for knowing God and making God known.
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Is MegaChurch all bad?
When I was in my twenties I spent alot of time going to Willow Creek Church conferences learning how to do church in a more "relevant" way. It was good times and I learned alot. As I have grown older I have, generally speaking, grown weary of the typical mega-church model with all of it's slickness. Though I would most likely differ on some major points of theology with the leadership of Willow Creek church, I think it is important to remember that Willow and many other churchs like them are doing some amazing Kingdom work. In the Reformed wing of the Christian blogsphere we often default to "what is wrong with everyone else" type posts. I know I am guilty of this. Today, Shaun Groves, in this post brings a different emphasis that served to remind me that God's grace can be found in many places where my grace is not. In it he says of Willow:
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6 comments:
John- Here are the same comments I emailed you in abbreivated form:
Nice article... seems to be a good summary of all the stuff good that is behind the "external picture of Willow" that people see as outsiders - nice from an "outsiders" perspective too. I agree it's easy to cast stones from the outside and have myself been guilty of this at times (maybe on my blog!). However, I still would want to say my concerns are that I prefer other methods (so mine is a methodological difference that does stem from theological differences) for reaching lost people than what "as an outsider" I've perceived in the seeker-model (by "seeker-model" I mean programming that operates like the fundamental obstacles to conversion are sociological rather than theological).
Regarding the "women in ministry" stuff which I've alluded to not being in harmony with... I think (realize this is just my opinion) we should be careful calling those who disagree "chauvinistic" - just like I want to be careful not to call my egalitarians friends "radical liberal feminists". These labels don't help and are probably not too accurate. The position that I would hold, "complementarianism", does conclude that women should not hold the position of pastor/elder, and it is based on my understanding of the relevant biblical passages, the nature of God, & the history of the church over the last 2000 years. That's not to say that my understanding of any of that is infallible, only that I've done my best to work through the data and settle on reasons that I base my convictions on that go a bit deeper than shallow biases - just like the egalitarian argument typically goes deeper too (I just don't share some of their presuppositions and conclusions on certain biblical passages).
Good words Josh. Obviously we just lovingly disagree on many points of course - of which I'm glad we live where we openly can! ;-) I apologize for my words that may be offensive and off the cuff. Yet, (setting Parkview aside) I have witnessed some very heartless treatment of woman in the church by men and some very poor leadership that could have been so helped (as I saw women at the time who did have the proper insight and solutions to situations at hand) who were totally ignored and suppressed - and consequences were paid because of it. Perhaps my statements of "many men" should be changed to "a few" or "some." But it's out there. It's hard when you've seen first hand the true beauty of men and women working together in leadership and the influence of women elders working in equality with male elders and the results of that first hand, face to face. It's not evil! Then I see the contrast I've seen in churches that don't, where the identity, culture, compassion, attention to certain areas of concern, is soooo much different and lacking - it's almost like seeing a body with it's left arm cut off after seeing what I would call a more balanced leadership approach. Something's just "missing"! It's so obvious when you've lived on both sides. I've seen arguments theologically for and against this of course and tried to make sense of all that man has scholarly come up with, which seems to me just lead to more arguments. I respect what theology brings to the table and obviously there is a lot to it. Yet, I seem to surmise, why by no means a scholar as you know, that the arguments FOR women elders, seem much more logical, in line with what I've learned of God's character to be, and consistent with how I see the rest of scripture taught, and easy to understand and fathom, versus the arguments against women elders that seem to be a lot harder to make the case to me, and a lot more fraught with what I see as conflicts of literal interpretation that are out of balance with other similar scripture that we DON'T hold to literally. (i.e. - it seems harder and more stretching to me to make the case against women elders than for.) As sited in Willow's statement on women and men in the church - "God has acted in Christ to redeem the human race, and to offer to all people the opportunity to be part of the New Community, His church. It is God's intention for his children to experience the oneness that exists between the Father and the Son (John 17:11, 20-23). This means that old divisions and hierarchies between genders and races are not to be tolerated in the church, where all are "one in Christ Jesus"(Gal.3:28).
Bottom line, I choose to hold to what I have actually witnessed of God's movement and hand in very powerful ways, the likes that I have honestly not seen since I was at Willow. I did not grow up in church culture, did not study theology or the bible before becoming a Christian. Thus, I can only speak for what I witnessed of God at work at Willow through these very Godly people - men, women, children, and families alike. Just as the every day man or woman in Jesus' time did not have our similar modern theology, etc. to measure Jesus' actions by, where he met their needs and loved them right where they were. They had to take him at his word and by his actions - in spite of the "theologians" of the day that said otherwise. Which is how I saw things at Willow - by words, actions, and fruit of the spirit. ("Therefore, by their fruits you will know them.") In comparison, sometimes seeing other churches and looking at the same elements to compare, I've usually seen less of "Jesus" in the church and in it's actions, words, and fruit, and more of Man trying to "be church" as it thinks it should be - but not truly doing it as Jesus meant or lived it.
JWD
Thanks for your comment and calling me on the carpet.
I think I understand what you're saying and bringing to contention - I do want to remind in case you missed - I did serve and work there for 15 years, so I have a good reference point for what really goes/went on there.
I don't discount that there are LOTS of other Godly/authentic churches out there obviously – I'm certain some more than Willow (as if this can be measured! (grin) - however I didn't say Willow "IS" the most - only "one of" probably the most - this has been affirmed by countless thousands - probably millions - of people all over the world that have attended conferences there and abroad from other churches - many that come in wanting to prove Willow to be what it's reputation in some circles is - and they walk out completely changed people with regards to Willow's approach. Obviously in the case of Shaun and the person he knew, this sounded like somewhat the case. I have been to many churches large and small, and many of the mega churches. I can truly say, seeing that I know Willow and it's history very intimately and how it started very organically - not a planned strategic effort – but a true movement of God - that God is truly at work there in mighty ways - at least when I attended. You cannot deny the influence of Willow on modern church and Christianity since 1975 when it started it’s very radical approach for that day in time, not to mention its outreach efforts world wide since, which largely go unspoken. I have personally experienced few communities and teaching staff with as much transparency, openness, authenticity, and willingness to lay their lives before a body as examples, good and bad, as Willow. I've seen few cases of the level of authentic Biblical community, communication, and accountability as Willow and that is modeled, upheld, and taught regularly. Believe me - it's a CHALLENGING place to go to church!! Contrary to popular belief, it's not church light. Go to Wed. night worship. Conviction runs rampant! (grin) Seeing this is echoed by millions of people that have conferenced there, and shake their heads at it in Praise to God, who is the only true reason, I can only surmise that willow is high on some list as churches go. But certainly, it's not the only one, and I didn't try to state that. And Willow has it's issues too. I worked there - I know. As any church or org does. But again, take a visit there - spend a couple days. It's the only way to find out what a beautiful work of God it is. Hope that helps! Love in Christ.
- John
FYI - For personal reasons, I asked Zach to remove my earlier comments. Sorry if my haste of response and emotions offended anyone. Forgive me.
- John Carlson
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