Friday, October 26, 2007

Willow Creek Repents?

This is significant and will have repercussions throughout the evangelical church. It is also encouraging in that a large established church like Willow would be willing to say they goofed.

Few would disagree that Willow Creek Community Church has been one of the most influential churches in America over the last thirty years. Willow, through its association, has promoted a vision of church that is big, programmatic, and comprehensive. This vision has been heavily influenced by the methods of secular business. James Twitchell, in his new book Shopping for God, reports that outside Bill Hybels’ office hangs a poster that says: “What is our business? Who is our customer? What does the customer consider value?” Directly or indirectly, this philosophy of ministry—church should be a big box with programs for people at every level of spiritual maturity to consume and engage—has impacted every evangelical church in the country.

So what happens when leaders of Willow Creek stand up and say, “We made a mistake”? Read More.



2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good for Willow Creek!

Essentially what they have done is a ROI analysis on their ministry. What they discovered is some better ideas about accomplishing the goals of their ministry.

Hopefully this type of "church" activity will become common. No doubt it will produce better results.

Ron Ballew said...

I'm glad they were humble enough to publish the findings and admit their mistakes.