Be The Fruit

What is going on at Willow? Part 2

by Bill Blair on 26/02/08 at 3:21 pm

Instead of covering the REVEAL findings, in this installment I want to point out one positive that I think has come out of the seeker-focused movement that Willow Creek has been a leader of. 

From my perspective, one positive that has come out of the seeker-focused movement has been the trend to strip away traditions in church that get in the way of God.  Let me be clear, I am not against tradition, but sometimes traditions can become more important than seeking God.  Sometimes the style of worship becomes more important than the worshiping.  Getting rid of these types of traditions can have the effect of centering our focus on God where it belongs. 

In the case of my church, I think getting rid of some traditions allowed them to achieve a level of authenticity in the things that they did.  I say this because, for me, when I was a non-believer I kept going to my church not because they were so “relevant,” but because I thought they were real. 

I think the most important thing is to be authentic about our core beliefs.  It is interesting that many people seem surprised to find out that my church is a part of the SBC.  First, there is no “Baptist” in the name, and our core culture does not reflect what many think a Baptist church looks like.  People may say, “Is this really a Baptist church?”  I want to say, “Do you see that big tub of water in the corner of the room?  It is that big because so big people can get in there and go under water.  Hang around a little bit and you will see that we don’t baptize babies.  Heck, we don’t even dedicate babies, we dedicate parents.”

The above illustration points out how cultural traditions can overshadow essential beliefs.  It seems that some associate the idea of being a Baptist with the traditional external cultural manifestations of Baptists rather than a core doctrine like believer’s baptism.  By stripping away such cultural traditions, I think we can focus on showing people what we really believe in.

Once again, I want to emphasize that I am not against tradition per se.  If you study church history, you will see that tradition was key in holding the church together through the first 200 years of its existence.  So, tradition is good as long as it is good tradition that points you toward the truth of God.

This was a bit of tangent, but the main thing I want to emphasize is that not everything from the seeker movement, which Willow Creek has been a champion of is all bad.  I have seen some negativity surrounding Bill Hybels and Willow Creek with lots of “piling on” the REVEAL findings, so I wanted to just point out a positive effect of their movement.  Let’s remember that Bill Hybels is not Joel Osteen.

Next time, I will get back to a critique of the REVEAL findings.