What is going on at Willow Part 4
by Bill Blair on 05/03/08 at 8:49 pm
I started this series with the intent of it being a single post, but that initial post was beginning to get long so I decided to make it a two-part series. Well, now we are into part 4, which will be the last post of this series. At least I think it will be the last.
In my first post I tried to clarify Willow Creek’s position on the REVEAL study. In my second post I offered a positive that I have personally encountered in the seeker-focused movement. In my third post I spent some time interacting with the primary finding from the study, which is that church involvement does not equal spiritual growth. In my final post of this series I want to address why I think the results showed a lack of deep spiritual growth at Willow Creek.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, Willow Creek remains to be not only seeker-focused but seeker-obsessed. I would argue that the study “revealed” that Willow Creek accomplished their mission. They put their focus on getting seekers into church and they have obviously accomplished that because of their great growth in numbers, but that seems to be about it. I think being seeker-focused or seeker-obsessed does not quite address the whole mission of the church.
Our primary command as Christians is The Great Commission. Jesus said to go and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I think it is important to note that Jesus tells us to make disciples and not converts. You see, being a disciple is a lifelong growth program and not a one time event. We are called to make disciples which means we should focus on a person’s growth and not just their conversion. Fulfilling The Great Commission involves more that just evangelism, although it is the first and most important step.
I think as churches and as people we need to seek a balance of seeking out the lost (seekers) and fostering growth in other believers. I think churches should not be seeker-focused, but disciple-focused which would make us focus on the complete package. I don’t think it is surprising that Willow Creek did not have spiritual growth, because that did not seem to be their mission. I think the key for them or any other church is to focus on the full package and truly make disciples of Christ.
I have encountered people who have totally different viewpoints about Willow Creek and this study. On the one hand, I have encountered people who seemed to like everything Willow Creek did. It was as if the methods of Willow Creek were somehow inspired. For those people, I think the REVEAL study has shown them that Willow Creek is struggling to get “church” right just like the rest of us. On the other hand, I think we need to be careful not to judge the results of the study too harshly. You really have to think about how your church might fare doing a study like this before you pile on them.
Where do they go from here? From what I understand, Willow Creek’s solution is to develop programs to try to teach their people to be “self-feeders.” I don’t know what that actually looks like, but there seems to be something very wrong with it. Did Paul ever stop feeding his people? I would suggest that they put aside their polls and pick up a Bible. In the Bible, there is a really great program for spiritual growth described and modeled. That program is called discipleship.
Nation
Mar 5th, 2008
all organizations need a few things:
1. customers
2. money to flow through it
3. employees – providing time and energy, and utilizing systems
4. systems
Without the ability, or systems, to create, or funnel into an organization customers and employees, it just happen in non-profits these individuals are often the same people, the organization will die.
The bigger the funnel the more people you can eventually get to the end, who are your most profitable and valuable consumers. It is a mutual relationship, where they receive the most value from the organization and the organization receives the most value (money, time, energy, etc) from them.
I know a little about Willow Creek, however most of what I understand about REVEAL comes from you.
There is a good chance you missed the point of turning people into self-feeders. It is not a two step process:
1. get in door
2. set them up with food
Rather, I suspect that the second goal, or ultimate one, they are striving for is a system, or set of systems that gets people from in the door, **eventually** to the point that they are not dependent on others for spiritual growth, but pursuing it themselves, through reading the bible, studying books, sermons, podcasts, etc.
Another analogy might be like raising a child. Eventually you want them to be out on their own, earning a living, feeding, clothing, and other forms of taking care of themselves.
In building a business, one method is to start with “how are we going to reach the customers and develop some loyalty?” followed by the process of developing “systems to monetize the fanbase/customerbase to the max”.
That is what I thought of when I read this post. It’s not that they are just working on the podcasts, home study courses, etc, but they have an end goal in mind. They have succeeded in the first issue:
– there are a bunch of people who need what we got … how can we reach them with that message? or how do we “go into the world”
Now that they have effective systems for accomplishing that, they move to the next goal – discipleship.
One last visualization I might pose, this is an attempt to graphically show what they might be striving for:
Seeker –> –> New Christian –> –> –> —> —> —> —> —> —> —> Self Feeder
Where in between each arrow you have some phase of development, and you might have others after that involve fully developed and living out the individual’s role/mission/calling in the church, like their spiritual gifts and all.
If there is anything that I like and respect the most about Willow Creek it is not their music style, or their seeker focused side … it’s the fact that they have seen an issue with the status quo and attacked it. Then they have the guts to face the brutal facts and work towards self improvement.
Willow Creek is not for everyone. It is not the only way to do church. We should not have “willow creek church of ” and no other church … you should not strive to mimic every aspect of their church, except for two core things:
1. know your mission, focus or target as a church
2. do everything you can to achieve it … even if it involves killing some sacred cows.
Bill Blair
Mar 6th, 2008
Wow, that was longer than my post.
This is more for other readers because I have communicated with Nation today regarding this reply.
I am all for building up disciples to where they are able to become “adult” christians. If that is what is meant by “self-feeders,” then I am all for it.
My aversion to the concept of “self-feeding” is based on the way it was explained by Hybels at the Leadership Summit. His description seemed to be more like a process of self-feeding, not a goal of making self-feeders(adults). As it was described, people are put on a “self-feeding” track which consist of spiritual disciplines such as Bible study and prayer. That in and of itself is good, but I don’t think it will cause the growth they are looking for.
There is no substitute for a good leader pushing and challenging his people to dig deeper. I think the best way to promote spiritual growth is to concentrate on your leaders; pour into your lay leaders and build them up so they can be more effective at building up others. Jesus concentrated on his leaders and always equipped them before he sent them out(no self-feeding there).
I hope that explains it better.