Skip to main content

Filtering the Waters of Willow Creek



Too many people were observing the show but not meeting God. They meandered in and out of relationship but weren’t in real community. They sought their spiritual fix but didn’t give themselves fully to Christ.
Walt Kallestad, Pastor of Community Church of Joy, Phoenix[1]


In 2010, I attended one of the satellite broadcasts of the Willow Creek Association Global Leadership Summit.  The list of speakers was quite impressive and the substance of their presentations was thought-provoking.  I can still recall Robert Reich’s talk on altruistic motivation, China’s economic minister speaking about the impact of Christianity on progressive Chinese culture, and the inspiring story of TOM’s Shoes.  I also remember the host’s condescending remarks about traditional churches.  As he welcomed everyone to the event, he admitted that some might be surprised to have such a world-class event hosted by a local church. “But not to worry,” he said, “you won’t have to sing old hymns or hear a bad choir here.”  I cringed.  His comment illustrated the mindset of many seeker-driven churches against any and all traditions.   I recognized Willow’s bias because I had encountered it many years before when I served in my first full-time worship position in the late 1980s. 

My path to full-time worship vocation was not direct.  I had to wait for my opportunity.  I had prepared myself to be a minister of music by enrolling at Biola University as a music major.  My undergraduate journey was not without its challenges, but nevertheless, I did graduate with a B.A. in music and I expected to secure a full-time position in a church ministry.  Into every young life some disillusionment must come and my failure to secure such an appointment hit pretty hard.  But I was hired to be a music specialist at a Christian School serving K-8 students. 

I could have never foreseen it, but my experience at the Christian School led me to take another position at a similar but much larger school which was a ministry of the church I attended while in high school.  Even though I wasn’t in full-time church music ministry, it was nice to come home.  Shortly after I started, however, the minister of music was forced to resign and I was recruited to serve as the interim minister until a permanent one could be hired.  My pathway had many twists and turns, but I was eventually offered the position two years later.  My term as interim during a very difficult season in the church had purchased a good deal of trust and credibility for me to launch my first full-time position in my preferred vocation.  It was my “dream job.” 

At Biola, I was well-immersed in hymnology and traditional church music.  But as a product of the Jesus People Movement, I was also committed to the new praise and worship genre.  With a wide appreciation of both, I’ve always tried to lead congregations to embrace a broad spectrum of worship music.  I’ve also received a healthy dose of criticism.  That included from the new Executive Pastor (XP) that the church had hired.

While I was on staff, we were well-positioned for substantial growth.  Our facilities were more than adequate.  Lowering of double-digit mortgage rates in the mid-1980s unleased a real estate explosion in the community.  The church went from 400 attendees to nearly 1,000 in less than two years.  The XP that was hired to accommodate our growth was influenced by the increasing impact of Willow Creek Church.  The staff began attending church growth seminars that prescribed getting rid of all hymns and choirs and fully embracing the new contemporary praise and worship music style.  While I was bothered by the callous disposal of church tradition and disregard for the people who struggled with such a shift, I was even more bothered by the fact that the church growth experts had never done any serious study and reflection on the topic of Christian worship.  To them, just doing the right style of music was essential in order to get Boomers to come back to church.  We had to provide the “worship product” and programming that appealed to them. 

I wasn’t on staff too long when I began to experience tension with the XP.  I still wanted to include some hymns in the worship service, but he was determined to eliminate them.  I was frustrated that he, like the church growth consultants, had done minimal study and reflection on worship (if any at all) and yet he was dictating policy to me. Worship had been my passionate focus in study, reflection, and practice for well over ten years.  At his direction, I began to draw up a script for each worship service, a practice that I still do and have found to be quite helpful for those who lead and are in support roles.  But the XP also expected me to recruit a team of people who would time each element of the service with a stopwatch and submit their findings to him.  Being formed in part by the Charismatic influence of the Jesus People Movement, I thought that level of programming control seemed antithetical to Spirit-led worship.

The hardest challenge, however, came when the XP insisted that I take one of my core singers off of the praise team because of her weight.  It was important to him that everyone on the platform convey a certain young and attractive look.  Because she was somewhat overweight, she didn’t qualify.  It didn’t matter that she had a consistent and dynamic Christian testimony and that she was one of my best singers.  She didn’t have the right look, so the XP did not want to have her on the platform.  And, of course, I was supposed to be the one to tell her.

One of the senior leaders of the church later informed me that the XP had repeatedly tried to get me fired.  Looking back, I know that I was wrong in some of my insubordination.  But it was a clash of ministry philosophy. Some of the demands that were made of me conflicted with my deepest held values.  In God’s providence, church conflict from another arena caused the XP to resign and I stayed on.  Such was my first encounter with the seeker-driven methodology inspired by Willow Creek Community Church.

A New Kind of Church
Evangelicalism in the late twentieth century witnessed the emergence of a new way of doing church that focused specifically on unbelievers who were spiritually curious.  Churches that focused their mission on reaching these people were called “seeker-driven” or simply, “seeker churches.”  Of these churches, none has been more influential than Willow Creek Community Church in Chicago, Illinois....



The preceding excerpt is from a chapter in Strategic Portraits: People and Movements That Shaped Evangelical Worship.  The remainder of the chapter tells the story of Willow Creek Community Church and the impact that the Seeker-Driven Church has had on evangelical worship.  As in all of the other chapters of the book, a path to renewal is offered. You may purchase the book at Amazon in print or Kindle format. 




[1] Walt Kallestad and Jim Wilson, “Showtime!” No More, Christianity Today, Fall, 2008. http://www.christianitytoday.com/pastors/2008/fall/13.39.html. Accessed 1.25.2017.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Lament for a Nation

June 7, 2020 Psalm 85 We Have Forgotten God I’ve said many times how much I enjoy preaching through the Gospel of Mark.  You can’t go wrong exploring the words and actions of Jesus.  And I also know that I am most effective in my preaching when I can systematically go through a biblical book, building truth upon truth as we journey through a text.  But there are times when it is necessary to step aside from the progression of a series and address what is happening around us.  Today is one of those times.  Our whole nation was shocked, grieved, and angered at the brutality of officer Derrick Chauvin as he literally choked the life out of George Floyd while he pled for mercy.  And all the while, three other officers just stood around without saying anything while their colleague committed murder in front of a crowd.  Any moral person, regardless of race or political persuasion, has been outraged.  It was no surprise then, that many ...

The Light of the Word Has Dawned

I have mentioned several times in this column that I grew up going to churches that did not observe the Church Year.   I knew nothing of Lent, Advent, All Saints Day, and Epiphany.   Christmas, Easter, and Palm Sunday were the only special days that we observed in the tradition in which I was formed.   For the last ten years, however, I have been in a position to lead churches into the observance of some of the richness that can be found in the rhythms of the Church Year.   My spiritual life has been profoundly deepened. This Sunday is “Epiphany Sunday.”   It is the close of the Advent Season and celebrates the revealing of Christ to the world.   The biblical stories that typically accompany this Sunday are the appearance of the Magi in Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus’ baptism at the Jordan River, and Mary and Joseph’s encounter with Anna and Simeon at the Temple when they came to dedicate Jesus.   All of those narratives reveal that Jesus is the Sa...

Revivalism's Legacy

“Lord, whence are those blood-drops all the way   That mark out the mountain’s track?” “They were shed for one who had gone astray   Ere the Shepherd could bring him back.” “Lord, whence are Thy hands so rent and torn?” “They’re pierced tonight by many a thorn.”                                         “The Ninety and Nine”                Words by Elizabeth C. Clephane, 1868           Music spontaneously improvised by Ira. D. Sankey, 1874 I was only five years old when my brother told me I was going to hell.   Older brothers are like that.    He had just prayed to receive Christ as his personal Savior in Sunday Scho...