I was sent this link from Leadership Journal about how Willow Creek did a self study on the effectiveness of their programs in building up spiritually mature people. The shocking result? Programs for every type of interest didn’t do much in growing people more like Jesus or buying into WWJD. The money built a special interest club.
The conclusion? What makes for spiritually mature Christians are healthy relationships with other Christians; frequent prayer and bible study; service to others; and a crazy little thing called love.
And you don’t need a multi-million dollar building to do it. In fact, it might even get in the way.
Whatever will we think of next?
I find such transparency refreshing. It sounds like someone at Willow Creek has been growing…
i’ve read their report. It was encouraging to read being a church that doesn’t have a budget in the tens of millions or a campus the size of a medium sized city.
The only nuance I’d add is that they (willow) still find all of their big programs to be effective in bringing in the unchurched and the dechurched. They noticed that these programs did in fact help move people along in their spiritual journey at the early phases of it. But then as the linked article notes, a transition must happen in order for growth to be sustained, where the people are taught how to feed themselves in smaller iterations of the Church that are a lot less flashy and budget dependent and much more 1st century.
I just wanted to bring out that clarification… still after reading the book, I’m glad to know that there is hope for the rest of us 🙂
When people become self feeders the way Christ would want them to be they will no longer have need for the services of Willow Creek as well as other churches that follow the model of Willow Creek. It will be interesting to see how the next three decades of Willow Creek pan out.