Does the Holy Ghost Have an Invisible Hand?
The more I’ve thought about the particular theology I wrote about in my last post, the more bizarre I find it to be. Before I tell you how, allow me another excerpt from Jeff Sharlet’s article:
New Lifers, Pastor Ted writes with evident pride, “like the benefits, risks, and maybe above all, the excitement of a free-market society.” They like the stimulation of a new brand. “Have you ever switched your toothpaste brand, just for the fun of it?” Pastor Ted asks. Admit it, he insists. All the way home, you felt a “secret little thrill,” as excited questions ran through your mind: “Will it make my teeth whiter? My breath fresher?” This is the sensation Ted wants pastors to bring to the Christian experience. He believes it is time “to harness the forces of free-market capitalism in our ministry.”
So it’s time to infuse ministry with the “forces of free-market capitalism,” is it? To make it as exciting as switching toothpastes? All the better to introduce others to the Minty Fresh Breath of Jesus?
Please.
Here’s my concern.... If my microeconomics textbooks taught me anything, it’s that the motor that drives the “forces of free-market capitalism” that Haggard and others want to bring to the pulpit is this: rational self-interest. The free market absolutely depends on autonomous individuals looking out for number one, seeking to maximize utility in every interaction. As Gordon Gekko put it, “Greed, for lack of a better word, is good.”
I don’t make this point because I’m hoping to begin a discussion of the relative merits of capitalism or socialism or whether Jesus advocated private property and personal profit. What I am interested in is whether this is a responsible or even a Biblical model for the church.
I don’t think it is.
When I explore the teachings of Jesus and the letters of Paul and others, I come away with a very different picture of the Christian life, much less of Christian community. Rational self-interest may be the organizing principle for the rest of the world, but it is downright antithetical to the radical God-centered, self-donating life of Jesus.
In a similar post, Zossima at Forgetting Ourselves points to an article in BusinessWeek Online called ”God, Inc.” that explores the business model of the megachurch. The picture that it paints is one of churches that have spent tens of millions of dollars to build campuses that cater to all your needs: $90 million for Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Compaq Center, $72 million for Bill Hybels’ Willow Creek, $100 million for Mike Buster’s Prestonwood Baptist Church.
Sure, such capital investments allow these churches to reach larger and larger congregations. And I don’t want to suggest that God cannot and does not work through the megachurch. But is bigger really the goal? And what do these churches sacrifice to reach this goal?
Part of the answer can be found in the buildings themselves. The designers of the new sanctuary at Willow Creek, for example, purposefully chose not to incorporate traditional symbols like the cross. Why? BusinessWeek reports that “Market research suggested that such traditional symbols would scare away non-churchgoers.” And this non-threatening approach extends to the church’s teaching: “Like Osteen, Hybels packages self-help programs with a positive message intended to make people feel good about themselves.”
Now, I can understand wanting to make all kinds of people feel welcome, and I can appreciate the desire to be “seeker-sensitive,” whatever that may mean. But I find the idea of a feel-good gospel troubling, and it seems to me that the absent cross is emblematic of a free-market theology that caters to the customer rather than putting God front and center.
Is the cross threatening? You better believe it is. It’s humbling and demanding and anything but comfortable.
But it’s also kinda the whole point.
19 Ripples from “Does the Holy Ghost Have an Invisible Hand?”
bestman says:
June 2, 2005 at 2:06 am
Methinks someone should storm into Pastor Ted’s free-market and start overturning his free-tables.
Jim says:
June 2, 2005 at 6:06 am
Preach it brother!
Dude, you’re on a roll, keep it up.
Jim says:
June 2, 2005 at 7:06 am
Zalm, I just ran across this on Dash House (linking to “The Heresy"), about house churches which speaks to the smaller congregation thread we hinted at in the comments to your last post.
I think the jury is still out on the house church idea, I’m more interested in the motivation for their ascendancy (if it can be called that). And a lot of that motivation seems to be reflected in what you’ve said in these two posts. It seems also to be present in the remarks quoted by Dash.
shaug says:
June 2, 2005 at 11:06 am
This phenomenon of packaging the gospel in a less offensive, more consumer-friendly format reminds me of a similar trend in the selection of classroom literature by school administrators, discussed in Diane Ravitch’s excellent Language Police. In it, she attacks both the left and the right for how they have watered down the teaching of English and History in American schools. In particular, she questions the use of “experience-relevant” education:
In essence, education then becomes a means of reinforcing a student’s own world view, rather than opening their experience to something outside of their comfort zone.
Similarly, this “market-driven theology” turns servants of Christ into mere consumers of spirituality. “If the Church isn’t relevant to me, if it doesn’t serve my immediate needs, why should I engage in the Church?” At its core, such “positioning” shows an inherent lack of faith in the Gospel message itself; it must be repackaged to appeal to the masses. This assumption, as Ms. Ravitch might put it, encourages the narcissism of the Christian. We go to church to feel “good about ourselves”, rather than to be broken and laid bare at the foot of the cross.
zalm says:
June 3, 2005 at 3:06 am
This is an interesting comparison, Scott, and it’s given me a lot to think about today. I haven’t read the book, but I think I saw Ms. Ravitch on The Daily Show.
I certainly sympathize with teachers who are faced with the task of encouraging students to study stories and subjects that may hold no immediate interest for them. In many classrooms, the tactics of connection and personalization must be awfully attractive.
But I understand the principle you’re getting at, and I think you’re right. And the idea of presenting information in a way that reinforces our worldviews rather than broadening them is an important one, and one that I hope to return to soon in a larger post.
Kim says:
June 3, 2005 at 5:06 pm
"Everything I need to Know about Willow Creek I learned from Business Week?” What’s that about? If you want to believe everything Jeff Sharlet says about New Life because he shows up on your blog acting all hurt and indignant that’s your business, but let’s try to maintain some measure of healthy skepticism when people we’ve never met write about places we’ve never been.
Was Sharlet’s writing biased? I’m sure he would deny it, but I can tell you that in a comment he wrote on my blog he says “they (New Lifers) are the mainstream of America. Make of that what you will.” Jeff wants his readers to believe that the bizarre world he covers in Soldiers of Christ somehow represents the evangelical mainstream.
What I want to know is why Sharlet chose New Life. I don’t think I’m the only evangelical that knew nothing about this church before reading his article. Do the facts actually back up the assertion that this is the most powerful church in America? (You mention that Haggard heads an association of 45,000 churches...Bill Hybels’ WCA numbers 10,500 churches from over 90 denominations.)
I can’t help but suspect that Sharlet named New Life “The Most Powerful Church” because it suited his purpose. To choose a place where saner heads prevail, like Willow or Saddleback, wouldn’t serve to send out the clarion call to those quietly cringing masses.
PS If you want to read Willow’s Feel-Good Gospel go to the WCA’s “Statement of Faith” page or Willow Creek’s “What We Believe” page.
Kevin says:
June 4, 2005 at 12:06 am
"I can’t help but suspect that Sharlet named New Life ‘The Most Powerful Church’ because it suited his purpose. “
Did Sharlet actually say that in the article, or is it just in the headline? Writers rarely write their own headlines.
zalm says:
June 4, 2005 at 2:06 am
Heh. I’ve now been criticized for being too skeptical and not skeptical enough for the same piece.
Sorry I didn’t respond earlier, Kim. I was out this evening, but I’ve been thinking a lot about your comment.
I can tell that I’ve touched a nerve. I’m glad you took the time to speak up. And I think you’re probably right to smack me around a little bit. For me to extrapolate about the teaching of a church from a business magazine article is perhaps a little irresponsible.
The truth is, I’m not overwhelmingly familiar with the style or content of the teaching at Willow Creek (although church doctrine posted on a website tells me almost nothing about the content of the teaching from week to week. The links you provided look quite similar to the statement of faith over at New Life’s site). While I’ve been to Willow Creek, that was well over a decade ago. And while I’m somewhat familiar with Willow Creek’s small-group model, it still doesn’t mean I know what is taught in the small groups. Finally, I should also say that, based on what I’ve read and heard from Hybels, I certainly wouldn’t lump him into the “patriotic Christian” crowd of my most recent post. In my limited experience, he has demonstrated much more integrity than that.
My critique of the teaching aside, I must still admit that I either don’t understand or I just plain disagree with the megachurch model. And perhaps you can help me here.
- What is the thinking behind building a $72 million dollar church building?
- Why does a church need a 150-acre campus?
- Willow Creek brings in $2.5 million a year from its coffee shop and restaurants. Why is it charging for coffee in the first place? Does it make a profit on coffee? Why?
- 20,000 people attend services at the Barrington church. Why does the church need to be that large?
- Couldn’t $72 million be better spent on dozens of smaller, community-based churches? (Yes, I know that there are three satellite churches, but if there are still 20,000 attenders, I wonder if that’s not enough.)
- Is there something demographically special about South Barrington that would explain the need to concentrate such a large congregation and such vast resources there?
- What kind of pastoral access does the average attender have? Is it easy to make time to talk to Mr. Hybels, for example?
- How do people decide which small group to be a part of?
- Is the leadership accountable to the membership of the church? If so, how?
- Is it possible that you could attend the church regularly for, say, 10 years and never meet even 50% of the other people who have attended the church for a similar amount of time?
Obviously, I’ve got a lot of questions. I don’t ask them because I’m trying to start an argument. I ask them because the model for the church baffles me, and I’m willing to learn. I don’t expect you necessarily to know Willow Creek’s answer to all of them, but I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts.
As for Sharlet’s writing, I probably know as much as you do, so I’m not sure it’s my place to try to explain or defend his choices. If you’re truly interested in the answers, I’d suggest you ask him. He keeps tabs on comments at therevealer.org.
Kim says:
June 4, 2005 at 2:06 am
Hmmm, looking back at the post I made several hours ago I see that I was somehow under the mistaken impression that 10,500 is a larger number than 45,000. My apologies to those of you who can count. In my defense I usually can count, but am currently suffering under a fever. Note to self: do not post comments on other people’s blogs when delerious.
Kevin, I don’t know if Sharlet chose the subtitle of his article, which was “Inside America’s Most Powerful Megachurch.” Regardless, I think he is trying to convince his readers that New Life “is the mainstream of America” (his words in a comment on my blog) and I (a midwestern evangelical who attends a megachurch and voted for Bush, so presumably a part of the mainstream he is referring to) did not recognize most of what I encountered in “Soldiers of Christ.”
So that is where my skepticism comes from. Other than that, I think it was a great article.
Kim says:
June 4, 2005 at 3:06 pm
When people are first introduced to Willow they almost always experience some shock at the magnitude of it. Your questions reflect this: 150 acres? 20,000 people? $72,000,000?
You are right - they are big numbers. But on their own they don’t indicate a thing. If this is a biblically functioning community then the numbers just indicate the scale on which it is operating; but if it is not a biblically functioning community, then the numbers represent an enormous hemorrhage of resources from God’s work on this planet.
So first I’ll try to address some of your concerns about the biblical authenticity of the church, and later I’ll get to the numbers.
Leadership Accountability?
The Board of Elders is a group of un-paid volunteers from the congregation, and Bill Hybels that is appointed by the congregation and are affirmed by a yay or nay vote on a yearly basis by the Participating Members of the church. (Participating Membership is kind of like catechism or confimation. It involves a course, a one on one interview and an annual reaffirmation process.) They aren’t just there as a token nod to tradition (come on, this is Willow, we don???t do things for the sake of tradition) but to fulfill the roll given to elders in the Bible. The elders are busy busy bees. They handle everthing from theological accuracy of worship songs to hiring interviews to conflict resolution to discipline and on and on. I’m just one of 20,000 people and I can think of half a dozen instances where I personally have seen them at work.
Accessibility?
If you wanted to meet Bill Hybels you could do so at Guest Central after a service. If you wanted to give him a call and invite him to your barbecue you wouldn’t have a lot of luck. However pastoral care abounds at Willow. Not only do we have numerous teaching pastors, but we have many other pastors on board who handle funerals, baby dedications, crisis situations, hospital visits, weddings etc. These are wonderful, loving people incredibly gifted at what they do.
Small Groups?
Participation in a small group is purely voluntary but highly encouraged, because it is viewed as insrumental at growing baby faith into mature faith. Our small group system is constantly evolving. It has never been the highly organized machine that New Life’s system appears to be. Some small groups are like classes and end when the class ends you move on, others are based on ministry involvement (when I was a volunteer techy I was in a small group with other volunteer techies.) Some are centered around specific needs like abortion recovery or terminal illness. They are not meant to be cliques and leaders are taught that if you’re not trying to fill that “empty chair” then you’ve strayed into clique territory.
Anonymity?
In any community of 20,000 people it is unlikely that you would know half of them. I have attended Willow ten years. While I know much fewer than 10,000 people I always run into many friends and acquaintances when I’m there, which is more than I can say for the town I grew up in, which has only 4,000 people.
Watered Down Gospel?
�Alan WalkerIf Willow’s website is telling the truth, and those are the beliefs that Willow is preaching, then where did all these rumors come from that Willow is gospel-lite? Here is a plausible theory from Alan Walker as quoted in Rediscovering Church by Lynne and Bill Hybels:
That said, I’ll now do my best to make sense of some of the daunting numbers.
20,000 Attenders?
Ten years ago(sorry, that’s the most recent info I have) there were 1.5 million people living within a 20 minute driving radius of Willow Creek. Given trends in church attendance, that would indicate that there were 750,000 people with no church home. If your mission is to reach the unchurched people in your area then 20,000 out of 750,000 is a drop in the bucket.
Why Only 3 Regionals?
The regionals were created for those who live outside of a 30 minute driving radius (even though 20,000 seems like a crowd for one church, it doesn’t make sense to put a regional site within 20 minutes of the South Barrington campus.) Five years ago there were an estimated 749,000 unchurched people living between 30 and 60 minutes from the campus, and no regional sites. We saw this as a problem and are working on correcting it. We currently have three functioning regional sites with combined weekend attendance over 3,000, and a 4th site is in the works.
Why 150 Acres?
The church started in a movie theater, eventually a permanent home was needed. South Barrington was practically the boonies back then. They got a 90 acre chunk of land for $660,000. I’m sure they figured that would be more than enough but, as we know now, Willow has been something of a phenomenon. More land was needed to accommodate expansions on the parking lot and building so adjacent property was acquired. I don’t know when it happened or how much it cost, but if you visit the campus you’ll see there is no golf course or air strip � there is a lot of water because Willow Creek is built in a swampy area, but anything that’s not water is being used efficiently.
$72,000,000?
As our 25th anniversary approached it was obvious we had a problem. We had no regionals at the time and every weekend 17,000 people were trying to cram into a room that fit 4,000. We were doing four identical weekend services and still people were often forced to sit in overflow and watch the service on a screen. You’d invite an unchurched friend and then not be able find a seat for her.
We couldn’t just expand the old auditorium because there was giant run-off pond behind it, and there was nothing in the area big enough for us to buy. So the leadership of the church approached the congregation with a plan: start regionals for the folks who are driving 30-60 minutes to get here, build a facility for the WCA so that it can continue train pastors, and build an auditorium so that we can invite out friends and actually have a place for them to sit. And pay for it in cash. So the congregation said okay. A fund raiser was launched and 90 million dollars was pledged. This money did NOT come out of the tithes or offerings and during the following 3 or 4 years of the building phase our Extension Ministries (to the under resourced) actually grew.
Now the building is finally finished. It is paid for (as far as I know) and Willow continues to be an incredibly generous congregation. Just in the last several months the church has raised nearly $300,000 for Tsunami relief work, and $591,000 for Aids relief in Africa. This is over and above the regular tithes, a large portion of which goes to support many ministries serving the under-resourced in our community and around the world.
I’m not going to bother with the coffee question...I think free coffee is a great idea! However if we don’t pay for it the church has to and that is 2.5mil that could be going to CARS ministry or Special Friends or someother good cause. I think faithful in a little, faithful in a lot, and vice versa.
I’m sorry this is so long, but you asked a lot of questions! I’m not a Willow Spokesperson, just a member. Everything I’ve said is accurate to the best of my knowledge. If you read this far, thanks for bearing with me!
zalm says:
June 4, 2005 at 5:06 pm
Thanks for taking my questions seriously, Kim, and for taking the time to organize your response.
I will do my best to offer my thoughts later today, either as a comment or as a post, but I think I need to take the time to read through all that again and do some thinking as to why the size and the magnitude of the numbers involved bother me.
But I’d also like to encourage the other people reading this to join in. Just because Kim and I have been addressing each other and writing lengthy posts doesn’t mean that you can’t be a part of this discussion. I’d love to hear what others think about the megachurch model, and what your experiences have been.
Doctor Science says:
June 4, 2005 at 10:06 pm
Kim:
I have no personal experience of either New Life or Willow Creek, but I would guess Sharlet (or the Harper’s Editors) chose to call New Life “The Most Powerful Church in America” because of its high level of political access (weekly calls to Bush) and because it is located in Colorado Springs, where the megachurch movement and national politics are interlocking. Although you may never have heard of Ted Haggard before, you’ve certainly heard of James Dodson, and he’s just the most famous link in the network of Colorado Springs evangelism.
Though Sharlet didn’t really talk about it, it’s clear from his reporting that New Life has a strongly Pentecostal style, which I’m guessing is in contrast to services at Willow Creek. I suspect that you are right and Sharlet is wrong in calling this Pentecostalism “the mainstream of America”—at least for the moment.
Thank you very much for your explanation of what it’s like at Willow Creek—it’s very informative.
zalm says:
June 4, 2005 at 11:06 pm
I feel a little humbled taking on a term like “biblically functioning community,” a term that Mr. Hybels pretty much owns after 30 years of working through the definition in the practice of Willow Creek. After all, I’m not a seminarian or a pastor. I’m not an expert in ecclesiology. I’m just a guy who likes to read about, write about and discuss issues like these.
That said, here are my thoughts…
I’ve already written that size, in and of itself, isn’t a measure of success, only of popularity. Based on your last comment, it seems that you might agree with that. “If this is a biblically functioning community,” you wrote” then the numbers just indicate the scale on which it is operating.”
But I guess this is my question: is size (or scale) really unrelated to the ability of a church to function as a community of radical love and grace? And the more I think about it, the more I believe that the two are related.
I keep coming back to the final question I asked. In a sense, I already knew the answer as I framed the question. But I think that the answer, while unsurprising, is still telling.
If we are to be a community that embodies self-giving and sacrificial love for each other and for the world around us, I think it’s foundational that we know each other and that we are known significantly by others. If we are to be touched by the signs of God at work in the lives of our brothers and sisters, if we are to hold each other accountable, I think it’s critical that there is a certain level of commitment, shared history, and intimacy.
The church we go to now is the largest church I’ve ever been a functional part of. It’s only 1/40 the size of Willow Creek, and yet sometimes I wonder if it is too large. We recently elected several new deacons, and I only knew half of them. I see people I don’t know and I’m not sure whether it’s because they’re visiting or because they’ve come for a year and I just haven’t noticed them before. It’s becoming easier and easier for people to slip in and out without ever really meeting someone.
Some of this is because I’m a bit introverted, or because our church needs to work harder in some areas. But most of it is simply because we have two services with a couple hundred people at each. This is where I’m coming from: if I feel this way in a church with an attendance of around 500, how much more true must this be in a church of 20,000?
What kind of accountability can there be if the church is electing elders that it might know of, but doesn’t really know? Is it possible for a church that large to be structured in a way to force people to be intimately involved in the lives of people who are quite different from them? Or is it more likely that people will seek out those who are easy for them to love?
I have no doubt that God can and is doing wonderful things in and through churches the size of Willow Creek. I just wonder whether a community that large can ever be as richly integrated as God wants for the church.
Kim says:
June 5, 2005 at 1:06 am
Dr. Science, I think you are right - they (Harper’s or Shalet) were equating power with politics in that article, and New Life is too Pentecostal to be considered mainstream.
Hi Zalm! I see you have more questions! These are tough ones, but since I love talking about Willow I’ll give it a go!
Question #1
Let me ask you a question; How many people does it take to form a community of radical love and grace? At least two people, radically loving and extending grace to one another. And how many people does it take for a breakdown to occur in this radically loving, grace-filled community? Does it take 500 people for a disconnect to occur? Does it take 20,000? No, it only takes 2 people. Maybe just one person.
Do you see what I’m getting at? We don’t love en masse. We love one at a time. And what makes our love radical and grace-filled isn’t how few other people we know besides the one standing right in front of us, and it isn’t how long we’ve known that individual...I think it is Christ in us that elevates our love.
Last Sunday I ended up at the weekend service all alone. I sat up on the far right side of the balcony, which was practically empty. The service was about embracing people in our congregation who are retarded, disabled or mentally ill. By the end of the very touching service I was crying (I’m a big softy) and so when Mike Breux asked us to link arms across the aisles so that we could pray together I was like “oh no, I don’t want anyone to see my big puffy red face!” but I looked around me and there was a photographer with a tripod three rows ahead of me, and he was looking around, wiping tears from his face, so I went down to him and we linked arms. Then a young man sitting about five rows in front of us looked back, and his face was wet with tears and we waved him over. The three of us stood with our arms linked, sniffling, and we prayed together.
Afterwards we all smiled shyly at each other, shook hands and said our goodbyes. It’s true that I had never met those men before, but I don’t think that that moment, praying and crying with them, could have been any more blessed even if I’d known them for years.
Question #2
I became a Christian at Willow and, except for a couple years away at school, have only attended Willow, so I don’t know how this is done at other churches. My hope is that the various elders hold each other accountable, and that their friends do as well. When I vote “yay” at the annual elders and board of directors affirmations I do so trusting that if there were a sin problem then those who are aware of it would be taking appropriate and responsible action on it. I know that my church has taken disciplinary action against members who engaged in patterns of sin in the past and trust that they will continue to do so whenever neccessary.
Question #3
This is my favorite question because you realize what so many churches don’t seem to get - that people aren’t just going to “drift” (that’s the term we use at Willow) into integration. Human beings, Christian and otherwise, want the path of least resistence. Willow stayed very white, very affluent, very homogenous, until somebody finally said “Hey, this isn’t biblical and it isn’t going to change by itself.” The Willow I started attending in 1994 was a bunch of white people listening to light jazz and telling sailing stories. And it stayed that way until they began to preach consistently and focefully from the pulpit that this was no longer acceptable.
After that the music changed, people from diverse walks of life were actively recruited to lead worship and participate in dramas. Translation head sets were provided for our Spanish and Korean speaking neighbors. Partnerships were formed with inner-city churches to work on racial reconciliation. Attenders were encouraged to participate in civil rights history tours. Last Sunday worship was led by a group from our “special friends” community. Then on Wednesday we were reminded that our young congregants must learn to love the music of our older congregants and vice versa so that we can be one family. And it will go on and on because we are called to be one, but we don’t just “drift” into being one.
Thanks for giving me the freedom to talk so much about this subject, and for recognizing that God can do wonderful things wherever there are people excited and eager to follow where He leads.
zalm says:
June 5, 2005 at 9:06 pm
Once again, I appreciate your answers and continue to enjoy the conversation. This might be a much longer comment than usual, but you’ve graciously been attentive so far, so I’ll give it a shot. I think I’d like to spend the most time on your first response, so let me start with the others.
Engaging Those Who Are Different & Conflict Within the Church
First off, I’m very encouraged to hear the steps Willow Creek has taken to reach out to a more diverse group of your neighbors. The church I visited in the early 90s was very much the homogeneous body that you described. Although I don’t particularly remember the sailing stories. (The “light jazz and sailing stories” line made me laugh out loud, but the way. I’d love to find out what that was all about.)
If you spend time reading what I’ve written in the ”Faith” category here, one thing I hope you’ll come away with is my belief that godly love is much more challenging than we often want to admit to ourselves. Like you say, we like the path of least resistance. We think we do a good job of loving our neighbor, but maybe it’s because we chose our suburban neighborhood because the neighbors were a lot like us. (Which reminds me of another part of Sharlet’s article that raised my hackles, but we’re not talking about that right now, so I’ll leave that for another time.)
I think that as we seek to understand how we can better embody godly love, it is essential that we engage people who are different from us, people who we naturally find unlovely. And if the church is to be a community that models that love to the world, it’s essential that this happen in the church itself. I know I just said I wasn’t going to talk about Sharlet’s article, but this is why I flipped out about Haggard’s conception of small-groups. Like Sharlet points out, in some sense, this has largely taken conflict � the messiness of human community � out of the picture.
Now I’m not going to do you the disservice again of comparing Willow Creek to New Life. But I will say this: it seems to me that, in a church where not everyone knows each other, where it’s relatively easy to hide or to avoid others, this kind of conflict (and the growth that results) is not necessarily a natural component of the church experience. That’s not to say that a small church will automatically get it right either. In many ways, it may be easier for a smaller church to be self-selectively homogeneous. But if it’s a church that is small enough for everyone to know each other, where everyone can see each other’s brokenness, I think this conflict is much more difficult to avoid. And I think that matters.
Accountability Reframed
As to the question of accountability, I think perhaps I made a mistake to frame it as a question solely of leadership accountability. I think accountability is incredibly important to the church, and that includes not only the accountability of leadership to the congregation, but of the congregation to the leadership and, most importantly, of individuals to the church community as a whole.
Paul says that we “belong to each other.” And I guess the point I’m trying to make is that it’s easier to belong to each other when the church is small enough that we have regular contact with the whole of the church. When the leaders are able to take the time to know us, they are able to speak wisdom directly to our brokenness. When we really know the leaders, its easier for us to hold them accountable, but it’s also easier to see them as broken people just like us. And most importantly, our accountability to the whole community of the church is most meaningful when the whole community knows us. Likewise, we are more likely to accept the loving rebuke of those we know and those we have grown to trust through shared experience.
Does Size Matter?
This brings us to your first point and again to the question of the day: Is size (or scale) related to the ability of a church to function as a community of radical love and grace? I’ve started to lay out my answer to that already, but before I proceed, I should first address the question that you asked me:
This is an excellent question, one I knew was coming, and one that I’m not sure I have a good answer to. It’s also a question that I would love to hear others answer, if you’ve been following along. But here are some thoughts....
You state quite eloquently that we love, not en masse, but one at a time. And I agree. You point out that radical, grace-filled love doesn’t depend on how long we’ve known the individual, or how many or few people we know besides that individual, and I think I agree. But I think what you are describing beautifully is the remarkable relational element of being a Christian. What you describe ??? two people, radically loving and extending grace to one another ??? is, I think, not so much community itself as it is the foundational building block of community.
Certainly, when two or three are gathered in Jesus’ name, He promised to be in their midst. But I don’t think that’s a church community. In many ways, I’m still searching to define what I think a church should be, what it should look like, and what it should do in the world. And that’s easier to do by criticizing where I see the church failing than it is to propose a vision for what the church should be.
But I think what I’ve been trying to communicate through these posts and this discussion is that the local church community should demonstrate a loving connectedness that is unlike anything in our individualistic culture. And that self-giving love should radiate out in ways that restore and heal the community and creation that surrounds it. And I’m suggesting that this might require a community small enough that this loving connectedness can be total and meaningful.
So how big should a church like this be? 25? 100? 500? 20,000? Honestly, I don’t know. Maybe this can happen in a church of 20,000. I’ll admit that I’m still skeptical.
I would imagine that you will have stories to tell me about how this does happen at Willow Creek. How there are subgroups of people with whom you have regular contact and accountability, with whom you’ve worked out differences in love � people who you really know. Maybe that’s a small group. Maybe that’s a more loosely-conceived group of relationships. If so, I’d contend that maybe that’s your church. I wonder if something the size of Willow Creek is less a church than a body of ad hoc, interconnected churches.
I know that Willow Creek likes to conceive of itself as a church of small groups (full disclosure: my church says something similar, and I lead one of those small groups). Perhaps that can work. But quite a few people are not going to connect to a small group. And I’m skeptical of the likelihood of self-selecting, temporary, issue-oriented small groups to foster the kind of love and connectedness that we’ve been talking about.
A Not-so-coherent Summary
In the end, I’m not sure that I have a nice, neat, crisp summary of what I believe or the point I’m trying to make. I don’t really want to be too dogmatic with this. And I’m not really interested at all in trying to convince you that Willow Creek isn’t the place for you, or anything like that, since it seems to be a wonderful presence in your life. Finally, I don’t want to suggest that there is necessarily a perfect church. Any church made up of broken individuals who have been incredibly shaped by an individualistic culture may need an awful lot of God’s grace to get even close to the model I proposed, regardless of size.
But I think it’s been good for me to get some of these thoughts down. That’s the main reason I started this site, because I think best when I’m writing. If anyone’s actually read this far, I appreciate your overwhelming patience and I’m actually quite interested in anything you have to offer in response, even if it’s to a portion of it. I don’t expect anyone to have the stamina to address all of this.
An Addendum
It occurs to me that I should add a few thoughts. Namely, that what I’ve just written may be easy to type, but extremely difficult to bring about. It may require not just the idea of smaller churches, but a recalibrating of our very definition of church. I don’t know. And I’m humbled by the thought of even being a very small part of bringing this about. And I have a deep respect for those who have devoted their lives to ministering to a congregation, whatever the size and makeup.
unk says:
June 6, 2005 at 8:06 am
This has been an interesting read this morning.
However, I would have to say we don’t love one at a time. We have the capability to love an infinite number of people at the same time. Do we love just one parent? Do we love just one child? I think not. If someone chooses to love one at a time I would have to say they are not following Jesus’ teachings.
Since Kim is entertaining questions, why didn’t Willow Creek incorporate traditional symbols like a cross?
Kim says:
June 6, 2005 at 1:06 pm
Hi Unk, I believe we are called to love every one, but my imagination defies me when I try to think of how I can love them all at once. I am a pretty benevolant person, I have good will towards mankind, but, as DC Talk has so sagely pointed out, love is a verb. So maybe you could illustrate your point for me.
Most of the people who write articles about Willow only attend one or two services and I guess it doesn’t occurr to them that just because they didn’t see a cross doesn’t mean that there are no crosses. There is a cross on the alter in the chapel (the alter is brought out for sacraments) and it was used in my sister’s wedding and at her baby’s dedication. There are also at least four 6ft tall foam core crosses that are wheeled out for special occassions (like baptism and Good Friday and some communions.) And we built the largest cross I’ve ever seen for Easter a few years ago.
So we do have crosses, though none are permanently bolted to a wall. As you may know, Willow Creek relies heavily on video for each service and that is the main reason that we don’t have to permanently install any religious symbols or art - we can simply project the appropriate images on the screens based on the content of a particular service.
Hi Zelm, the reason I tend to go on and on in my defense of Willow is because Willow is incredibly easy to defend...it’s not because I’m trying to convince you guys that it’s the only way to do church.
If you want, you can call the community I’m a part of there a little church with in a big church with in The Big Church...it’s all the same to me. Maybe it comes from being in an interdenominational church, surely some of it comes from Hybels passion and teachings about the universal church, but at Willow we view ourselves all as members of a body that is much larger than 20,000.
Your uneasiness about Willow kind of reminds me of the way I felt as a kid when I would meet my friend’s parents. No matter how I was getting along with my folks at the time I would usually think to myself “thank God I didn’t grow up with those wierdos for parents.” No matter what issues we have with our own family, we love them and couldn’t imagine it any other way.
ps I’ve been so busy with this post I haven’t had a chance to explore your blog but I’m looking forward to it!
Jim says:
June 7, 2005 at 3:06 pm
“a recalibrating of our very definition of church.”
That is exactly what needs to happen. It begins with conversations like this. The singular thing about this series of comments, at least to me, is the evolution in the spirit of the discussion. The beginning comments (including mine) sounded polemical and argumentative, and they have evolved to be thoughtful, considerate, (dare I say loving? I dare...) loving conversation.
We are learning to love, and that is the point. I have not weighed in on the whole Willow Creek thing, mostly because I’ve only worshiped there once (I didn’t “like” it, but that’s never been my construct for discussing worship).
I have heard Bill Hybels speak many times and was even in a small group session with him years ago. His sense of the heart of Christ has consistently been so powerfully moving that I’m not surprised everybody and their brother wants to go to his church. The man is the real deal as far as I’m concerned even if I don’t agree about the cross thing.
One of the highlights of my spiritual life was an address Bill Hybles gave at the National Youth Workers Convention where he talked about the Forrest Gump. He said, “every time I see that film or hear the words Forrest Gump, I immediately think: Love.” Some other things he said during that single twenty minute talk have changed the way I live my life. He spoke of people who are “sink holes of human need” and said—“I know there’s a person in your head right now, the face of someone. When was the last time you loved that person.” Ouch. The friend I was sitting with and I looked at each other at that moment and said the same name! (I know, you thought I was going to write, “he said my name and I said his.” Hah-hah.)
This comment is getting too long, so, in the words of Inigo Montoya, “Let me ‘splain. No. Ees too long. I sum up.”
We need to recalibrate the definition of church until it is defined in terms of love. This happens in conversation (a word Brian McLaren loves to use), in relationship. When we can love each other whether it’s one at a time or not, and give ourselves away to each other despite our fear of losing and emptying ourselves. This is the church Jesus wished for (I don’t pretend to know what Jesus was thinking, but this does seem to be in keeping with most of his recorded testimony). It is the church that Paul wished for when he wrote (among many other quotables): The only thing that counts is faith working itself out through love.
And it is the project you have contributed to Zalm, and Kim, and others by moving this remarkable post to the place it is now.
So, I’ll stop now with the words of Bill Hybels’ favorite protagonist: “And that’s all I have to say about that.”
does he or doesn�t he? � serotoninra says:
November 3, 2006 at 10:11 am
[...] I�ve very little respect for Mr. Haggard�s theology, and in fact I would say the gospel he preaches is no gospel at all. He has resigned from the NAE, and though I wish it was for different reasons and under different circumstances, I�m relieved he�s out of there and hope he decides to stay out even if the accusations are false, and it wouldn�t surprise in the least if they were. It may be a chance for evangelicals to quit proclaiming the Gospel of Free Markets and start proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ. [...]
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