MondayMorningInsight - Leadership & Encouragement for Church Leaders

Willow Shift: Our New Strategy to Reach Seekers if to Focus on Mature Believers

Posted by: Todd
Posted on: Thu, April 17, 2008
Viewed 141
(37) comments so far

Also changing… beginning in June, Willow will end their mid-week worship service that had been geared toward believers. Midweek will now offer discipleship classes aimed at different levels of growth for believers. And on weekends, the ‘anonymity factor” will be gone. According to Hawkins, “Anonymity is not the driving value for seeker services anymore. We’ve taken anonymity and shot it in the head. It’s dead. Gone.” Willow’s weekend ‘seeker’ services will now be packed with worship music, scripture, and more challenging Bible teaching, led by Bill Hybels the majority of the weeks.

In summary, Hawkins said, “They want the Bible, they want to be close to Christ, they want to be challenged. Yes, I will give them what they want!”

More here at Christianity Today...

Any thoughts?

Willow announced some major changes in the way they are going to be doing church at the recent Shift Conference held on their campus last week. Chief among the many changes they are implementing (as a result of their recent REVEAL study) is pretty much the death of the seeker sensitive service format they pioneered years ago. According to Greg Hawkins, Willow's Executive Pastor, "Our strategy to reach seekers is now about focusing on the mature believers. This is a huge shift for Willow.”

Comments

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Randy Ehle on Fri, April 18, 2008

Maybe I should add a postscript to my previous comment, as both encouragement and warning to all of us who claim to love God and his Word: Jesus said, “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

Unfortunately, far too often that verse could accurately be restated: “By this all men know that you are Christians: you argue with each other.” What is the impact of that on an unbelieving world that watches, listens, reads…? What damage is done to God’s name and to his glory by our unceasing bickering?

There are times and places for theological arguments, debates about orthodoxy and orthopraxy…but there are also times for silence, times to intentionally not answer questions. There is a time to just shut up. May we use all those times wisely.
Brian L. on Fri, April 18, 2008

Thanks for the good word, Randy.

I ask for forgiveness for my participation in this thread, since I’ve allowed myself to be drawn into argument.

Brian L.
Leonard on Fri, April 18, 2008

Good word Randy, thanks for the reminder and I also apologize if my words have caused harm or my attitude has communicated something other that does not honor God.
CS on Fri, April 18, 2008

Brian:

“I think one of the problems here is that you seem to think that once the Holy Spirit begins that work, that they automatically understand everything regarding salvation.”

Good point. That is something I did not think about in posting my comments. It can take a while for that person to be saved. I’m still wrapping my mind around a situation where should that person die while being drawn what would happen, but I’ll think about the non-instantaneous nature of things. After all, it kind of goes in line with the verses about Paul and Apollos seeding and watering.

Randy:

“That seems to be the case with CS on this thread: he has drawn a number of people into an argument that (imo) is of little use to anyone.”

In looking over everyone’s comments, I believe this is true. If there is no chance for what I have written to change anyone’s mind or to influence them about their position on this topic, you’re right, it is probably of little use to those commenting here. The only way I could see it being helpful is to validate anyone else who has the same beliefs on this topic that came across MMI, or someone looking for a dissenting point of view, to compare and contrast positions on this, and other topics. After all, Paul wrote, “For, in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that divisions exist among you; and in part I believe it. For there must also be factions among you, so that those who are approved may become evident among you.” 1 Corinthians 11:19, NASB.

With that, aside from any other thus-unrelated further comments, I think I’ve said my share about Willow Creek for now.

—

CS
Wendi on Fri, April 18, 2008

I agree with the others who have affirmed your good words Randy. I’m convicted because you help me realize how easy it is to justify my participation in infighting when I persuade myself that someone else started the fight. The outsider looking in neither knows nor cares who starts the fight. I apologize for my complicity.

Wendi
Derek on Sat, April 19, 2008

Randy,

Let me add my “Amen” to the comments above. You have brought a good word in due season. I have given up on getting in to worthless arguments with our uber-fundamentalists brethren who post on MMI.

I have avoided locking horns with CS on this thread and others because I have seen the tract record. Over the years, I have gotten into too many worthless arguments with Christians who I believe love Jesus, but cannot see outside of their narrowed theological world. It does become wrangling over words.

You said it right when you noted that we should simply ignore comments or arguments from those who cannot see theology/ministry from multiple perspectives.

Derek
Gerry on Sat, April 19, 2008

I have written this before on this website, so pardon me if it seems unnecessary. I must admit that I become particularly grieved when I read the rather simplistic criticisms that people have of Willow. I attended Willow for 9 years beginning in 1994 and ended up working for the Willow Creek Association for a little more than 3 years. When I began attending I was in the process of going through a divorce that effectively ended a ten-year career of Bible College teaching. I was a wreck, more of a wreck than I even realized at the time. I have called myself a ‘seeking believer’ at the time because I desperately needed to find a church that would allow me and enable me to heal. I had a hard time finding that place, even in the Chicago area. Willow became that place. And God provided me with the means to grow through that ‘seeker-sensitive’ church. I remarried in 2003 and now I am the pastor of a recent church plant. God has mightily used Willow in the lives of litereally thousands of folks like myself, even though, amazingly, it doesn’t fit the mold of what I even at one time thought church was supposed to be. May God continue to bless Willow!