Willow (Part 2)

Worship at Willow

At 5:25, the band signaled that worship would soon begin by playing an instrumental version of Coldplay’s “Warning Sign,” and this immediately garnered them some brownie points in my book.  Sure, I’m not really that diehard of a Coldplay fan, but they were still incorporating secular music into a religious service, so my heart was strangely warmed.  The instrumentation (electric guitar, acoustic guitar, bass, piano, drums, and cello) was all very polished, and throughout this instrumental, the screens on either side of the stage flashed quotes about communion from Eugene Cho, William T. Cavanaugh, St. Francis of Assisi, and others.

The view from my seat in section 209.

The first song was a call-and-response, and the acoustic guitarist (a thin, white male in his mid to late twenties who was sporting a cardigan, a trendy haircut, and a big grin) made a quip about the men going first that was pretty cheesy but still well-received by the congregation.  Now, I don’t want to paint this guy as a sexist, because it was pretty clear through the rest of that service that the women singing with the band were just as in charge as he was, and I found it interesting how there was not one clear worship leader.  Rather, the acoustic guitarist, pianist, and one of the two female singers took turns introducing songs and offering little meditations and prayers.  The first song turned out to be a contemporary resetting of the old Charles Wesley classic “O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing.”

O for a thousand tongues to sing
My great Redeemer’s praise,
The glories of my God and King,
The triumphs of His grace!

My gracious Master and my God,
Assist me to proclaim,
To spread through all the earth abroad
The honors of Thy name.

Jesus! the name that charms our fears,
That bids our sorrows cease;
’Tis music in the sinner’s ears,
’Tis life, and health, and peace.

Charles Wesley wrote a couple dozen verses to that song, and I didn’t have time to take careful note of which ones we sang or even how many we sang.  I was more interested in taking notes on the band themselves.  They were an interesting mix.  The musicians were predominantly white males with the exception of the cellist, an Asian woman.  The acoustic guitarist and pianist both sang with additional vocals being provided by two black women and a black man.  Unfortunately, that acoustic guitarist violated a few taboos for me.  In addition to smiling through some really serious lyrics, he also committed the cardinal sin of dropping his arms from his guitar for dramatic effect during one of the verses.  That is an absolute no-no for a professional musician, and it was noted with several exclamation points in my notebook.  I’m all about worship leaders being moved by the music in a service, but if you’re playing an instrument, it’s your job to keep playing your instrument.

We moved into the second song, Tim Hughes’ “Everything,” and I noticed that there were some great camera angles appearing on the screens.  They were giving close-ups of the cellist’s strings, and I was blown away by the expression that one of the singers had on her face.  She was a larger black woman with dyed hair in thin braids.  She had multiple earrings and an eyebrow piercing, and she was clad in gold and purple silks that gave her a regal feel.  Most important of all though, she sang the lyrics thoughtfully with a slightly pained look and melancholy voice.

God in my hoping, there in my dreaming

God in my watching, God in my waiting

God in my laughing, there in my weeping

God in my hurting, God in my healing

Christ in me, Christ in me

Christ in me, the hope of glory,

You are my everything.

God in my weeping?  God in my hurting?  Wow.  That’s some pretty deep stuff, and the constant smile on the acoustic guitarist’s face could have easily undercut the mood of the lyrics had it not been for that other singer’s clearer realization of what it was that the songwriter was trying to communicate.  Trust in spite of uncertainty, comfort in times of turmoil, healing and hurting seamlessly intermingling in moments of prayer-- that’s what those lyrics were really about.

There was a pretty seamless transition into the next number: “How Great Is Our God”

The splendor of a King, clothed in majesty
Let all the earth rejoice
All the earth rejoice
He wraps himself in Light, and darkness tries to hide
And trembles at His voice
Trembles at His voice . . .

A few people in the congregation were swaying, but it was hard to say if people were really getting into it or not.  The bottom two tiers of the auditorium were probably about 50% full, and the casually-attired congregation were clumped together in family units and small groups.  The people there were mostly white, middle- and upper-class baby boomers with a few older gen ex interspersed, and quite a few of them had teenage children in tow.  It was at this point that something very clever took place in the lighting.  Now, I’ve heard it said that really good lighting is something that you don’t notice at all, so maybe I shouldn’t be praising the artful color-changes of the Willow stage too much, but still, I was impressed with this technique: when the band wanted the congregation to sing more loudly, some sort of cue was passed along to the lighting technician, and a series of spotlights behind the band shined out onto the audience.  At first I was thinking, “Wow, that’s some really intense backlighting,” but then I realized that the goal was to make the congregation feel like it was actually on a stage.  The lighting was meant to make us feel like our performance at this moment was part of the offering taking place through the service, and in addition to making us sing more loudly, it also made this into more of a worship experience.  This technique struck me as simultaneously coercive and brilliant, and it was after this song that the crowd began to clap regularly.  It was time for the next song.

Come, ye sinners, poor and needy,
Weak and wounded, sick and sore;
Jesus ready stands to save you,
Full of pity, love and pow’r.

The main female singer and the cellist pretty much handled the first few verses as a duet before the rest of the band and congregation joined in.

I will arise and go to Jesus,
He will embrace me in His arms;
In the arms of my dear Savior,
Oh, there are ten thousand charms.

Rev. Darren Whitehead, teaching pastor

After a few more verses, Darren Whitehead (a younger associate at Willow with a thick Australian accent who preaches in head pastor Bill Hybels’s absence) came forward to help lead communion.  He asked that we continue to sing and reflect on all that Christ has done for us in our lives.

Come, ye thirsty, come, and welcome,
God’s free bounty glorify;
True belief and true repentance,
Every grace that brings you nigh.

The communion trays were passed, and I guess I’ve spent enough time in Methodist settings that it bothered me a little seeing communion passed rather than served.  The body was little, spongy cubes of what appeared to be wheat bread, and the blood was grape juice in a small, plastic, thimble-sized cup.  If needed, gluten-free wafers were also available to those with allergies.  I was amazed at how quickly the ushers managed to pass the trays around, and we all had our elements within only a verse or two of the hymn.  The pianist had taken over as worship leader at this point, and he called the congregation to focus on one verse in particular:

Come, ye weary, heavy-laden,
Lost and ruined by the fall;
If you tarry till you’re better,
You will never come at all.

Darren came back to the podium and gave a little background on the hymn’s author, Joseph Hart, who became a Christian at age 45 and wrote this song only two years later.  Darren placed a heavy emphasis on coming to God even with our burdens and not waiting around to become magically sinless on our own.  God’s mercy isn’t something we can merit or deserve.  It’s something which we accept.  Communion isn’t about something we do; it’s about something Christ did, something Christ gave freely to a broken world.  Darren was getting noticeably choked up, and even though it sort of derailed the mood for me personally, I don’t blame him one bit.  He said a few very basic words of institution, and we took the bread and juice, after which we started singing once more.

Let not conscience make you linger,
Not of fitness fondly dream;
All the fitness He requireth
Is to feel your need of Him.

You could feel an uplifting among the congregation.  They were singing louder.  Their hearts were more into it.  The band had increased their volume as well, and the lights were dimming around us as the spotlights on stage cranked up once more.  The female singer was wailing over us in improvised descant, and I noticed that the lighting on the curtains behind the band now showed a snowy white.  Again, I took notice of the effect, but it was a good effect.  Darren called for the church to enter into prayer together, and the pianist played lightly as he spoke.  As soon as Darren was done talking, the other female singer assumed the worship leader duties and brought the band into a song that I heard for the first time a week ago at Mars Hill, and it gave me chills this time too:

I want Jesus to walk with me

I want Jesus to walk with me

All along my journey

I want Jesus to walk with me.

I noticed a shift from how Mars Hill had sung the tune though.  While the Mars Hill musicians had consciously changed the line “all along my journey” to “all along life’s journey,” the Willow praise team left it intact.  My theory is that the Mars Hill musicians didn’t want the church to think of their lives as their own individual journeys, but as a communal effort.  Willow’s higher emphasis on personal salvation made the original lyric more appropriate though, so they left it as it was.  I wondered if I was overanalyzing this one-word change, but the sermon’s emphasis on evangelism made me decide that the personal relationship with Jesus really was the subtext behind the lyric choice.  I was impressed by how much the changing of a single word could alter a song’s meaning.

The background on the stage had shifted to purples, magentas, and oranges, and there was a picture of a stained glass window on the screen behind the band.  Another prayer followed the song, and the piano played behind it for effect.  There was a request to God to draw us all close and a reminder to the congregation that worship functions as an offering to God.  There was clapping following the amen, and Darren came back on stage to deliver the announcements as the offering was collected.

Rebecca St. James, contemporary Christian megastar

It was a long list of upcoming events.  There would be a membership meeting with senior pastor Bill Hybels following the service.  There would be a worship service in the Lakeside Auditorium (the church’s old sanctuary) this Wednesday night.  Grammy-winner Rebecca St. James would be leading worship next weekend.  Chuck Colson and his daughter would be visiting in June to talk about raising children with special needs.  Bears runningback Devin Hester would be a special guest at the Father’s Day festivities.  And last but not least, Bill Hybels had returned safely from his speaking engagements in Asia and was with us tonight, so fresh from Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Beijing, here he is, the man himself . . .

Bill Hybels, Reveal, and a Surprisingly Pointed Sermon

Okay, the introduction wasn’t quite that over the top, but it was still just enough to make me wince.  I’m glad that I liked Bill’s message, because that introduction had me really wondering what strange world of celebrity pastordom I had stumbled into, and I really hope Darren tones it down next time.  Simply put, it made me uncomfortable, just as I’m sure it would make other first-time visitors uncomfortable.  Still, I found Bill’s sermon to be presented humbly and honestly, and I feel like he said a lot of things that I needed to hear and quite a few things that I hadn’t expected to hear, so in spite of Darren’s hamming it up and making me worry, props to Bill for keeping things genuine.

Dr. Bill Hybels, founding pastor of Willow Creek

Darren had mentioned that Bill was pretty jetlagged, and it showed.  In fact, I doubt this was one of his best sermons, and it certainly wasn’t his best delivery.  Bill’s tenor voice felt shaky, and he was hesitating and referring to notes quite a bit as he talked into his lapel mic.  It was actually pretty reassuring: even the megachurch pastors --the ones who people come from miles away to hear-- have their off days.  Even though the performance aspect of the sermon was lacking, Bill’s off night actually made the sermon feel very personal, and, in retrospect, I wonder how many pearls of wisdom might have gone unmentioned had he been better rested.

Bill started by reiterating that Willow was in the midst of a series called “Go Outside” that was about going beyond comfort zones, and I soon discovered that this would involve a heavy evangelistic emphasis.  Bill shared a reading from Paul, reminding the church that the Apostle was in prison as he wrote these words:

Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with thanksgiving.  At the same time pray for us as well that God will open to us a door for the word, that we may declare the mystery of Christ, for which I am in prison, so that I may reveal it clearly, as I should.  Conduct yourselves wisely toward outsiders, making the most of the time.  Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer everyone.  (Colossians 4:2-6)

That language of “opening a door” would form the key thrust of Bill’s message for the evening, and he noted that, even in prison, Paul is more concerned with the church than with escape.  Paul wants to be out there ministering.  He is that missions-oriented.  He is that people-driven.

Bill drew a diagram on one of the two white boards that had been brought up on stage when he began the sermon.  The diagram featured four circles that he labeled (from left to right): explorers (exp), baby Christians (B), growing Christians (G), and Christ-centered (CC).  Between exp and B, he drew a cross, indicating that crossing from exp to B meant accepting Christ.  Bill looked at the chart and explained that Paul is not speaking to the explorers in this letter since explorers are only concerned with themselves.  Wow, that was a little harder hitting than I was expecting.  If I considered myself an explorer, I might be a little offended.  Bill continued to say that Paul was not concerned with the baby or growing Christians either since they were still stumbling here and there.  No, Paul was speaking to the Christ-centered Christians (CC) in this passage, and according to their survey data collected through the Reveal study, about 25% of Willow consists of these exceptional people.  Ooo, but I guess I should explain what the Reveal study is . . .

"Four Stages" from Reveal data

From its early days in the 1970s, Willow has prided itself on being “seeker-sensitive,” meaning that it provides a place for people unsure about their faiths to explore the basics of Christianity through well-done worship services designed to meet them where they are.  There is less emphasis on church membership and more focus on professions of faith and personal commitments to God, and a recurring joke around Willow is that some people attend there for decades, tithe regularly, and never miss a service but still never officially giving up the “seeker” label.  It’s a very baby boomer concept (and kind of a mixed bag really), but Willow has experienced tremendous numerical growth under this philosophy.   The church has even branched out to other campuses in the greater Chicago area to form the Willow Creek Association (a sort of mini-denomination).  Of course, remember how I mentioned a few weeks ago that I’ve heard people in smaller churches criticize megas for not really training their attendees to be disciples?  Well, Willow heard those criticisms, and, over the past decade, the church has been reexamining itself carefully to see how they are really promoting discipleship among their members and attendees.  The key tool in this process has been the Reveal study, which began in 2004 as a survey of the congregation to see where people were in their Christian journeys.  Among other things, the study showed that church activity (tithing, worship, etc.) and spiritual growth are not necessarily correlated.  It also showed that many at Willow considered themselves to have “stalled spiritually,” and there were people at all stages of spiritual growth who were not completely satisfied with the church.  In fact, a whole third of those surveyed considered themselves to be stalled, dissatisfied, or both.  With that data in mind, Willow acknowledged that it had some growing to do, and Bill’s sermon this evening evidenced that the church is enduring some growing pains as it struggles with how to address individual spiritual needs.  The continual revisiting of the stages of spiritual growth (explorer, baby, growing, Christ-centered) seems to be part of the larger effort to help Willow attendees and members grow in their faith, so getting back to that sermon . . .

Bill explained that CCs are people who live out Acts 20:24 and Philippians 1:21:

But I do not count my life of any value to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the good news of God's grace. (Acts 20:24)

For to me, living is Christ and dying is gain. (Philippians 1:21)

Bill explained that people who have this approach to life are always motivated to share the love of Christ with their neighbors.  Bill said that a CC is someone who sees a neighbor and thinks, “If I don’t intervene, this person might miss Heaven and wind up in Hell if there is such a place.”  If there is such a place?  Wow, that was a gutsy comment given the whole recent Rob Bell controversy, and Bill made it so offhandedly.  It made me wonder what he really thinks of Heaven and Hell-- perhaps there’s a little uncertainty there.  Bill didn’t elaborate on his Hell comment but continued on, saying that CCs are people who want to bring others to faith simply because it brings God joy.  Bill talked about the story of the Prodigal Son and suggested that, if Paul were to comment on this passage, he would talk about the Father’s joy at the return of the lost child rather than the sons or the servants or any other character.  Bill told the story of a series of baptisms they did at Willow one Sunday, and a regular attendee came up to Bill and asked if he would be preaching.  When Bill said no, this attendee started to leave, but Bill called him back saying that he shouldn’t miss the celebration!  It is always a joyous thing when a son or daughter returns to the Father.

Bill went on to say that some people need to come to faith for the sake of the Kingdom of God just because, with their talents and connections, they would make such great Kingdom-builders!  You never know when someone might turn out to be a key player.  Just look at Paul!  Here he had been persecuting Christians, and then, after being struck blind, Ananias comes to him with the joyous news: “Welcome to the team, buddy, and have you ever got a load to carry!”  Bill talked about his work with the Global Leadership Summit at Willow, an annual meeting of movers and shakers in the Christian world, and he mentioned the examples of motivational author Jim Collins and Jack Welch as two people who were almost through the door into Christianity.  I flinched a little here.  Bill was mentioning two very prominent people whom he was trying to help find faith.  This seemed like a violation of confidentiality, or at the very least, namedropping.  I was unsettled, but I tried to brush it off and keep paying attention to the meandering Saturday evening sermon.

Bill explained that we sometimes lose enthusiasm for wanting our friends and family to know Christ, but CCs are people who always think of evangelism.  Bill drew a family tree on the second white board that had been brought up, and he pointed to his grandson on the tree and commented that young people who open doors can represent entire generations.  I’ll admit that he kind of lost me with this point.  Looking back, I’m not really sure where he was going with it, and for that reason, I was relieved when he moved on to his travels.

As Darren had told us, Bill had just returned from preaching abroad in Asia, and Bill shared that he had gone through a bit of a valley (as opposed to a mountaintop) during his travels.  He had been tired and a little sick in Sri Lanka, and the next stop on the journey was Bangkok, Thailand, a country that is predominantly Buddhist and less than 1% Christian.  Bill explained that he was starting to question whether these international trips of his were really serving a purpose or not, and he said that he actually got down on his knees in his hotel room and asked God for some sort of reassurance that he was doing the right thing.  Referencing the story of Gideon in Judges 6 (in which Gideon places a fleece on a threshing floor and demands that the placement of the dew be a sign of God’s blessing), Bill admitted to the church that he had prayed that night, “I need a fleece.”  Bill went to an evangelistic meeting after this prayer, and after giving what he had considered to be a lackluster sermon, one of the Thai pastors thanked Bill and got up to speak his own peace.  “Tonight, we commence a dream!  There are 500,000 Thai Christians represented by the people in this room, and if we each convert two people to Christianity within the next five years, that will make one million new additions to the Kingdom!”  Bill observed that most of the people in that room were poor and had plenty of problems of their own, but they were still looking to open the door for one million people!  This was just the fleece Bill had wanted.  It filled him with hope, and it made him think that maybe Willow ought to pledge to do something similar.  Maybe Willow should make a point of trying to bring 25,000 people to Christ or maybe 50,000 or maybe 100,000!  Bill told the church, “Let’s believe that God will do this!  Would you be interested in something like that?!”  There was much clapping from the church.

The last stop on Bill’s journey had been Beijing, and he was there to help facilitate conversations with the government about increasing religious freedom in a post-Cultural Revolution China.  During this leg of the journey, Bill encountered a businessman who had been originally out for money but had asked God to make him a Kingdom-maker.  With the help of his business, the man relocated to what he considered to be the highest challenge (but highest potential) country, and he has been in China ever since, looking to use the latter half of his life to compensate for the former half.  Bill brought his story back around to Willow and Reveal by saying, “Yep, he’s a CC.”

Bill then advertised to the church that he would be holding an information session about membership after the service.  Bill’s tone seemed accommodating, but there was a hint of aggravation underneath it when he told the seeker-sensitive crowd, “You’re welcome at Willow if you’re still exploring, but please, embrace Christ so that we can get moving!”  It was a bold statement to make given the church’s longstanding philosophy of encouraging exploration, and I’m still not really sure what to think of it.  Bill called on the people in the auditorium to strive to be Christ-centered, and after another reading of Colossians 4:2-6, he called on us to pray together.

He asked us to pray that God might open the doors of people around us, particularly people in our own families who were searching and exploring and outside the church.  He even encouraged us to go ahead and whisper names right there in our seats.  After Bill said amen, there was applause, and we were dismissed.

It had been a long, meandering sermon from a thoroughly exhausted --and maybe just a little frustrated-- pastor.  It was unpolished, and a lot of the rhetoric was far blunter than I had expected.  Still, Bill was appealing to his audience and trying to call them to a very specific decision.  He was trying to address a problem at Willow and take the attendees’ lack of commitment head-on.  He was looking to encourage growth and development and discipleship, and he was reaffirming the call to evangelism.  It will not go down in my top ten greatest sermons --probably not even my top fifty--, but it seemed like a message that people needed to hear, and it seemed well-received.

The Information Session

Initially, I had planned to cut out right after the service, head to Saray’s pizza party for a little while to meet a few more Willow members, and head back to the hotel to do my write-up as quickly as possible.  Reba and her traveling companion asked if I was sticking around for the membership information session, and I explained my plan, hoping to run into them later at the party.  Of course, then I got outside and saw the traffic.  As people backed out of their parking spaces to head home, the Willow parking lot had become a congested sea of motorists.  The information session suddenly seemed like a better option, so I went back into the main auditorium to find the center section of seats almost completely full of people considering membership.  There were probably about 200 present, and these were a fairly diverse group, but the majority were still upper- and middle-class baby boomers.

I was handed a membership booklet that outlined five commitments that the church was hoping its attendees would make:

1-      1- I commit to follow Christ as the Savior and Leader of my life.

2-      2- I commit to develop Christ-like servanthood.

3-      3- I commit to take ongoing steps to grow in my relationship with Christ.

4-      4- I commit to pursue Christ-honoring relationships.

5-      5- I commit to join Willow Creek as a participating member in full support of its vision and leadership.

An associate pastor named Paul Jensen van Rensberg (or “JVR” for short) was walking the group through the guide and fielding questions along with Bill and another associate.  Paul JVR explained that Willow had been very much founded on Acts 2:41-47, which reads:

So those who welcomed his message were baptized, and that day about three thousand persons were added.  They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.  Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles.  All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.  Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.  (Acts 2:41-47)

I will admit that, while I heard the folks at Willow talking a good bit about the evangelistic and number-adding parts of that passage, no one really mentioned having all things in common and selling their possessions.  I respect Willow for claiming that as the passage on which the church was founded, but I wonder what that stuff in the middle would actually look like in practice for their community.  Willow has its outreach efforts, but “selling their possessions and distributing the proceeds to all” is a really radical call.  Just an observation.

Anyway, Paul JVR extended an invitation to accept membership and say yes to the commitments outlined in the booklet (which are also available for viewing online on the membership section of Willow’s website).  He explained that there would be a special reception for new members on the weekend of June 11/12 with an opportunity to be baptized later that month.  There were a few questions, and I learned that Willow asks that you be re-baptized if you had been previously baptized as a child or infant.  Bill threw out the age of 14 as a cut-off point, but I’m not sure whether that age is actually set in stone or just an arbitrary number given at that meeting.  Following the meeting, I grabbed Bill for a quick picture (since Jeff Williamson has officially dared me to grab photos with all the megachurch pastors).  Even though I thought about asking Bill a question or two, he was clearly tired and just wanted to get home.  Between his jetlag and his frustrations, I was not about to keep this man from going home and getting some rest.  Incidentally, it’s a terrible picture of both of us, so vanity might prevent me from posting it.  He looks slightly rubbery, and my facial expression is just . . . oh, why not . . .

Yes, I know.  I look like my sophomore yearbook photo, and my pasty skin makes Bill look like an oompa-loompa by comparison.  Not everyone is as instantly photogenic as Rob Bell.  Of course, I was pretty tired myself, so I wound up cutting Saray’s party and heading back into Chicago.  After all, I had a lot of writing to do, and I needed to go to bed at a somewhat reasonable hour so that I could be fully awake for Lawndale.

Also, I will confess that a tiny, nervous part of me secretly wanted to confirm that the Rapture hadn’t happened.  I had tried to contact both Jeff Williamson and Erin and hadn’t heard back from either, and I had figured that, if anyone got plucked up for righteousness, it’d be those two.  With both of them MIA, I wanted to go check the news to be 100% sure that I didn’t need to go spend the next few months in my secret Armageddon Bunker in an undisclosed location.

Incidentally, false alarm.  No Rapture.  We’re good.

Willow and Missions

Willow left me with a lot of questions about where we draw the line between missions and evangelism or if such a line really even exists.  It seems that Willow’s predominant outreach tool is evangelism and encouraging church members and attendees to invite friends and family to take part in Willow.  Given the size of the church, I guess you could call those efforts a “success,” but with what the Reveal study has shown about the need for additional spiritual development, I’m hesitant to use that label.  As far as local outreach goes, Willow actually has a bevy of ministries in which members can participate: homeless outreach, tutoring programs, the list goes on and on.  The church also offers frequent short-term mission trips in Africa and Central America and even helps sponsor members who want to do longer-term mission projects as well.  All of this falls under the church’s “Compassion and Justice” ministry, and I wondered if maybe getting church attendees more active in these programs might be a remedy for Willow’s spiritual growth concerns.  Seriously, the church is doing some amazing things in this field.  They just need to publicize it a little more.

I also noticed that, while Willow does have ministries to the local community other than evangelism to friends and family (see the previously-provided link), most of the material available at the church focused on international mission efforts.  It reminded me of Mars Hill’s 20 Liters program, and I’m starting to wonder if there is a trend among megachurches where the focus becomes more on world missions than local.  Perhaps there is a pattern, and larger churches try to have larger impacts on a more global scale.  This is just a theory based on only two churches with absolutely no other evidence to back it up, but I’m curious now for the other megachurches on my route.  I wonder if this trend will continue.

Of course, my visit to Willow also forced me to reexamine my thoughts on evangelism.  I openly admit that I see evangelism as somewhat secondary.  I’m really more concerned with helping underprivileged communities and developing countries, and the idea of winning people over to the Kingdom is usually just something that I think of when I see that a friend is clearly struggling and could benefit from the love of Christ and a good, positive Church environment.  In my mind, filling stomachs and minds precedes filling souls, and I’m not sure whether that’s good, bad, or just something that needs to be balanced by the other Christians with whom I surround myself.

So yeah, I guess Willow gave me some pretty serious food for thought.  The church knows how to grow numerically, but now they’re working hard to make sure that their members and attendees are growing spiritually as well.  It wasn’t a perfect worship service or a perfect sermon, and the affluence of the neighborhood made me a little uneasy, but the people there were incredibly friendly and welcoming, and those were also some phenomenal facilities!  Willow is doing their best to offer their full selves to God through worship and personal growth and unremitting evangelism, and I’ll be curious to see what direction this church takes in the future as they look for the right balance of those elements.

Peace and Blessings,

Tom

Oh, and once more just because I feel like it, I do love this vision of the church:

So those who welcomed his message were baptized, and that day about three thousand persons were added.  They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.  Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles.  All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.  Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.  (Acts 2:41-47)