And speaking of pragmatism
Under the startling headline ‘Willow Creek Repents?’, the ‘Out of Ur’ blog talks about the latest moves of the Chicago-based mega-church to reach its people more effectively.
The ‘repentance’ involved is the discovery by Willow Creek that some of the core assumptions and methods of their ministry over the past 20 years are simply not working, and that they need to go back to a clean sheet of paper to question how they are ‘doing church’. Executive Pastor Greg Hawkins explains in an online video presentation that a sneaking feeling had been building for some time in his heart that something was wrong—that Willow Creek wasn't using its resources in the best way to help its people.
So he did what any good evangelical pastor would do: he went back to his Bible to check and reaffirm what Christian ministry was all about, and prayed. Well no, that's not quite what he did. He conducted a detailed survey of his people to find out whether they thought their spiritual needs were being met by the programmes of the church, and whether their participation in Willow Creek was actually helping them to grow or not.
The results of the survey, which were replicated in 30 other churches which also did the survey, were “earth-shaking” and “mind-blowing”, according to senior pastor Bill Hybels, and “the wake-up call” of his adult life.
What did they discover that was so earth-shattering? Simply that increasing participation in church programmes—such as worship services, Bible classes, small groups, and serving—did not predict increasing levels of devotion to Christ.
This was mind-blowing for the Willow Creekers because, as Greg Hawkins explains, their whole model of ministry has been built on increasing participation rates in church programmes in the belief that this would lead to increased spiritual growth. Their key measurable (as the business types would put it) was participation. Get people involved and doing something, and they will stay in your church and grow. This is a basic church growth rule.
Except that it wasn't working:
Some of the stuff that we have put millions of dollars into thinking it would really help our people grow and develop spiritually, when the data actually came back it wasn't helping people that much. Other things that we didn't put that much money into and didn't put much staff against is stuff our people are crying out for. (Bill Hybels)
As a result, Willow Creek is embarking on a massive new collaborative research programme involving 500 volunteer churches to find out exactly what it is that will bring true spiritual growth to people. Hawkins says:
Our dream is that we fundamentally change the way we do church. That we take out a clean sheet of paper and we rethink all of our old assumptions. Replace it with new insights. Insights that are informed by research and rooted in Scripture. Our dream is really to discover what God is doing and how he's asking us to transform this planet.
One can only hope that good things come out of this. Some of the new Willow ideas—for example, that believers should be taught how to read the Bible themselves, and become ‘self-feeders’—are welcome (but not completely original!) insights.
However, while I suppose all this could be classed as ‘repentance’ in one sense (they are turning away from one set of programmes and looking for another), it is really a change in tactics, not a change in basic method and approach. The what and how of ministry are still being determined by market research and analysis of ‘the data’. The new insights will be “informed by research and rooted in Scripture”, Greg Hawkins says, but “rooted in Scripture” appears to mean simply that they don't plan to do anything downright unscriptural.
The essay on pragmatism that I mentioned in my last post on this subject, which was published in The Briefing about eight years ago, observed this about the Willow Creek approach to the Bible and ministry:
In church growth literature, the Bible seems only to provide very broad parameters for actions (such as the basic task at hand to see people saved), but doesn't have much active role in shaping or grounding the ministry. What really drives the ministry comes from elsewhere—from management models, demographic analysis, research, experiment, common sense, sociology, psychology, or whatever. Certainly in Hybels's case, he makes no secret of his debt to management gurus like Peter Drucker, to current theories of pop-psychology, and to basic textbook principles of modern image-management and marketing.
Nothing has changed. While it's extremely admirable for Willow Creek to admit that things aren't working and to go back to the blank sheet of paper, it won't be the Bible's view of ministry that determines what gets written on that paper. It will be yet more survey data and analysis to find out what the ‘market’ really wants and needs so that they can be given it.
The management-driven, utilitarian approach to ministry will always be like this. We can only look forward to the next wake-up call in 15 years' time when whatever new programme they come up with this time also comes under the dread judgement of “it's just not working”.