Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois, recently morphed their midweek services into university-like classes, catering to everyone from those just starting to explore Christianity to more mature believers who want to go deeper in their study of theology and Scripture.
That's just one of many changes the megachurch is implementing after a churchwide study showed long-time and fully devoted attendees were not as satisfied as those new to the Christian faith and had stalled in their spiritual growth. Whilst many were participating in church programmes and activities, attendees were not necessarily growing more as disciples of Christ, the study found.
The study, published in Reveal: Where Are You?, was a groundbreaking eye opener. This, together with the release of the findings and Willow Creek's leaders admission that they had made a "mistake", led to a storm of online discussions and reports saying that Willow's leaders had made shocking confessions.
"If the most shocking confession to come out of Willow in 32 years is that we did research and came out with tools to help people toward full devotion to Christ, I feel really good about our church,” said Senior Pastor Bill Hybels, according to a statement. “I don’t call it shocking; I call it honest. We have never wanted to play church here; we have always wanted to be the real deal."
Last month, Hybels issued another statement in which he apologised for not waking up to the situation sooner.
"We learn and grow at Willow. We make no apologies for wanting to get better at leading this church. We are dead serious about helping seekers come to know Christ, about helping Christians grow to be Christ-centered," he said.
"And any time we can find a more effective way, any time we gather more information that informs us to be able to lead this church better, we humble ourselves before God, we humble ourselves before our own congregation, and we say 'we think we found a way that we can serve you better.
"So our apologies for not waking up to this sooner but we're doing the best we can. And our church usually applauds and says 'thanks for your honesty and lead on'."
Some reports indicated that the seeker-sensitive church was shifting its focus from seekers, or those exploring Christianity, to more mature believers.
Nancy Beach, vice president of the Arts Willow Creek Association, said last month that such reports were "terribly inaccurate in their assessment of what we're learning and exploring these days".
"Let me be very, very clear," she said during WCA's annual Arts Conference. "We are never ever going to abandon reaching nonchurched people. This has been a part of our DNA since we started this church. It was built on the foundation of saying 'we want to reach our friends'.
