Reveal

Willow Creek Community Church in Illinois has done research concerning the depth of growth they are producing in the lives of their congregation. They have found that they are missing the mark in a lot of areas and released a book called Reveal sharing their findings. They have a website dedicated to revealing their information and discuss what they are discovering.

Associate Pastor Greg Hawkins shares the reason behind the research and how shocked all of Willow Creeks leaders were at with the finding. The website is http://www.revealnow.com/, and I encourage any of you who are interested in or dealing with the seeker church mentality to check it out. Watch the longer version of Greg Hawkins video if possible. It clearly shows that the model or way we have been doing church for the past several years is a faulty one and needs to be addressed.

When I watched the video by Hawkins, the research or their findings were not new or earth shattering at all. Over the past five years I have been wrestling with all of the things he mentioned, and along with my closest friends have discussed why seeker church does not work for the church at large.

Hawkins argues that there are five groups within most churches; Explorers (new word church builders are using for seekers or the unchurched or the nice old fashion word lost), growing Christians (those new to the faith), close (those who have a walk with God and think about Him often), centered (believers who have their center in Christ..He is their thoughts) and finally stagnant (people who are/were close who are not growing but still involved in all the programs and service in the church).

The people most satisfied with the Willow Creek model of church are the explorers and the growing, those most dissatisfied are the other three groups. The stagnant are working for closeness with God, but can’t find in through service, the close and centered believers are the ones leaving the church.

The goal of Willow Creek is to help people move from knowing about God to a relationship with Him, and from there into fully developed disciples (fulfilling the Great Commission). Willow Creek thought the way to build disciples was to plug those new believers/followers into worship services, small groups, classes, service opportunities and other church related activities. What they have found is that just plugging people into these activities does not produce mature believers. They are beginning to realize that the number of people in your congregation is less important than the depth of relationship people have with Jesus. No matter how many programs are offered, true discipleship is found by living life with God not in activities.

Greg Hawkins implies that the reason that those people who are close or centered on God are dissatisfied with church is because they have not been taught to feed themselves, but I don’t believe someone can truly be Christ centered without being able to feed themselves. Those who are close to God are not disappointed with the church because they don’t know how to meet their own needs, but rather because they are told constantly that church is not about them. It is instead about winning souls to Christ. So for a time, they accept that they are selfish. They serve, give, and feed themselves, but along the way church leadership seems to be looking down their nose at them. Sermons and teaching are made milky to reach people, but what those who are more mature are seeing is that when people are reached, they aren’t ever fed much more than milk, maybe some cereal, and on that those new converts will have a hard time growing in their relationship with God.

The centered become disillusioned because they are devalued and made to feel guilty for asking questions about teaching, study and deeper things. They start to give up after they have poured themselves out. They realize that they can feed themselves and their families, so maybe in the end they pull out because the church has become so “relevant” to the world that it is no longer relevant to them.

What happens in a church when the babies outnumber the older and more mature? A question Willow Creek and many more churches that have followed their model are asking. They are the church most evangelical churches in the United States are following. Their failings are the failings of a great number of churches and those failings need to be addressed and altered to ensure that we aren’t forever producing believers who are not disciples.