How did Willow Creek Church miss THAT!?!

I've heard this story a few times in various conversations around "water-cooler" types of locations, but today I came across it in print (online) ...

Bills Hybles (pictured at right), senior pastor of the massive Willow Creek Church in Chicago, reflecting on a study that they did on the impact their church programs have on building "fully developed followers of Christ" ...

The results shocked them, but left many of us going: "DUH!!" ... you can actually watch it all on the Reveal blog, too.

Speaking at the Leadership Summit, Hybels summarized the findings this way:

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.

Having spent thirty years creating and promoting a multi-million dollar organization driven by programs and measuring participation, and convincing other church leaders to do the same, you can see why Hybels called this research “the wake up call” of his adult life.

Hybels confesses:

We made a mistake. What we should have done when people crossed the line of faith and become Christians, we should have started telling people and teaching people that they have to take responsibility to become ‘self feeders.’ We should have gotten people, taught people, how to read their bible between service, how to do the spiritual practices much more aggressively on their own.

In other words, spiritual growth doesn’t happen best by becoming dependent on elaborate church programs but through the age old spiritual practices of prayer, bible reading, and relationships. And, ironically, these basic disciplines do not require multi-million dollar facilities and hundreds of staff to manage.

From SJ