Ah, Christmas dramas. I’d almost forgotten they existed, until I heard about Willow Creek’s 2007 production: Imagine Christmas.
From a quick search on the internet, I can tell you one thing: You’ve never seen anything like this. And somehow you’ve seen everything like this. It’s a smorgasborg of modern Christmas grandiosity, chock full of American Christmas touchstones familiar to anyone who has ever watched television between Thanksgiving and December 25. Cute kids in snow hats quote Linus’ best lines of scripture from the Charlie Brown special. The stage is bathed in a wintry blue and covered in swirling snowflakes. Attempts to hint at the current market for C.S. Lewis fantasy material are thrown in: Shots of a Big Ben-ish clock tower tolling Christmas morning, and scriptures projected on-screen in a typeface that matches the one used in the recent film version of the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Dancers descend from the ceiling on ropes of billowing cloth a la Cirque de Soleil, angels trade pithy remarks, and dance teams backflip across the stage. Those looking for something more traditionally small-church American get a Gospel number of “O Come, O Come Emmanuel.” And then there’s that guy playing Trans-Siberian Orchestra-style violin backed by squealing electric guitars. This is not your local church’s Christmas drama, but it probably takes a stab at representing it.
Actually, maybe it is your local church’s Christmas drama. The Willow Creek Association’s website–which sells Willow’s ministry materials to other churches–lists Imagine Christmas and its associated promotion DVD as the third and fourth top-selling items in their store (see here). And a quick search on Youtube shows a bunch of our brothers and sisters in Christ are spending a lot of time trying to pull this thing off.
Church leaders are encouraged to purchase and produce Willow’s production, though the advice on method varies from “complete rip-off” to “do your own thing.” On this page, Willow declares that “Your Biggest Programming Decision of the Year Just Got Easier.” The package contains “everything your church needs to create an imaginative and highly-visual program or outreach event for the upcoming Christmas season,” and the site suggests that you may just want to “show it entirely on video.” On the same page, however, they encourage church leaders to “make a Christmas program that’s uniquely yours.” Willow leaders interviewed for the promotional trailer admonish purchasers to do something that fits the particulars of their community (and the size of their stage).
(As an aside, I have to chuckle at the thought of my own church performing Imagine: The altar guild ladies being lowered from the ceiling amid carol swells played by the hand-bell choir, the elderly couple with the hearing aids cringing to the wail of the guitar…)
The psychology behind the entire production is a plain example of consumer-driven church thinking. Bill Kinnon’s excellent post on Imagine quotes from the Chicago Tribune, which interviewed Willow’s PR rep, Susan Delay:
“In today’s world, the church must compete with movies and even restaurants for audiences. Everybody wants to be entertained. People who might not go to church might come to see a Christmas pageant, and if we can share Christ through this, then yeah!”
(I’ll leave any comments on church PR reps who end sentences in “then yeah!” for another time.)
I sound like a broken record for saying so, but the real shame here is that Willow Creek has assumed that the decline of American Christianity is a problem of attention span; that the solution is upping the ante with spectacles comparable or even larger than those the secular world offers. But this approach accepts without criticism the entire framework of marketing and American consumerism; that what we desire should be our foremost concern, that what we do with our time should satisfy our desires, and that we ought not feel guilty for any of it. Of course in all of this Willow is making an effort to communicate Gospel of Christ, but more now than ever before the medium is the message. What are the implications of communicating the Gospel in a way that is so much like the world’s anti-Gospel?
Please understand that my goal here is not to point out how so-and-so has done it better, or somehow say that Willow Creek is something other than part of the church. Certainly, the Holy Spirit uses even Imagine Christmas to give life. In the post I linked to above, Kinnon helpfully responded to a reader offended by his post, and it’s worth echoing the following:
I’m not sure who has said Willow is “bad for everyone.” The critique is primarily of the Consumer Church and how Willow is very much a part of that “style.”
It is pure pragmatism to suggest that because you became a Christian at Willow’s Imagine, and three family members prayed the prayer, that the spectacle of Imagine is beyond sincere criticism.
I became a Christian twenty-five years ago after watching a two person, one-act play based on Revelation 3:20. Someone I know became a Christian listening to Jesus Christ Superstar. On Christmas Eve, whilst we attended service in an Anglican Cathedral, my eldest son told me of a friend of his who became a Christian simply visiting such a place. In each situation, our Father drew us to himself. There are millions of stories of Christians coming to Christ in the oddest of ways. Because He worked in those situations does not mean that they are somehow anointed. (I listened to Jesus Christ Superstar hundreds of times as a teenager with little or no impact on my spiritual life.)
And as one commenter followed up:
Can we discuss the methods without invalidating the genuine things that God has done?
After all, this side of the resurrection, the church should be absolutely concerned about message and medium. God has promised to rescue his people, and I have no doubt he will do so even if Willow Creek merges with Starbucks, Joel Osteen becomes the next pope, and McDonald’s starts including N.T. Wright action figures in their Happy Meals. But the church is called to be a foretaste of a soon-coming kingdom, not of this world. Let’s spend some serious time talking, thinking, and praying about what recipe gives His people the truest flavor; all the fragrance, nuance and intensity of the supper of the marriage feast of the Lamb.
Fantastic post. And not because you quoted me. (My parts are the weakest.)
C’mon, Rob. You know that you’d be sneaking out to get Happy Meals for Olivia and Elise in order to collect NT Wright figures. I’m sure he has lots of official-looking outfits he could wear, from Oxford tutor to bishop to plain old clerical collar.
Very good post…enjoyed it.
Hey rob,
Been a long time. I hope this finds you and your family doing well. I have enjoyed catching up on your fam through the blog, and appreciate your thoughtful and sincere posts concerning the church and the kingdom of God.
I have always enjoyed our dialogues, and really miss them, since moving from Ohio to Michigan. As I am typing this, I realize that you once asked me to comment on the church through my web site and never did. Sorry about that.
Concerning your post above, I could not agree with you more when it comes to Willow Creek selling its product to other churches. I think it is really crazy that a church would make money off of something like that. (Assuming that they are making moeny off of it) I say just give it away.
Concerning your comments on consumerism, I agree with your analysys of our culture and the churches use of entertainement. However, having been to willow and now working at a church that would fall under this catagory, it is very hard for me to completly dismiss it after seeing how many people have become sincere followers of Christ as a result. And after seeing the Kingdom of God advance forcefully in the lives of the poeple in my community.
I think you might really enjoy a book I am reading called “the Forgotten Ways” by Alan Hersch. His words on thes issues I have found to be the most challening and thought through.
I guess when it comes down to it, I am not sold out to this ministry strategy at all, but I beleive God is using this ministry strategy to advance his kingdom. It is hard for me to dismiss it completely becasue of that.
At any rate. Hope you are doing well.
Derrak
By the way, you need to figure out how to make a living with your words. And then you need to hire me and teach me how to write, too. That’ll solve all our geographical and vocational problems, now, won’t it?
Your point about the Church being conformed to the culture reminds me a little of the Church’s history of co-opting the pagan traditions of Winter solstice and Spring equinox celebrations. I know there are some who try to overlook this now, but things like the yule log, holly, mistletoe, evergreen trees…these are straight out of Celtic and German/Norse mythology. And don’t even get me started on the fat guy in the red suit who “sees you when you’re sleeping”, and “knows when you’ve been bad or good”. So now, instead of trying to give the converted barbarians some of their old customs to cling to, we give consumer driven Americans that which they’re used to.
I guess a little accommodation of the culture isn’t so bad, like Paul in Rome doing like the Romans. But I agree with you that Willow Creek, et al, seem to be going way too far. I don’t have good guage of how far is too far yet. Do you?
Derrak:
It’s so good to hear from you. It’s always good to hear your take on things–I miss our breakfast discussions of these sorts of things.
You wrote:
As I mentioned above, I am certain that the Holy Spirit will grab hold of people through any means he chooses. Many have come to faith in the context of Willow’s programs, and I’m sure many would say that their lives have been changed because of something Willow has done.
But just because Willow’s way sometimes works doesn’t mean that it is best. Although the consumer-driven church model works for getting people in the door, it struggles to bring people to maturity (Willow has commented on this themselves through their REVEAL movement, which I’ve posted on further <a href=”http://loveandblunder.com/2007/11/12/new-name-same-old-song/”here). My contention is that it is the consumer-driven philosophy that undergirds the Willow Creek model which prevents people from putting down the deep roots Christ calls us to.
Further, Willow’s influence–particularly among evangelical church leadership–is almost unrivaled. It’s worth paying attention to Willow’s methods because they are setting the agenda for a huge slice of American church life. Do churches that adopt their model really think through its repercussions? And isn’t the entire idea of selling a successful ministry philosophy an extension of the passive consumerism that’s been shown to be so detrimental to communal life (see Albert Borgmann’s book Power Failure or Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death for more)?
A few questions roll around in my head. These are not directed at you particularly, Derrak, but for each of us to mull over. I would like to hear anyone’s thoughts:
* It seems the consumer-driven model is an innovation in church methodology that’s arisen in the last 50 years or so (please correct me if you have evidence otherwise). Any innovator is burdened with the task of showing their work as a necessary change from earlier models. What case can Willow Creek make that their model actually leads to healthier churches and better-rooted Christians? Numbers alone are not a sufficient answer. And, as mentioned above, in the Reveal initiative, it seems they’ve confessed that their model doesn’t work…?
* Were church-growth models built in response to problems within the church, or changes within the culture? What shift sparked the change?
I’d write more (I have a much longer list of questions to put down), but I have to get ready for the wedding of a good friend. I’m interested to hear what all of you have to say.
I witnessed a bizarre performance at my SIL’s Lutheran church- none of it made sense until I read this post. My guess is that they used Willow Creek materials and didn’t quite pull it off… but even if they had, I wouldn’t have been a fan.
Good round-tabling with you two again (and whoever else pulls up a chair).
I don’t think WC has any intention of nixing the front end, program-driven, full-throttle pizazz that they would put under the “evangelism” category. I think their REVEAL initiative is specifically under the “discipleship” category. They’re wanting to round out their effectiveness—to not pass less-recent converts on to more traditional and deep churches.
I’m reading Marsden’s biography of J. Edwards. It’s interesting how Edwards was caught between two paradigms in his own day–the first half of the 18th Century. There was the parish-oriented, local-with-a-capital-L congregational model, which even enjoyed its revivals. These revivals even spread “organically” from town to town w/o the use of itinerant (i.e., celebrity) preachers. In effect, each town had its own patriarch-minister-figurehead-quasi-celebrity. And then the Whitefields and Tennents and Wesleys came rolling through and changed the way the colonies experienced spirituality.
One of the lessons from this episode is that itinerant-preacher revival(ism) was connected with the rise of democracy and the departure of traditional aristocracy, and with the replacement of the vestiges of medieval feudalism by a growing capitalistic economic sensibility, all of which contributed to the sort of culture that would seriously ponder the idea of independence and revolution in the second half of the century.
I sometimes fear that the demon is in too deep. We just ARE consumers, capitalists, and democrats. Even in the tradition I find myself in, which ostensibly decries consumer-driven churchianity, there is a “brand-loyalty” ethos that runs through our circles. I’m sure Rob can testify to this about his tradition, too. But it’s probably worse in Reformed circles b/c the ethnic factor is not as strong as in Lutheran circles. It’s our “brand” of theologizing, of worship, of raising kids, of relating to secular culture. I feel so often that Reformed folks are constantly *selling* a Reformed brand to one another and to themselves—I, for one, certainly have, am, and will continue to.
That’s all for now. Thoughts?
By the way, I am not really all that bothered by WC selling the production or the video to other churches. “Ministry resources” are always bought and sold, marketed, plugged, etc.—even if you buy hymnals from your denomination’s publishing house. The problem is not WC’s impulse to share their genius with other churches. The problem is that hymnals are better ministry resources than videos. I think that’s really what we’re saying here, isn’t it? Any group of people can effectively use a short stack of hymnals to make their humble church service worshipful, no matter their budget and regardless of whether they even have cash to hire a pianist or guitarist.
Printing off to read…but on the onset, it would seem I agree with you pretty much 100%. We are WELS (hubby is a pastor) and it would seem that our denom is being pulled in 2 different directions–causing a split of animosity I never thought I would see in my denom (foolish I know). One side says that WC and the like are the way to go….the other side leans more towards historic Lutheran liturgy for worship to the extreme of a more ELDoNA (new synod breakoff from the LCMS) approach.
I am caught in the middle…having been in WC for worship and various debates (i.e. “evolutionism” vs “creationism”) just over a decade ago (so it’s been awhile)…I know I’m not a fan of WC or other mega churchesque types.
It’s not a denomination thing though for me…meaning it’s not because I’m Lutheran and they are not…it’s bigger than that. Basically, as a 30-year-old Christian, I’m just plain sick and tired of the production, the marketing…feeling like I’m being sold something. I get that in the secular world enough, when it creeps into my faith life…I recoil.
On the flip side, I hesitate with the other side of traditionalism a bit as well…especially when it hints of a legalistic tone….so you see, I’m caught in a very unhappy middle.
Thanks for the post….of to read it with my husband. :)
Oh, I meant “off”…and apologies with with all possible spelling errors…I have 5 kids running around and my brain isn’t working all that well post-Christmas. haha.
Some day we will all exhaust ourselves and then return to Christians gathered around bread and wine. Willow’s success has sent more pastors into tailspins of doubt and scedules of exhaustion than any trend I have seen over the 30 years of ministry I have witnessed. Everyone sitting in those seats during the spectacles can taste that something is not right – they are stimulated, inspired, and maybe even proud that the church can pull off something so amazing. But they have the sneaking suspicion that if this is what it takes, Christianity is in deep trouble.
i have been to willow, can i get a mocha chai tea with my sins please?
In selfish or unselfish ways? ,