Author: Rob

While writing my last post, one phrase used over and over by Hybels and Hawkins has been sticking in my brain: “spiritual journey.” There’s nothing uniquely Willow Creek about this term, it’s pretty much everywhere you look when it comes to American spirituality. Christian or otherwise, everyone’s talking about their spiritual journey; it’s as much a New Age term as anything else.

So, some rambling thoughts on the phrase: Is this a term Christians should be using? Does “spiritual journey” really capture the Christian hope in the resurrection of the body, the restoration of earth and heaven, the union with the Christ and all saints? The journey underscored by Christ and the disciples isn’t some sort of traversal of higher planes of Christian understanding, but a move from life to death to new life. And I mean physically, too.

To my ears, these words have lost a lot of their saltiness. In the context of the video clips Willow Creek leadership summit, they somehow sounded more gnostic and narcissistic than Christian.

Eugene Peterson has done a lot of work in his writing to recover this phrase, and really to recover the word “spirituality” in general. I highly recommend his books “Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places,” “Eat This Book,” and “The Jesus Way” on the subject.

Peterson’s primary thrust is that you can’t go talking about spirituality without talking about a Christianity that’s lived. Not lived in the sense of a life that follows some sort of principles for success, but a Christianity that’s lived in places, conversations, meals, lived while driving the minivan, walking the dog, tending to your sick children, getting up and going to work and coming back and lying down again. That’s not to say the Christian spiritual journey is the “same old” life. No, but it’s life where the journey happens, life shaped by the cross.

Maybe it’s worth saying that the Christian spiritual journey has more to do with waiting than escaping. The Apostle Paul’s image of the long and painful footrace of perseverance is also a good one, if you can put yourself in the mind of the runner trudging along mile after mile, and not the spectator tuning in only to catch him crossing the finish line.

I’m still digesting what I’ve read and watched about Willow Creek’s latest project: Reveal. To really understand what this is about, you really have to go watch this video presented by Greg Hawkins, the executive pastor at the church.

The basic premise Hawkins lays out is as follows: Megachurches like Willow have defined themselves with the following method:

• Churches exist to make disciples of Christ. Hawkins describes a disciple of Christ as someone who has “increasing love for Christ, and increasing love for others.” (Jesus used a similar formula when asked to sum up the Law…)
• Churches make these disciples by creating stuff for people to get involved in: Service projects, small groups, worship services, bible studies, etc. After the initial step of belief, involvement in these programs turns people from new believers into disciples.
• Taking these first two points, you can then make the case that a church’s success is going to be determined by the congregation’s head-count. The more people are involved in more programs, the more disciples are produced.

But Willow’s recent research indicates that things don’t actually work out this way. Instead, those who consider themselves most devoted to Christ are those also getting the least out of the programs and activities provided by the church. In fact, in Willow’s own surveys, they found that people self-described as “fully devoted followers of Christ” were the most likely to be thinking about leaving the church. Individuals who had gotten past the initial rush of exploring and diving into faith were progressively less and less interested in all the “stuff” that had brought them into Willow Creek in the first place.

In this video, Willow founder Bill Hybels talks about the new direction the church is going as a result of these findings. He offers the opportunity for other churches to run the same survey, gather the same data, and join along on Willow’s course. Maybe I’m missing something, but the new direction Hybels lays out doesn’t look that different from the old.

Hybels talks about how his team is going to begin providing “customized personal spiritual growth plans,” explaining “You go to a health club, and you get a personal trainer who tells you how can do physical conditioning in the way you need it. Well, we need to provide customized personal spiritual growth plans to people at Willow to get them to become self-feeders.” Hybels goes on to say, “We’re gonna up the level of responsibility we put on the people themselves so that they can grown, even if the church doesn’t meet all their needs.”

To be blunt, this whole thing is pretty gut wrenching. All the standard megachurch criticisms can be made–that the whole thing is boardroom-slick and marketing-savvy–but what particularly gets me is how it leaves no room for the Holy Spirit to just do His work. Would C.S. Lewis’ growth plan have read “marry a divorced woman with a terminal illness”? Bonhoeffer’s, something like “join a secret organization dedicated to rescuing Jews and speak out against Nazi power.” Lazurus’ would be short and sweet: “Die. Trust us.”

Even while watching the videos, I was holding out hope. I kept expecting a record-scratch sound effect to interrupt. An old woman to start pounding out “The Church’s One Foundation” on a creaky upright. Someone to open up a Bible. Anything that might snap the whole thing back to something close to orthodoxy. I guess I was just expecting to see the cross.

These guys just rock.

And, no; despite the title, this post has absolutely nothing to do with Lutheran heritage.