Mega-church, WillowCreek, has set the tone for church growth formulas and etc. over the last decade, or more, and recently they came out and revealed that the programs and etc. haven’t produced the spiritual growth and depth they were going for amongst their members and regular attenders. Without making any judgments on their methods, I was excited to see their humility to admit this and I’m even more excited to see what their new study, dubbed Reveal, will actual reveal about the health of the American church. I have increasingly moved away from program dependent ministry in my own life and ministry because I’m not working amongst a people or generation that gravitate towards programs, but towards relationships. So this is intriguing to me. Here is the short video but click here to watch the whole thing.
(HT-Dana)
Dude, what you said is key to this whole way of thinking: relationships need to drive discipleship (and evangelism, etc) not programs. It’s also important to remember that this is really a lot bigger than Willow, they are just the ones with the kahones to ask the questions and do the research and say that it’s not working well. Also, I’m not sure I would say that it is not working, but that it could work A LOT better.
This is key. I have been watching the developments as Willow is going through this study. I think this has been felt for years in the church, but this is the first time a major player are publishing it.
true dat to both of you! I’m really excited to see what good comes from this.