‘Every once in a while a shaft of blazing beauty seems to break out of nowhere and illuminate these companies: Word of God-shaped, Holy Spirit-created lives of sacrificial humility, incredible courage, heroic virtue, holy praise, joyful suffering, constant prayer, persevering obedience.’

During last week as my official last few days, it was a roller-coaster of events and emotions. The church gave us a wonderful last Sunday and truly awesome goodbye bash on Tuesday. On Sunday I taught my last sermon, David Chaput gave a wonderful tribute, the children led a special prayer for us, and then the church gathered round us to pray. Tuesday had people gathered from far and wide, tributes, a live jazz band, and generous gifts. We were blessed with so many generous gifts, words and memories. I’m still amazed by the heartfelt things that were said to both of us.

Though I am confident that becoming Senior Minister at Tonbridge Baptist Church is God’s will – a role I am thrilled to receive – I leave PBC with a deep mix of sadness and thanksgiving. As I had no idea how the journey would turn out at PBC, I’m sure the same will be true of our time at Tonbridge Baptist Church, and I look forward with expectation to see how God will move us all forwards into the things of His heart.

“You are not where you once were. You are not where you’re going to be. You are in a confusing zone. Welcome to The Land Between.” – Jeff Manion.

In this coming five-week series we will learn to encounter God’s goodness through life’s transitions. Based on a new book by author Jeff Manion, we’ll spend five weeks using the biblical story of the Israelites journey through the Sinai desert as a metaphor for being in a transitional space.

After enduring generations of slavery in Egypt, the descendants of Jacob travel through the wilderness (the land between) towards their new home in Canaan. They crave the food of their former home in Egypt and despise their present environment. They are unable to go back and incapable of moving forward. How can this ancient story provide wisdom for our journeys through transitions or even seasons of prolonged difficulty today?

October 3^rd 10am:             Complaint

October 10^th 10am:             Meltdown

October 17^th 10am:             Provision

October 24^th 10am:             Discipline

October 31^st 10am:             Growth

The church, like any organisation, is easy to laugh at and it’s healthy that we do.Wherever there are lots of people there is always opportunity for humour. Adrian Plass, a lovely man and a brilliant writer, has had me and thousands of others in stitches with his bestsellers about church life. Laughter, as the saying goes, is often the best medicine.

As a fellow ‘Rev’ I guess a main concern I have is that I regularly meet people who have no idea what church is really like and so base their views on the caricatures in sit-coms or soaps. That’s what I did until I actually went to church for the first time when I was 15 and all my preconceptions were blown to bits. My fear with ‘Rev’ – but its a challenge too – is that it will once again ‘market’ church to those who never go, only confirming in their minds why they should never go. I have never seen the kinds of vibrant, effective, community churches that I’ve had the privilege to know represented on TV. I would disagree with AA Gill who expressed his opinion in his review in the Sunday Times this week and said, ‘It’s not that the audience doesn’t believe; it no longer cares about the church…’ Many, many people do.

I’ll watch the next few to see where it goes. It’s on tonight at 10pm. Any views anyone?

“Sunday’s Coming” Movie Trailer from North Point Media on Vimeo.

What I love about this video is its source. Northpoint is one of the ‘coolest’ churches in America. It does ‘contemporary’ like no other church I’m aware of and it ‘works’. They are passionately devoted about being a church that non-church goers (in America) want to go to so they can hear about the life of Jesus. And they go, in their thousands. What I love about the bold deconstruction in this video, and by this church, is that it shows us that if the heart isn’t there, the medium is just empty of value, whether it’s ‘cool’ church or ‘hymn sandwich’ church.

The disturbing thing about this video though is that the medium is the message; the gospel is affected by what it is carried in, so I wonder how people perceive God when this is the kind of service in which the message is conveyed.

It was a precious time for me in the midst of a demanding ministry season to meet a great friend and to receive a huge dose of wisdom and guidance. We walked back to the station, sat on the steps outside Charing Cross and prayed, as London carried on its busy life around us.

When I reflect on the formational impact that the guidance and support of key friends like Derek has had in my life, I am left with a deep sense of gratitude to God for them, and it inspires me to also mentor and invest in others. In his excellent book, Courageous Leadership, Bill Hybels says ’Those of us who are more seasoned in leadership must order our lives in such a way that we can carve out time in the next generation of leaders. It is our responsibility. We imperil the church and the world if we don’t take that responsibility seriously…We must identify emerging leaders, invest in them, give them kingdom responsibilities, and coach them into effectiveness. Then we can each experience the thrill of watching them soar.’

Like the woman that Jesus defended, may we do what we can with what he has given us, and may we invest our lives in others so that we can see people grow, develop and soar.

When the dust has settled I’ll comment on my incredible morning yesterday (Sunday) at Willow Creek’s service at their main auditorium… wow, wow, wow. I’ll also try and sum up the week and tell some stories about some of the infectious (not Swine flu…) Willow members I’ve had the privilege to meet but haven’t mentioned yet.

Greg spent the morning unpacking the process and finding of the Reveal survey; the focused, research-based view of how the spiritual journey unfolds, validated through extensive survey input from over 157,000 congregants in more than 500 churches. This growing sample includes churches of all kinds of denominations, sizes, and contexts.Without going into immense detail (which I found very exciting), here are some observations.

The results identify a spiritual continuum comprised of 4 unique kinds of people at different stages of spiritual development: Exploring Christ, Growing in Christ, Close to Christ, and Christ-Centered. Each group has uniquely defining characteristics; together they form the lens through which REVEAL conducts its work. Remember, these results were from church attending people, 98% of these people believe in God, with very similar attitudes:

1. Exploring Christ – these are not new Christians, or necessarily active ‘seekers’, they could have been drifting along in church for years
2. Growing in Christ – these are people who would agree with the sentence ‘I believe in Jesus and am working on what it means to know him further.’
3. Close to Christ – ‘I depend on him daily for guidance. It’s a very vital relationship in my life. Jesus will help me through my day. Jesus is my friend.’
4. Christ – Centered – ‘Jesus truly is my Lord. My relationship with Jesus is the most important relationship in my life. It guides everything I do.’ It’s not about Jesus helping me through my day, it’s what can I do for him today.

Some of the implications are as follows:

• If a Pastor measures Christian maturity by their ‘involvement’ in the church, it is not a good question. It’s natural for Pastors and leaders to do this, because there is very little tangible evidence to look for, but involvement is not sufficient. The right lens is ‘how important is Christ to this person.’
• The question is, ‘How can we as a church help them move from stage to stage (increasing level of love for Christ and neighbour) rather than simply be more involved more?’

The Reveal survey confirmed or revealed the following information:

1)    Reading and reflecting on the Bible is the most powerful Catalyst for individual Spiritual Growth

1. Whichever ‘group’ (Exploring Christ, Growing in Christ, Close to Christ, Christ – Centered) you’re in, reading the Bible will help them grow.

2)    Developing Core Christian beliefs is crucial for those in the early stages of Spiritual Growth

1. In the earlier stages of Christian growth, helping them to understand core Christian beliefs is crucial to prevent ‘stalling’ later on. So, for example, an insufficient view of the church as radical covenant community at an early stage of Christian development means at a later stage they are more likely to fall for a consumeristic view of church.
2. Therefore developing foundational classes is very important

3)    Personal Spiritual practices are the building block for a Christ-centered life

1. More than attending services
2. This makes sense, because we stop ‘my’ life by a discipline to ‘be with God’ in some kind of way. When we practice spiritual disciplines we’re prioritizing our life to spend more time with the one we love and consequently the more we spend time with the one we love we love them more.
3. As Pastors, it means we don’t tell people they should do these things, but rather we invite them to be with the one who loves them more than they can know.
4. They remain disciplines because stopping ‘our lives’ requires discipline.

4)    Serving is the most catalytic experience offered by Churches

5)    Spiritual community is vital and migrates from organized to organic

1. The form of what the vital community is, can change.
2. These findings rocked Willow, because they realized that organized Small Groups are less important for the later stages of Christian maturity. Those ‘close to Christ’ and ‘Christ Centered’ don’t need us as churches to organize community for them. If you try, or if we’re forceful, we’ll actually be resented.
3. Therefore ‘The statement that ‘everyone should be in a small group’ is false based on the research. The statement, ‘you should all be in authentic community’ is true.
4. Those who were in the more mature categories of Christian maturity were organising authentic community themselves.

They also discovered that the rate of someone’s spiritual growth in the later mature categories is growing fastest. This is obvious but encouraging; if we spend more time with him, we love him more.

One of the fundamental changes for Willow is in how they see themselves and their role. They no longer see themselves as ‘parental’ and consequently they want to reset the bar of their congregations expectation. They will now say things like, ‘We can’t read your bible for you. We can’t drive the car for you to get here on a Sunday. We can’t pray for you.’ Instead, they encourage self-learning.

According to the results, this what the top 5 effective churches are doing:

• They get people moving
  • This is not an ‘over involvement’ mentality, but rather a ‘Next Step’ mentality; ‘What’s your next step for growth?’
  • They are passionate and consumed about people getting going, not ‘gentle gentle.
• They embed the bible in everything: In staff meetings, naturally in conversations, people sharing what scripture is saying to them at that moment, in addiction/recovery groups, throughout churches. This is not necessarily exposition, but a very value that the Bible guides everything! ‘What are you studying these days because of what God is saying?’ is a natural question
• They create ownership: Investing in people, Low control, They are cheerleaders of people being empowered and released
• They pastor the local community: Do anything, in the name of Jesus, bringing ministry to the neighbourhood. The top 5 churches make a large investment of their budget in this.
• The leaders are consumed with making disciples: They unapologetically call people to full discipleship. They are obsessed with the end-game of ‘…making disciples’ It starts with the leaders of churches having a radical commitment to being a disciple themselves.

I found these results so exciting, and clarifying. Of course they need more reflecting on, and contextualising, but they are a good start.

Greg was such a refreshing individual. He is the executive Pastor of one of the biggest churches in the world, and yet he was really down-to-earth, brilliant in a zany kind of way. If you’re a fan of the West Wing, he was so like Josh Lynam with shades of Leo McGarry. That would make Bill Jed Bartlett….

Tour of Willow with Brian MacAuliffe

This was so inspiring for anyone considering a building project. The tour took about two hours and we visited all the Promiseland Area, the original auditorium, ‘Dr. B’s’ – their large café, a 5000 ft bookstore, their food court/Atrium that seat 750 (which is used on a Sunday with large cinema screens dropped from the ceiling for those who just want to take in the service in a café environment) and other rooms (40 classroom-sized rooms and 18 ‘breakout’ rooms for small group meetings.  The story behind the new building is so inspiring, with incredible generosity from people leading to so many testimonies of how God had truly provided. When one hears of God’s faithfulness in concrete ways, it made PBC’s own £3 million building project seem more of a possibility.

We then went into the new Auditorium. WOW! It’s one of the most beautiful auditoriums I’ve ever seen, with such attention to detail. There is wheelchair seating on all three levels, a stage the size of a West End stage with three or four underground levels for stage building.  They can have different stages already set up underneath that can sit on movable stages that rise up to the top. It has to be seen to be believed. All of this has made volunteering in areas for more pleasant and the building of sets and stages far easier to achieve. Whilst we were touring the stage was a flurry of activity as people were building a stunning looking set for their main Christmas services.

The space has been innovatively designed to reflect the sound of the congregation singing while absorbing the audio from the sound system, allowing for better acoustics and worship experiences. The floor beneath the seats is a beautiful stone that enables singing acoustics, but the aisles are carpeted so you can’t hear people leaving. The chairs are also sound ‘proofed’, cinema style seating so that when people stand for a response, you don’t hear a thousand clattering, clunking seats. The ceiling is one of the most innovative in the whole of the USA to provide perfect congregational acoustics. The Audio is enhanced so that sound levels are consistent throughout the majority of seating areas. It is breathtaking.

We went to the rooms beneath and behind the staging and saw stunning music studios, television/camera operating suites, orchestra rehearsal rooms. They weren’t going to have this area, but a member who passionately believed in the Arts wrote a $2million cheque so that these vital art groups would have dedicated space for rehearsals and development, which in turn has benefited the Willow services. There is a ‘green room’ with cafeteria and comfortable seating, and television screens on the wall for those who are involved in the services to wait in.

In the evening tonight we attended a humbling fundraising evening held in the Atrium/food-court with donors from the Willow Creek membership who had been invited along to hear about the work of the Willow Creek Association and the fruitful Global Leadership Summit (GLS) that is working around the world to encourage church leaders in their development.  About five of the Pastors from the Leadership Training shared how the GLS had helped them. There was a small live orchestra and a lovely cooked meal. I chatted to some of the donors and shared how Willow has helped me in so many ways. Bill Hybels arrived to share extemporarily what the GLS means. There was no hype, no hard sell, just an honest appeal for the Kingdom from a man who is clearly anointed. When he walked in the room, all of us Pastors agreed later in our discussions that Bill has such a presence, it is clearly an anointing. Many of the Pastors on the training week with me lead churches that have thousands attending, and yet they all commented on Bill’s ‘presence’. Many of these donors went on to give six figure sums to the GLS. What generosity. In Indonesia, where there is almost no church leadership training and encouragement, they charge $7 per Pastor to attend the GLS, and yet the projector itself costs $100,000 to hire. Many of the poorer and persecuted countries are heavily subsidised, which these donors were covering. Incredible. The GLS is not a profit making organisation – they just want to encourage Pastors.

The Willow Creek Association

Started in 1992 to provide vision. Training and resources for church leaders. Over 12, 685 member churches representing more than 91 denominations from 37 countries. In 2007, 20,152 guests attended conferences at the South Barrington Campus. In 2007, 108,000 leaders in 216 cities from 32 countries attended the Leadership Summit.

I drove to Willow Creek and picked up my two co-travellers on the way, Des and Bill. We’ll be driving together every day this week and sharing the cost of the car and petrol. Des is a lead Pastor in a fairly young church in Preston, Longton Community Church, and Bill is a businessman who also coordinates a lot of activities between churches in Scotland for Alvie and Insh Community church. After one journey with these great guys it had felt like we’d known each other for much longer. My first impressions of these guys is of their passion for Christ. Spending the week with these two, and the other 70 leaders from around the world will be a large part of the encouragement I receive and growth that I undergo.

We found Willow Creek. Oh my gosh. It’s like Bluewater, but better, because its all designed to help people feel welcome at church. For example, very near the entrance are First-Time Promiseland check-in desks, for new families. The others register below in its beautiful purpose-build Promiseland area. It’s a stunning building of huge proportions. Here is a church that has had a huge impact in my life and so much of it was launched from here. I haven’t even seen the auditorium yet, I’ve got that joy to come. Average weekend attendance is 22,000, so the aisles and the spaces need to be big to get people in and out. For special services, the attendance is much higher. For example, in Christmas 2007 they had 85,000 adults attend 12 services… the numbers are mind boggling, particularly considering it began only 34 years ago 1975 in a movie theatre.

The carpark really feels as large as Bluewaters – it was huge (there are 3,817 spaces). Needless to say, we didn’t struggle to find a space…. The original auditorium on this site, which is still used by the High School ministry, seats over 2500. It was able to seat up to 4000, before they made some alterations as part of the new auditorium and atrium which opened in September 2004. The new auditorium seats 7,095 people. When Bill Hybels and the Willow leaders bought this land originally, there were ‘only’ 440 families so they really felt like they were rattling around their originally large auditorium and all these acres. But they believed passionately that God had given them a vision to grow, through people far from God coming to know Christ, and this is what’s happened.

Scott McKnight

After breakfast with the 70 leaders attending this week, we had our first session that was led by Scott McKnight. Scott McKnight is perhaps most well known for his excellent books ‘The Blue Parakeet’ and ‘The Jesus Creed.’ McKnight got his PhD from Nottingham under James Dunn and is and is the Karl A. Olsson Professor in Religious Studies at North Park University. Since graduating from the London School of Theology, I have had little opportunity to sit and learn from genuine academics and have opportunity to ask questions. I lapped up the time with him and typed like crazy.

In his books McKnight shows he is someone who is willing and able to tackle the complex issues of biblical interpretation for a more popular audience, and here at Willow with church leaders wanting to be stretched, he seemed in his element. His overall argument that the Bible should be remembered and read as story, and truly absorbed and lived by those who aspire to teach it to others, was gripping to me. One session in, and I’ve been reminded of my early passion for scripture as raw story that can easily get overtaken by the urgent and endless teaching demands of ministry. I’ve been reminded that the gospel always leads to the formation of community, which is a helpful lens to look through at the health of PBC. Community is not just a happy consequence for the fully devoted Christ follower. Community is the only location where the fully devoted Christ follower can find their shape. Consequently, Church is at the centre of what God is doing in the world. For an introductory review of The Blue Parakeet, here’s a decent first step.

Brian McAuliffe, Director of Operations and Chief Financial Officer of Willow Creek Community Church

After lunch, Brian McAuliffer led us for 2 hours. Brian oversees the financial, accounting and operational functions, as well as the self-supporting ministries. He was one of the leaders of the entire new building process which cost around $90million. His session was a fascinating insight into the leadership structure of Willow Creek and its transition over the last couple of years to a Policy Governance approach model of governance which is designed to empower boards of directors to fulfill their obligation of accountability for the organisations that they govern. Brian explained how as Willow has increased in complexity, including their multi-site ministry and the Willow Creek Association, their previous governance was insufficient. The Policy Governance model enables the Elders to focus on the larger issues, to delegate with more clarity, to control Leadership Team’s job without meddling, and to rigorously evaluate the accomplishment of the church.

We also covered how the regional ministries run – what are led, what are centralised; their ‘clean-slate’ budget process which has 10% for ‘winds of the Spirit’; leading staff to results (they have 400 paid staff); and treating volunteers as staff. Willow involves 1000 volunteers every weekend for their services and many others throughout the week in other ministries. In total, it would be about $40 million full-time equivalent.

Kyndra Singer & Team – Volunteer Lay Pastor, Community Care Ministry at Willow Creek Community Church

Kyndra led our final session of the day and is a perfect example of servanthood at Willow. She was an excellent communicator that unmistakably communicated the love of Christ for those who are hurting. She is unpaid and volunteers as an area director for the Community Care ministry at Willow Creek Community Church and has been involved as a lay pastor with the Divorce Recovery Ministry at Willow Creek since 1989. For two hours she explained with clarity and stories how churches can enable its wounded-healers who have experienced struggling or broken relationships, redundancy or addictions to lead simple but effective community care groups where people are free to be themselves and find support. She then interviewed three people individually who had come through divorce recovery, one of whom had become a Christian three weeks ago. There was hardly a dry eye in the room as they each shared their story and how Willow’s recovery ministries have made such a difference in their lives. My heart was bursting with vision and prayer.

And this is just the first day!

Over the last few years Willow Creek has planted five regional campuses in neighbourhoods which are about 40 minutes drive away from the main Barrington site. Before these were planted, thousands of their attenders had driven an hour to get to Willow, and through planting campuses, the leaders at Willow aimed to give a nearer option to these friends as well as reach out to new communities in effective ways.  Each regional site has a ‘Campus Pastor’ who leads the staff team and vision of the regional church, and shepherds it to fulfil the overall Willow vision. There is a live band, live leading from the Campus Pastor, and the message recorded from the Saturday night serve at Barrington is played on DVD on huge screens behind the platform. They’re meant to be ‘mini’ Willows.

When I walked into the church, I was so excited. I couldn’t believe I was here and would actually be attending Willow Creek. I walked in with Brian who was going to drop Rachel off at Promiseland. The first thing I noticed was how well this warehouse had been converted inside. There were huge wide aisles leading up to a massive Promiseland area, with colourful walls and rooms, with friendly Promiseland volunteers signing in children. There was a lovely café, art hanging all over the walls which had been made by Willow worshippers (apparently the art displayed regularly changes as artists produce more). After dropping Rachel off at Promiseland, Brian and I went to join Bethany and Denise in the main auditorium.

Walking in was an experience. The quality of the band was exceptional. The quality of the sound was exceptional. The seating was exceptional. Willow Creek put a lot of investment into the Audio-Visual equipment at their sites because the Sunday worship services are such a core part of their vision. There were about 1200 people in there. The church has 2 services in total, with about 2000 members at this regional site… and this is ‘mini’ Willow!

As the worship slowed, the Campus Pastor introduced baptisms, and then proceeded to baptise about 15 people during the next two worship songs. We didn’t hear their testimonies, but as they were baptised we could see  so vividly this profound evidence of changed lives. I had tears in my lives. I found out later that over the weekend they had 100 baptisms in total, just at their McHenry County campus.

As the worship ended, a young lady who had been one of the singers gave a few notices, before ‘handing over to Bill’, which was when the ‘videocast’ started. Because the lighting and video faded so well into one another, our attention was sustained and kept clearly on the teaching. One reason why watching a pre-recorded DVD as the teaching block works so well is because in these larger churches, 99% of people will watch the sermon on the big screen anyway, rather than stare at the tiny figure of the ‘live’ speaker. There are three big screens behind the stage, and one big screen right at the back of the church above the AV desk so that the singers and band can see their lyrics. None of the singers have music or lyrics obviously on display. Again, it’s a big financial investment to have such quality AV, but the screen at the back and their commitment to learn the songs helps the singers to be free from looking at music and worrying about lyrics. I can only compare it to the difference between watching a drama when the actors are fully in character, and no word sheets can be seen, to a drama when the actors are glancing every now and again at their words. As my church heads towards a substantial building project, it is great to be in buildings that have been designed so well according to the purpose that they want to see fulfilled.

My abiding memory will be the evidence of life change seen in these baptisms. It’s why I do what I do what I do, and what I want to see more and more of at PBC.