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.

He gave answers and wisdom to questions about the priority of marriage and the family over ministry; issues worldwide that the church needs to be prepared for in the future; church and politics; work-life balance; staff empowerment; staff selection and firing; spiritual warfare; teaching series planning; developing new teams; the importance of self-awareness, relational and emotional intelligence; humility; integrity; marketplace ministry; succession planning; the importance of younger leaders in succession planning; global poverty; compassion; governance; the 20-something generation; the Reveal survey; leadership mistakes he has made; church planting and multi-site ministry. This was leadership gold from someone who pastored Bill Clinton after his affair and who has led a church over 35 years into a place where it is as influential as a church can possibly be. Asked whether how he maintains humility, he said its not difficult, because there are people in Barrington who have never heard of Willow Creek, and although they might reach over 20,000 people, this is in a city of 8 million. ‘What keeps me humble is the overwhelming task ahead of us all. There are millions who are not reconciled to God and unless we as a church leaders are show our people that our hearts break for the lost and like them make stumbling and bumbling efforts to talk to our friends about Jesus, our churches won’t recover the heart for evangelism that every Christ follower should have.’

When asked about the culture of serving that is so evident at Willow Creek, Bill said it has taken 37 years to develop, and needs to be taught consistently and biblically. ‘The local church is the hope of the world. What better thing is there to serve? The New Testament knows nothing of consumerist Christianity.’

As if to back up his point, after the day had finished I thanked one member of the excellent hospitality team that had volunteered to serve us all week with drinks, breakfast, lunch and dinner. His reply? Word for word: ‘Oh thank you; it’s a joy. Jesus has done so much for me, and this church has done so much for me, it’s just a delight to serve him. I just love doing my part to help.’ He walked out of the room we were in and my jaw was on the floor.

With head and heart full of ideas, information, stimulation, challenge and encouragement, my two travelling companions and I quietly made our way to the car, and travelled to our hosts, resting in the reality that we had just experienced one of the best weeks that we could have possibly asked for and a day with Bill Hybels, a man after God’s heart who has been mightily used by Him.

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.

In the morning, we were led by Steve Bartz, who has been an elder at Willow Creek for 18 years. I was struck by his commitment. As well as being an Elder, Steve is the president of Graybill, Bartz, & Associates, Ltd., an investment research and management firm. He was also previously a vice president at Bank of America and Continental Bank. Steve has undergraduate and graduate degrees in finance and he has also studied theology. Far from being ‘too busy’ to be an Elder, here is a guy who felt compelled to give his all to the local church for the sake of the world.

After a morning with Steve Bartz I felt like I’d been with a truly exceptional leader whom God has used greatly in the background to help Willow to be all that it is. I was reminded vividly how every church needs Elders of not only real character but also a very high standard of leadership and administrative calibre. Here was a man who has given a significant portion of his life and energies to protect the unity, development and holiness of Willow Creek so that it is optimally led and protected. They’ve had to be highly responsive to change whilst giving solidity and strength to a growing church and very capable staff team. He gave us all a big pack of material including policies and the Eldership interview process that will be very useful in the future at PBC.

Steve went through their understanding of a biblical view of Eldership and how Elders can increasingly delegate responsibility. The key responsibilities of Eldership are:

1. 1. Provide Spiritual Oversight (which includes)
   1. a. Confront false teaching
   2. b. Set policies:
      1. i. Both of which has needed careful prior theological reflection
2. 2. Shepherding the flock (which includes conflict resolution).
3. 3. Manage the church
   1. a. Steve acknowledged that it is a fine line for an Elder to finds the right level of involvement where a church is in its growth and activities.
4. 4. Pray for the sick
   1. a. With a church of 22,000, they’ve needed to empower others to do this too!

Any potential Elder undergoes a rigourous interview procedure which involves answering questions around five key areas:

1. Character.
2. Competence – a huge requirement is the competency in handling and teaching God’s word.
3. Chemistry – with the wider team
4. Courage – Steve said, ‘It takes guts to be an Elder, do these potential Elders have deep strength of their own opinions when they have to face hostile folks and often have to take something away from someone?’
5. Calling – Steve said that enthusiam, talents and gifting is not enough, because Eldership is too tough and needs to be anchored in a clear sense of call for Elder and spouse.

The Spiritual Gifts they most look for in Elders are:

• Discernment
• Wisdom
• Leadership/Administration

The rest of his session was a deep look at methods of conflict resolution, which Elders have to be involved deeply in or need to train up others to be able to do it. Again, we were given excellent material.

Nancy Beach

The final two hours of the day were with Nancy Beach, one of three primary teaching Pastors at Willow Creek and Vice President of the Arts, Willow Creek Association. She is the author of An Hour on Sunday, a book that has helped me immensely in my thinking about Sundays at PBC, and the newly released Gifted to Lead. An effortless communicator, we saw inspiring moments on the big screen from recent services at Willow as she explained how their services were approaching worship and teaching at Willow these days. We discussed various ways of calling people to worship, the role of music within services and the role of other forms of prayer and response.

Nancy reminded us of the many things in a service planners ‘toolbox’. She also wnet through a service planning process that was very interesting and something we will be moving towards more at PBC:

Phase 1: Design phase (often about four weeks ahead of the service – unless a special event like Christmas.)

• Needs to be a team, otherwise you get one person’s limited perspective
• They need to be ‘idea people’, not even necessarily the people who can carry out the ideas.
• They need to know the big idea of what the Pastor will teach about in that service in the future: a theme, a scripture, a goal?
• The purpose is quantity of ideas – before you later choose which idea you’ll use. 90% of ideas won’t be used, but are stepping stone to the right idea
• Creativity and food go well together!

Phase 2: Development Phase

• Often decisions made in the design phase have to be modified for various reasons, so plan B, or plan C are used.
• Sometimes this part is over e-mail, phone-calls – often not a meeting
• The Holy Spirit is fully part of this process, and helps knit together services designed for the people He knows who He’ll bring to the services on a Sunday.

Phase 3: A Sunday in the future – Willow calls it ‘Game Day’

• What are rehearsals like before the people come in? We need to create a joyful unifying experience for teams long before the doors open.
• They’ve decided they’d rather come earlier and have a calm, joyful experience before the service starts than frantic, stressful times. They rehearse enough before the service so that they can have half an hour free just before the service starts to quietly get centered on Jesus.
• They look at this process and change it whenever it is necessary.

Phase 4: Evaluation

• Why evaluation? This is how we learn
• Why evaluation? This is how we get better
• 90% of it should be celebration about what God accomplished in the service.
• What went well?
• What did we learn?
• What could be improved?
• They always do evaluation before design for the next service.

In the evening six of us from the UK contingent went into Chicago to watch a Chicago Bulls game at the United Centre. Very cool!

Today felt like deep surgery of the soul. Gordon MacDonald, someone I respect greatly and has written numerous books such as ‘Ordering your private world’ and ‘The resilient life’, led the whole day on the discipline of self-leadership. From my experience, this is the hardest leadership of all. Gordon has been used greatly in his life, including as one of the three Christian leaders chosen by Bill Clinton (the others were Bill Hybels and Tony Campolo) who pastored him in the restoring of his life and kept him accountable after his affair with Monica Lewinsky.

Gordon reminded us that for us younger leaders, we need to look at ministry from a 60 year perspective, with a self-renewing component in our ministry that helps us attack every decade with intentionality and resilience.

His first hour was showing us how history has reached a point where we are experiencing increasing cycles of seismic change. In this context of rapid change and community breakdown, we’re here as church leaders to help people stabilise, be rooted, and find conviction and belief. ‘This has very little historical precedent.’ In the midst of such profound change, which we ourselves are experiencing, how do we stay rooted ourselves and provide shepherding and prophetic leadership to others?

We have the tension of the idea of the gospel and the institution that surrounds it. The idea needs a home; the institution around it or the community that it forms needs to be malleable. Gordon quoted Jack Welch who said, ‘When the rate of change inside an organisation is slower than the rate of change outside an organisation, the end is in sight.’ His example from history is that this is what happened to the Temple. Pentecost was a Paradigm shift, when the information was taken from the professionals in the Temple and put into the hands of the amateurs, from a central location, and distributed into the streets of the city; a new order of things was made. As church leaders empowered by the Spirit of Pentecost, Gordon said, ‘…we have to have the ability not to associate with that which resists change but embrace that which welcomes change, which takes a great integrity, and great courage.’ How does one develop and sustain this integrity and courage and where does it come from?

The Spiritual Platform

Gordon reminded us that like the leaning tower of Pizza, there is a sense in which every one of us is leaning, for no one since the fall, stands absolutely straight up. The truth is, however, that some people end up falling over. The answer lies not at the top of the building, but at the bottom, in an area we can’t see – the Spiritual Platform. It is this area that is hidden and unseen that leaders need to focus their personal development energy on.

This leads us to the great question: How does one build a life to be more satisfying [unlike the disconnection experienced by Adam] more strategic [driven by something that is noble to achieve], and more pleasing to God with every year [how do I live to please God, so that his investment in me has paid off according to his expectations]?

We live, according to Gordon, by design or by default. People can be grouped into four categories:

• We live by reaction (allow the people around us to control the agenda of who we are)
• Conformity – (people pleasing, avoiding battles, taking cues from what others are doing)
• Compulsion – (somewhere in life there were deep wounds, perhaps never having the approval of their parents, we learn that we have something to prove, compulsion to meet approval.)
• Intentionality – [which Gordon says is the highest level of health] – we have an ability given by God to observe ourselves: our choices; our thinking; where the impurities and defects are; where God is doing redeeming work; in order that we create a context in which we can grow. It is an intentional life, pushing ourselves to grow. The average person doesn’t care about this. If athletes are intentional about development, why aren’t more Christians more intentional about their growth?

Gordon shared an inspiring quote from E. Stanley Jones, who was 83 when he said this after suffering a huge stroke that had left him debilitated and struggling to speak: ‘There are scars on my faith, but underneath those scars there are no doubts. (Christ) has me with the consent of all my being and with the cooperation of al my life. The song I sing is a life song. Not the temporary exuberance of youth that often fades when middle and old age sets in with their disillusionment and cynicism… No, I’m 83, and I’m more excited today about being a Christian that I was at 18 when I first put my feet upon the way.’ Where does this enthusiasm spring from? Gordon said from the heart by the Spirit, not dependent on circumstances but after a life of intentional growth.

He shared common difficulties of growth experienced by church leaders, one being that because we speak about growth a lot, and teach others, we confuse speaking about it for practicing it ourselves. This is definitely true. The other thing he said that is also very true is that “Growing is difficult…usually because it is done in secret, is humbling, and is rarely fun.” If we ‘sell’ the gospel as ‘fun’, we’re not giving the full message, because much growth is hard work. I recognise this in my own life.

Gordon then helpfully spoke about family and ministry. In the final session, Gordon turned his attention to Spiritual Leadership, and gave this helpful definition: A spiritual leader is a person who radiates the power of God in his/her life and service so that others are influenced to turn toward God and the building of his Kingdom. Essential realities for a spiritual leader that Gordon then unpacked and we discussed, are:

1. A dynamic view of conversion and call: ‘Be always converting and always converted.’ Thomas Shepherd.
2. A repaired past: ‘Every person we have ever known, every place we have ever seen, everything that has ever happened to us – it all lives and breathes deep within us somewhere…’ A Room Called Remember, Frederick Buechner
3. Essential personal initiatives/disciplines
4. Healthy intimate relationships

Under this final heading, ‘Healthy relationships’, Gordon ended the day by unpacking 10 Kinds of friends that everyone needs:

• Who coaches you? Who has unlimited access into your life to bring insight to you?
• Who celebrates the landmarks in your life journey?
• Who stretches your mind? (Gordon spoke about his friendship with Tony Campolo)
• Who listens to your dreams?
• Who protects you and shows mercy?
• Who offers you reliable judgment?
• Who serves with you?
• Who rebukes you?
• Who has fun with you?
• Who seeks God with you?

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.

An hour later, involving accidentally driving illegally through a freeway toll, and then not having enough money for the next toll, I arrived at my hosts. For those attending conferences at Willow Creek Chicago, Willow’s global hospitality team has hundreds of Willow families who open their homes to guests for free. I would see again and again in the coming week just how deeply sacrificial and servant hearted the Willow Community Church members are – Global hospitality is one example, and the Stein family are another.

When I pulled up on the drive, Brian Stein came to greet me and warmly welcomed me to his home. This was repeated inside when I met Denise, Bethany, Claire and Rachel. Within minutes they all helped me to feel like I’d known them for ages. Here is a family that have a passion to support Pastors getting trained and they generously offer their home for this. They’ve attended Willow since about 1984, and during our conversations demonstrated to me great examples of the kind of mature, compassionate and generous Christ-followers Willow has helped to grow. I couldn’t help but think of my two girls and I hope they’ll be as good at welcoming guests into their home as the Stein’s girls had been with me. This is one inspiring family.

Breakfast was a brilliant experience. In one of the shopping malls, a big queue at a particular breakfast bar caught my attention. Like the night before, I observed really polite customer service, and a jovial camaraderie between work colleagues more than I’ve experienced in the restaurants I’ve worked in. The breakfast options were classic American; waffles, bacon, scrambled eggs etc. I had the ‘Sunrise special’ and fresh orange juice. I could get used to this… During the day I went to the top floor of the Hancock Tower and saw some stunning views of Chicago.

In the evening I ate in the world-famous home of Chicago deep-dish Pizza…… There was a massive queue outside the restaurant in the cold but thankfully they let me in when they realised I had no friends and would be eating on my own! I sat at the bar and ordered a sausage pizza. 45 minutes later, during which I tried to discern the rules of an American Football game playing on the tv screen, it arrived. It was worth the wait.

After spending about 30 minutes just trying to find the right bus to get to the car hire place (boy it was cold!), I boarded the right bus and checked in at Alamo car hire. When it came to getting the car, I asked which car was mine. The reply was to choose any one that I liked. Business was slow so I had the pick of the bunch. Seriously, I could choose any car from the premium or luxury range even though I’d still just be paying for a standard mid-size that was just big enough for me and my two English travelling companions. I was like a kid in a sweet shop. In the end I chose a Lincoln, because I’d driven one for a couple of weeks during some travelling I did to America back in 2000.

Following the trusty sat-nav whilst driving from O’Hare airport into Downtown Chicago, the sun was setting and I gradually got closer and closer to these huge skyscrapers. Leaving the freeway, I drove along the neon-lit streets and the wide lanes, and quickly found the Hotel Sax. I’d found a great deal online that included free parking and $50 food voucher that could be spent in a few restaurants nearby to the hotel.

After settling into my room and e-mailing home, I went out on Thanksgiving night to Smith and ….. to spend my $50 voucher. It was a stunning steak and a lovely hour by myself. My body clock was telling me that I was eating a steak at 2am, but I coped! As I sat at a table by myself I enjoyed observing American families celebrating Thanksgiving together. I reflected on what I was thankful for in my life and the many blessings that God has given me, including this trip. Deep in my spirit I continued to give the week to the Lord, to ask him to shape me and mould me during this rare opportunity of high-quality leadership development. I was already missing my girls, and said a prayer, which helped. It was quite strange being on my own, but because my life is so often dominated by meetings, envisioning, teaching preparation and expectations, being anonymous in a restaurant was lovely, conscious of God’s loving presence with me.