What Willow Creek's REVEAL reveals

A lot of blogging is going on around Willow Creek's discovery about itself through a survey it has conducted around "how successful they are in accomplishing their purpose of making fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ." Bill Hybels indicated that the results were disturbing as they discovered that after 30 years they were doing something fundamentally wrong.

However, they have come up with a plan to respond to a whole new set of "needs" of those who self-identify themselves as "fully devoted followers" which focuses on believers to become "self-feeders" earlier on in their spiritual journey. Hybels and the staff at Willow are talking about having "personal trainers" to coach people to custom design ways in which people can mature spiritually.

I wonder how long it is going to be before Willow realizes that perpetuating an individualized, need-focused, consumer-driven spirituality is just another facet of the "seeker-driven" model which sees spirituality as a need to be met? Spirituality is not just another commodity, rather it is being in a Spirit-led relationship with Jesus Christ within a Spirit-led community that permeates every aspect of our lives and demonstrates what it is to be human under the rule of God. It has more to do with developing the spiritual sensitivities of discerning -- seeing and hearing where God is active in the world, and being an obedient people participating with God in God's redemptive mission of reconciling human beings to himself and recreating the earth. This involves a process rather than the working of another plan.

A Fundamental Question for Shaping Our Leadership Imagination

For me a fundamental question shaping the way, I think, we ought to think about pastoral leadership is:

"What is God doing in our world and how can we lead a people to be formed by what God is doing? How can we lead a people to see what God is doing, to hear what God is saying, and to courageously respond to participating with God in God's redemptive mission?"

To be pastoral leaders who shape communities to be spiritual in this way I believe is a fundamental question for shaping our leadership imaginations. This is to understand that it is not about our agendas in leading the people we have been entrusted to us, nor about offering religious services for the spiritual consumer, rather it is about guiding a community to demonstrate in the world what it means to be a people who live out their lives under the rule of God.