On Monday 8th August a group from the Diocese attended The Leadership Summit 2004, “Lead with all Diligence” at Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Chicago. Led by Parish Development Advisor Andrew Gear, this was the second Diocesan Group to attend the annual leadership summit at Willow Creek, as part of the Servant Leadership Development Programme.
Willow Creek is a non-denominational church which was founded by Bill Hybels in 1972 and has grown, through some serious “Downs” as well as “Ups” to a church where more than 17,000 people attend one of the five weekend services. September 2004 has seen the opening of its new auditorium for worship and conferences which seats 8,000.
Monday - 6.30am Heathrow Airport. A somewhat bleary-eyed group gathered for the flight to Chicago and for what was going to be a long, long day. All went to plan and we arrived safely with only two items impounded by US customs – Monica’s limes were deemed contraband. Chicago was bright and sunny and there was even time to enjoy the hotel’s outside pool before supper – but that was to be the first and last time until the final day as temperatures plummeted the next day and were struggling to get into the 60’s for the rest of the week.
Tuesday With the jet lag many of us were up early and keen to get into Chicago to enjoy the one free day of the trip. Paying slightly more attention as we parked the cars would have helped with the rendezvous later in the day but for the moment it was into the city and experience the city. For some it had to be a trip up one of the sky-scrapers, for others the Art Institute was the big draw, especially as it is free on Tuesdays. Could I really be standing before so many works of the French impressionists? By standing on the edges of guided tours I was introduced to the work of Grant Wood and to his seminal work “American Gothic” depicting a farmer and his spinster daughter in a style which epitomises the Puritan ethic and virtues of the Midwestern Character – I just hope they looked a little happier when they left church on Sundays, but somehow I doubt it.
Lunch-time revealed the need for a dentist for one of the group and the staff at the restaurant could not have been more helpful. I’d been in the US less than 24 hours and my prejudices about Americans being rather brash and self-centred were beginning to tumble – everyone we met went out of their way to be courteous and helpful. Within half an hour we were in the dentist’s waiting room and a short wait saw Catherine whisked off into the chair being attended to by a dentist in a rather natty bright pink top and similarly bright green trousers – somehow I can’t see my Mr Cool dentist in the same outfit! However, assured that Catherine was in safe hands, Peter and I departed for a quick trip on the Loop; the overhead train which crawled round virtually 90 degree bends between skyscrapers in downtown and rattled at speed through the straights of the outer regions. We thought we looked quite an innocent pair and were only moving from our seats to take photos; surely it couldn’t have been us who triggered the “No soliciting announcement?” Meanwhile Catherine was experiencing Chicago from the viewpoint of the dentist who also offered her the opportunity to skip the conference and make the most of her insurance and have all her teeth seen too – when there are 1,600 dentists working within one zip code region I guess you are always on the look out for business.
Wednesday : Off to Willow Creek for a special day-conference for “International Visitors.” Was this really a church? It felt more like a very smart University Campus with it’s enormous landscaped lake, café which could seat a couple of thousand, a bookshop almost the size of one floor of Borders, and immaculate toilets at every twist and bend of the corridors. We were at what felt like the “office” end of the campus and were stimulated, aggravated, inspired, and at times a little confused by a day of seminars. The fact I only nodded off for less than 10 minutes proved that on the whole I was being challenged!
The evening took us into the worship zone of Willow Creek – a huge auditorium which could seat over 4,000 and felt something of a hybrid between Wembley arena and Harrogate Conference Centre. Were there really 9 screens enlarging the action on the stage for all to see ? Wednesday evenings meant “New Community with Teaching Pastor Gene Appel” and the auditorium was 2/3rd full. Music dominated the first half but it felt more like performance than worship and even when words were beamed on to the screens and we stood to join in, the songs ended with applause. Music led into prayer but not intercessory prayer (In fact I heard virtually no prayer for the areas covered week by week in our intercessions back home though there was clearly a strong ministry of service to many people with needs in the local area – for instance, does your church receive donations of unwanted cars and service and refurbish them to donate to single-mothers? I think Willow Creek received 4,000 such donations last year.) The prayer for this evening was for God’s blessing on the speaker and on us as we listened to him…… and ended with the words, “And everyone agree and said ‘Amen.’” Then we moved onto a 40 minute teaching sermon which included short readings from the Bible which were shown on screen and, at times we read them aloud together. All rather different from our pattern of reading two or three passages of Scripture and then listening to a sermon which may refer to only one of the them. But what was most strange was the abrupt ending – “Amen – Goodbye” and that was it! People stood up and left.
Thursday : By now I’d discovered Chicago Public Radio (not just mindless chatter but serious reflection on the news as it affects the world today. You make this happen – renew your subscription today!) and woke to hear Meryl Streep being interviewed about her latest film and more besides. Was this really a film star saying, “I’ve been reading my New Testament and I have to ask which bombs would Jesus, our President’s personal Lord and Saviour, have dropped on Iraq?” Rock on Meryl - if Arnold Schwarzenegger can be elected to public office why not you too!
With such a start to the morning, Bill Hybels, the founder of Willow Creek had a hard act to follow at the official opening of the conference. However, were not disappointed and I doubt the other 41,000 attendees at various satellite sites around North America were either. And making all this happen were not just the full-time staff of Willow Creek and the other 82 churches linked up but 4,000 volunteers too, all with named badges reading “Here to serve”. We really were challenged to think through what being a church leader is all about, and there was no shrinking from the fact that it is tough at times. Bill gave heartfelt examples from his own ministry and the occasion of a finest hour - on his knees in a dressing room when on tour which had been going somewhat pear-shaped. Some of us found his very robust attitude to hiring and firing a bit too much to stomach and possibly a little outside UK employment law! Yes, at times there seemed to be an arrogance to this man, yet at other times one could only be humbled by his own genuine humility.
The conference speakers were not all from the world of church and theology – the afternoon introduced us to Pat Summitt – an extremely successful basketball coach who each season asked her team what sort of team did they want to be; a running team, a defensive team or…..? And when a few weeks later she had to ask why, having opted to be a running team, they weren’t running and they replied they were tired, her answer was, “I thought you wanted to be a running team – well we’ll need to keep in better shape!” Think that through in church terms!
And if that wasn’t enough T.D. Jakes Snr from Dallas came on and certainly got us running, at least mentally. For those with churches half empty listen to this - “God wouldn’t give you a chair unless he wanted someone to sit on it!” I minister in a church which seats 600 (and more if we ignore the fire regulations) and we regard a congregation of 100 good, so we’ve got more than a challenge.
Friday . Today the style changed with an interview by Bill Hybels of Steven Sample, President of the University of Southern California and an Episcopalian. He encouraged us to develop our creative skills by “thinking free” – apparently forced contemplation of the outrageous gets us out of the rut so why not start your next PCC meeting pondering how a ladybird can control a dishwasher! Perhaps a little more on a PCC’s wavelength were his comments about architects – never trust an expert! By all means listen to the experts but if you are responsible for the decision then you should take it. His immortable line, in a story emphasising that there are some things which can’t be delegated (and we were back to the firing of people again), was “I’d rather dishonour your wife than shoot your horse!” (What sort of conference was this becoming?)
Our next treat was the man from “Yahoo” who barely paused for breath and paced the stage the whole time. Folks either loved him or hated him and some did walk out. Some of those who stayed were somewhat bemused by his talk about “Scare City.” Yes, I was one of the ones who realised only over lunch that he was talking about “scarcity” rather than an imaginary place but actually hearing the lecture one way and discovering the other meaning gave me two lectures for the price of one, both of which rang true for me.
Time-out on Friday evening took us to the shopping mall – just an ordinary one in Chicago terms but pretty big in ours. The apple shop was full of the latest gizmo’s and even had mini Ipods in stock (Ipod? - ask a teenager) but not in PINK! My triumphant find in Sears was Lizzie Maquire socks but not for me. Just driving around Chicago was amazing, especially with oops-he’s-on-the-wrong-road-again-Bishop-Alan. Even signs seemed to have particular Christian connotations…. the car number plate of “Jesus” – let’s follow him and the advert for “Dean’s Milk”.
Saturday By now we were coming to the final sessions of the conference. I think for me all week pennies had been dropping as concepts I’d come across in the Diocesan Servant Leadership course started to make much more sense and I had been able to look back over times in ministry and say, “Yes, that could have applied there, I should have taken a stronger lead there or delegated here” but if pennies had been dropping earlier, at these last two sessions the tills were positively ringing out. , “Leading between the two Kingdoms” gave me a very practical and prayer based approach to problem solving which I felt would give a very sound basis for action and the last session with Bill Hybels answered many of our hesitations that much of all this had been management speak - Bill was very clear that when the laws of leadership and discipleship collide then we need to listen to the prompting of the Holy Spirit and decide on the side of discipleship.
Sunday Another chance to worship with the church community, and talk to some of the people who had clearly travelled miles to come to this church. Now I’m not keen on Jazz and blues but the group which led the opening worship were clearly of exceptional quality, the sermon was one of those where I had to get the tape of it to listen again, the prayers for outside concerns for non-existent, the collection was announced with the words of “be our guest and pass the bag if you are visiting us” and children in the “Promised Land” crčche and Sunday School were tagged and if they needed a parent the tag number came up on the corner of the screens. Yes, it was very different from church back home and not all of it would readily translate across the Atlantic, but even thinking through would, what might and what certainly wouldn’t was helpful in itself. Bishop Alan summed it up on the final journey back from Willow Creek…….. “we’ve been privileged to experience world class teaching this week (and for those who have been concerned about how much all this has cost) at a cost which overall has been very modest.”
Would I want to go again? Yes, but I’d like to have a couple of years to try to put into practice some of what I have learned and to reflect on it, with others, in the light of parish life.
Janet Chapman
Priest-in-charge of St. Mary’s, Banbury
Leave your comments on this item
More website comments