The Out of Ur blog tells us that Willow Creek has now realized that a multitude of programs does not necessarily create a church full of mature Christians.

Imagine that.

My guess is that there's an absolutely huge amount of infrastructure at Willow Creek devoted to the Program Driven Church (tm) and that it will be next to impossible for them to engage in any real and meaningful change. Instead, look for a whole bunch of new and improved programs rebranded with words like "incarnational" and "missional". Y0ur church will then be ripe for the picking resourcing. Willow Creek is, after all, an industry. (As an aside, a Google search of the Willow Creek website yielded more than 10,000 pages - 10,000! -  including this one, with a quote from Bill Hybels on the sidebar: "Growing the church is the hope of the world." Now, I don't want to s0und all holier and thou and stuff, but isn't Jesus Christ the hope of the world? Forgive me the sarcasm but... no, wait. Don't forgive me. I don't care. Crap like that deserves sarcasm).

I'm looking for something else in a church. I'm looking for a place where a community of believers can grapple with scripture, can wrestle with what it means to be a Christ-follower in this sin-wracked, broken world of ours. I'm looking for a place where it's all right to doubt, to worry, to fear, to celebrate, to dance and to sing - or not sing; where prayer is what we do, and not what we listen to someone else doing, where art is shared, where contemplation is possible, where worship is lived, where healing happens. I guess I'm really looking for a place where all the odd people like me who don't fit anywhere else can be welcome and loved - which has to be said because wanting what I described.... well, that pretty much guarantees your dissatisfaction with The Program Driven Church (tm); it pretty much guarantees you'll be the odd one out Sunday morning.

Tonight a bunch of Christians in our city housed some men and women who were homeless. They were fed a hot, nutritious meal. Some will be given clothes, all will have a safe place to stay while they get their lives back on track. In our dining room tonight we fed about eighty people. I talked tonight about how when we share our fears and anxieties with Jesus we will still have our problems, but we're no longer alone in the world. Some folks left with groceries, I gave a diabetic lady some large packages of artificial sweetener and she began giving some of this precious stash out to others she knew were diabetic. Another lady asked for a take-out container so she could take her piece of pie home to a friend who wasn't well. They have so little, and what they do have they give away. Before supper tonight I prayed with the volunteers, one of whom prayed that the churches in our city would finally 'get it' as to their God-given responsibilities to the poor, to the orphan and widow, the leper, the lost. What if Jesus isn't looking for leaders? What if he's looking for followers? Followers who are content to treasure and value the folks right in their own neighbourhood, folks who are not statistics on the way to something bigger and better, who are not program fodder? What if being the most influential church in America is actually not the way to live out the Kingdom of God? What if the way to destruction is broad, and there's lots of folks on it, and the way to life is narrow, and only a few find it? 'Cause if that's the case, perhaps we may want to see what Willow Creek does next, and then do the exact opposite.