Children’s Ministry and Culture

Ok, I had fun with the title of this post! The reference is with the recent announcement by Greg Hawkins, Executive Pastor (http://revealnow.com/story.asp?storyid=49) and Bill Hybels at the August, 2007 Leadership Conference held at Willow about a 2004 survey depicting Willowgoers attitudes about experiencing God. The bottom line: the longer you attend Willow, the less satisfied you are about your closeness to Christ.

What I find interesting is the level of PROGRAM-CENTRIC response to this problem–not isolated to the seeker model, but a design flaw in the evaluation. What Willow is essentially espousing is a program of “self-feeding” which is pretty astonishing given Willow’s approach thus far–requiring little of the seeker. They are thus unable or unwilling to abandon their core constituency which produced this type of Christian in the first place.

Interestingly they acknowledge five levels of closeness to Jesus Christ: Exploring, Growing, Close, Centered and then a hanging group called Stalled. In their blog, Hawkins added a 6th called Disinterested though these are rarely in their church. Whereas Saddleback has circles of intimacy in the CHURCH (Committed, Core, etc.), Willow now has circles relative to Christ, which is an improvement but only categorical, not practical.

Each of these groups have different needs, of course, but this two-dimensional continuum (circles of closeness to Christ depicted as circles or states of being) ignores that we often go through ALL these  areas in a given day let alone remain there. Hawkins mentions that Exploring and Growing folks are happiest with Willow. This is commendable but unsurprising. It is precisely this sort of benign passivity one would expect to find content in a service that only demands sitting and listening–admirable activities given the fact that these are seekers.

What is also bewildering in this study is the tone! We often speak so much about our people AS IF THEY WEREN’T IN THE ROOM! We talk about attenders and our target market at the level of a scientist working with their subjects. This creates, among other things, a two-tiered organization that is totally unecessary to fix the problem of closeness to Christ–one tier is doing something to the other tier; one tier is delivering the goods, so to speak, the other is receiving a product! The reason a person whose Exploring or Growing (Willow’s terms) is so satisfied with the church is that they are HAPPY to be spectators, uninvolved, or lightly engaged.

We pay for this privelage and it comes at a price–seekers, and in Willow’s case ALL attenders, STAY at that level of involvement–producing dissatisfaction the closer you get to Christ. But Willow HAS asked for involvement in the past! They have had small group leaders, Promiseland volunteers, etc. They want volunteers, they need volunteers. But is this level of involvement among only the Exploring or Growing crowd? They do not say but should have asked! Correlations are interesting, but causation is provoking!

Mark Galli has an compelling commentary in the latest online issue of Christianity Today (http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/octoberweb-only/143-43.0.html) where he asks if it is not growth that people seek to draw near to Christ but SERVICE!!! I love his distinction. Because we can grow inside and outside of the church and thus if it merely entertains me, it is irrelevant to my continued growth in Christ. What then is it there for?