Willow Creek
The top of the St. Joseph Catholic Church is seen in Hanover, Penn., Aug. 16, 2018. REUTERS/Carlos Barria
Both the Protestant and Roman Catholic worlds have been rocked in the past couple of weeks by news involving abuse and sexual misconduct. Willow Creek Community Church, one of the first churches to popularize the megachurch model, became the Protestant epicenter when more allegations of sexual harassment about its founder came to light. And six Catholic dioceses are now the Roman Catholic epicenter after an 884-page grand jury report revealed a massive cover-up in which priests abused at least 1,000, and likely many more, children over a period of 70 years.
By Ianphilpot at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0
The evangelical world in which I came of age was created in Bill Hybels' image. Nearly singular in his influence and power, Hybels was one of a handful of Baby Boomer church innovators who reimagined church to be “seeker sensitive,” designed for the spiritually curious who also might be searching for the convenience of a food court, parking lot, and sermons on tape that were ready for purchase in the lobby by the time the worship band sang the final chorus of the recessional.
Screenshot of Bill Hybels. Video courtesy The Tungsten Collective/Vimeo.
Bill Hybels, Senior Pastor for Willow Creek Community Church, spoke out last week on the ongoing Ferguson protests. In the video, shared this week by Willow Creek Church-affiliated artist group The Tungsten Collective, Hybels calls on people of faith to listen to the pain and hurt expressed by many since the August shooting of Michael Brown.
He quotes James 1:19, urging people of faith to “be quick to listen, slow to speak.”
Hybels has spoken out on racial reconciliation for years, and here underscores one reason why reconciliation work is often so difficult.
“It’s just so much easier to live in your own story than it is to try to understand the narrative of the other,” Hybels said.
Indeed, when it comes to interactions with law enforcement, the black experience and the white experience in America are “two totally different narratives [that often] … don’t touch each other until a Ferguson happens,” he said.
At one point the megachurch pastor emphasizes — almost uncomfortably lightheartedly — just how untouched he’s been by fear, crime, and violence in his neighborhood.
“[Peace] is all I’ve ever known. I’ve never had a single adversarial experience with a law enforcement officer in my entire life,” he said.
But in drawing a distinction in the difference of experience, he echoes a Jia Tolentino column in TIME earlier this fall on how social divisions are revealed based on which evils we mourn and pledge to fight against. While Hybels falls short of explicitly naming a power and privilege differential, he urges humility, listening, and seeking understanding among people of faith — all the more resonant today after the non-indictment ruling on the choking death of Eric Garner.
WATCH the full video here.
Lynne Hybels
Increasingly, in meetings focused on a wide variety of human tragedies, I hear these words: "What are you doing here? I didn't think evangelicals cared about these things."
I understand those comments. I grew up in a form of Christianity in which "saving souls" was pretty much all that mattered. The God I discovered in that church was a harsh, demanding tyrant; I knew that if I wanted to earn God's love I would have to be very good, follow all the rules, and work very hard. As a devout adolescent I did that. As a young pastor's wife I did that.
Unfortunately, I worked a little too hard and eventually became utterly exhausted, seriously depressed, and physically sick. That plunged me into a total life crisis in which I felt compelled to give up the God of my childhood.
Fortunately, a wise friend said to me, "For a while, forget everything you've ever thought about Christianity; forget the Old Testament; forget Paul and the epistles-and just read Jesus."
So for months -- for years actually -- I just read Jesus. And slowly but surely, Jesus reshaped my understanding of what it meant to be a Christian.
Do yourself a favor and watch this. It's 7:15 minutes long but well worth your time.
Such a substantive leadership lesson in itself by Bill Hybels as he explains why Howard Schultz withdrew his commitment as a speaker at the Willow Creek Leadership Summit (held on August 11-12). And furthermore, how he and Willow Creek are responding
As you probably know, one of the big articles making the rounds this week is Time magazine's major report on Willow Creek Community Church and the noteworthy progress being made in evangelical megachurches to bridge the racial divide.