What Not To Expect From Church of the Cross (3): A Program For This, A Class For That

As a new church, we have spent much time and put forth much prayer striving for the most biblical, most effective way to “do ministry.” Every church wants to see people grow closer to God and deeper in love for others. But churches often vary wildly on how they think these goals are best reached.

As we have searched the Scriptures and sought to learn from the many churches who have gone before us, we at Church of the Cross have become persuaded that the best approach is not necessarily the most popular. For many, the belief has been that the more we can get people involved in “church things,” the more spiritually mature they will become. But, to the shock of many, Willow Creek Community Church, one of the pioneers of the “program-driven ministry” model, recently conducted internal research that might lead us to believe otherwise. Skye Jethani discusses Willow Creek’s research and findings (please forgive me for quoting at-lenght):

“Earth shaking.” Ground breaking.” “Mind blowing.” That is how Bill Hybels, senior pastor of Willow Creek Community Church, described the data that had been laid in front of him. In 2004, the flagship of American megachurches undertook a study of their ministry to determine its effectiveness. Quantitatively, everyone considered Willow Creek a success. One of the largest churches in the country, it had effectively drawn thousands of “unchurched” suburbanites back to the institutional church. But was it really helping people grow spiritually? Was it accomplishing its stated mission of transforming people into fully devoted followers of Christ?

 

Willow’s executive pastor, Greg Hawkins, summarizes the church’s program-driven approach this way: “We create a variety of programs and services for people to participate in … This is our strategy. We try to get folks who are far from God involved in these activities. We believe the more people are participating in these sets of activities with high levels of frequency it will produce disciples of Christ - people characterized by increasing love for God and other people. I know that might sound crazy, but that’s how we do it in churches. We measure levels of participation.”

 

Willow Creek’s qualitative study was launched to determine whether this assumption is accurate. Do people love God and love others more after regularly participating in the programs of the church? Do institutions produce disciples? Can programs ignite love? The conclusion reached after surveying 15,000 people at Willow Creek and twenty-five other churches was no. Hawkins says: “Increasing levels of participation in these sets of activities does NOT predict whether someone’s becoming more of a disciple of Christ. It does NOT predict whether they love God more or they love people more.”

 

This may have been the most illuminating conclusion of the study. It showed that most people didn’t need elaborate programs or pre-engineered activities to grow in their love for God and others. Following Christ did not require the institutions. “This was difficult to learn,” Hawkins says, “because we had viewed ourselves as helping people all along their spiritual journey.” But the data showed that the more spiritually mature people became, the more dissatisfied they were with the church. In fact, those recognized to be the most Christ-centered were the least enthusiastic about engaging church programs.

 

The research found that what impacted a person’s spiritual growth most were personal Bible reading, prayer and meditation, a meaningful relationship with a friend or mentor, and serving others.

Church of the Cross has set out to make Missional Communities the center of our ministry because we believe that it is the most effective and biblical way to make and grow disciples. Rather than offer a program for this and a class for that, we are trying to make community on mission the center of our approach. This means that, though our calendar may look a bit sparse compared to others, the expectation of you may in fact be higher. It means that we are trying to commit to ministering to each other and becoming equipped to understand and apply the Gospel to all of life.

We recognize that this approach may seem a bit unusual. But we’d like to invite you to join us in the process of learning to love God, love others and follow Jesus together. Let’s find out together if less on the church calendar can actually produce more fruit in our lives. Let’s find out together if fewer programs can actually result in more mature disciples.