Willow Creek Conference: Day One (Part Three)

I went into session three, very excited. Excited for several reasons. First, Dan Kimball was going to be the speaker for the session. I really appreciated his two books "Emerging Churches" and "Emerging Worship", because not only did each book help me get on this "missional/incarnational" ministry path, but also because each book helped me understand what the usual church's foundation is built on (the Sunday morning service(s)) and what a missional church's foundation should be built on (the mission that Jesus calls us to live out as both individuals and as an ecclesia (gathering of Christ-followers). I touched on this concept, based on what I read, here and here.

Secondly, I knew that after Dan spoke, that there was going to be a panel of people to discuss some of what is in Dan's new book "They Like Jesus But Not The Church" as well as implications in our churches today. The panel was made up of the following people: Dan Kimball, Nancy Beach (Willow Creek), Efrem Smith (a church pastor in Minnesota), David Loveless (pastor of Discovery Church in Orlando), Shauna Niequist (on staff at Mars Hill Bible Church and wife of aforementioned worship leader Aaron Niequist), Sally Morganthaler (author of Worship Evangelism), and the one and only Brian McLaren. I knew that this was going to be an interesting conversation.

Let's go back to Dan. He was a little different than I expected, not in a bad way - I just thought he was more of a "tough surfer" type of guy based on his picture than what he really is. He's definitely more artsy in his speaking approach. Again, not in a bad way, just different. Dan talked mostly about things that are in his book, and I thought he made a really good point. He showed a slide that illustrated two present circles in our culture - the modern circle, which we're all used to and which is in some ways slowly eroding and in other ways quickly eroding - and this is the circle where the church was mostly at until the last forty years or so. The first circle is what I'll call the "Judeo-Christian values" circle, which means that in the past, even if someone was agnostic, they knew about church, they knew about Christian values, etc. The second circle is the postmodern/emerging generations circle, and in this circle there is a growing percentage of people who did not grow up in church and who do not share the same "core values" as those in the first circle. The problem, according to Kimball, is that in the last forty years (or even perhaps less time), the church has made its own subculture bubble that it is hiding in and has been hiding in - a culture with different music, language, ways of approaching life, etc.

The good news, according to Kimball, is that there is a growing interest in Jesus. The bad news is that there is a growing disinterest in the church and "Christianity." Kimball says that one of the reasons this is happening is because the only voices that this second circle - the postmodern circle - are hearing, are those who are the most vocal, the most confrontational, and the most controversial. These would include street preachers, T.V. evangelists, etc. They aren't hearing from the rest of Christendom, because the rest of the church is hiding in this subculture bubble that has been created and does not know how to relate, converse with, and do life with the postmodern culture. Kimball showed a video that his church did where they went out and asked ordinary people what they felt about Jesus and what they felt about the church. The comments were very encouraging about Jesus and were very discouraging about the church. However, fourteen of the sixteen people interviewed did not have any significant relationships with Christians. Which means that their impressions of the church are again based on those confrontational, vocal Christians. I thought this was a great observation and one that made me think for a long time last night.

Kimball listed six things that came out of these conversations with regular people - six common thoughts about the church:

1. The church is all into right-winged politics.

2. The church is judgmental and negative.

3. The church is male-dominated and oppresses females.

4. The church is homophobic. (the comments that Dan had on the screen based on this theme were heart-breaking.)

5. The church arrogantly believes that they are right and all other religions are wrong.

6. The church is full of fundamentalists who take the whole Bible literally.

Of course, some of these things aren't that bad, really. Some might actually be good things. However, the way that Christiaan represent some of these thoughts might be what hurts people the most.

Then he listed some things that these people wished about the church:

- I wish churches were not just about the sermon.

- I wish the church would respect my intelligence.

- I wish the church was less programmed.

- I wish the church was a loving place.

- I wish the church cared for the poor and the needy.

- I wish the church taught more about Jesus.

As I said, after this there was the panel. Unfortunately, I didn't write down much of what was said, but I know someone who captured it on audio, so sometime in the future, I will list some of what was said. However, I did write down two things: one was something that David Loveless said:

"In Ephesians 2, it talks about how Jesus removed the walls of hostility between us and Him. I need to ask myself, 'Where am I rebuilding those walls? Where is my church rebuilding those walls of hostility? And how can we tear them down again?"

And then something that Brian McLaren said at the end of the panel was great. It was something to the effect that Dan's next book could be titled "The Church Likes Jesus, But Not Us" - obviously referring to the fact that churches aren't very good at loving others.

After the session was done, I went to heaven. First, I went to Claim Jumper Restaurant and had my favorite pizza, and then went back to Willow Creek for their New Community Service. The David Crowder Band led worship, and Don Miller (author of Blue Like Jazz, To Own A Dragon, and other books) spoke. Which means that my whole evening was heaven. Claim Jumper, David Crowder, and Don Miller? Excellent!