A colleague of mine sat in on Willow Creek’s Reveal Webinar yesterday. Reveal is a study Willow published on the essentials of what is and is not working in church practices. Follow Me, as well as this webinar, were designed to show people what is practically being done as a result of the study.
Three items from the webinar jumped out to my colleague:
- Although there are some great exceptions, Biblical instruction is not typically thriving well in small groups. Collective accountability is the strongest and most consistent asset provided by small groups, and therfore a church’s small group ministries and expectations should be aligned accordingly.
- “Unity” in the church is only secondarily depent on relationships. Unity comes most from identifying or resonating with some aspect of what the church is doing or where it is going.
- Sunday mornings at Willow use to be 100% thematic with the topic. Now only 50% is thematic, while the other 50% is standalone connection time with God.
1 response so far ↓
Chris Aldrich // October 1, 2009 at 9:21 am |
When I used to plan worship services I never wanted to make “sticking with the theme” an all important objective. I thought more about where I wanted to take the worshipper and how I could use different songs, readings, dramas, etc to help people connect with God. I do think that sticking with the theme of the service can become too important.