Willow Creek Community Church - Issues Encountered in Growing Churches

Issues Encountered in Growing Churches

Willow Creek Community Church

And

New Hope Missionary Baptist Church

Overview Willow Creek Community Church

The case studies on Willow Creek discussed several issues that were addressed by the leadership. Those issues included burnout of the leadership, overloaded ministries, and the need to expand the buildings for a growing membership. Willow Creek tackled the leadership burnout issue by sharing the teaching duties among several teaching pastors. The explosive growth of the church brought about additional issues such as overloaded ministries and a need for more physical space. The overstressed ministries were relieved by restructuring the leadership over the ministries. This restructuring brought about a means of organically producing additional leaders within the ministries themselves.

History of New Hope Missionary Baptist Church

New Hope Missionary Baptist Church (NHMBC) began in 1987 in the living room of Reverend and Mrs. Leroy Mitchell. After pasturing a church in Sycamore for nine months, Rev. Mitchell and all members from Dekalb were excommunicated due to underlying friction between African-Americans from Sycamore and those from Dekalb. For the next year, the core members held services at numerous locations, finally settling at a local Seventh Day Adventist Church which became New Hope home for the next twelve years.

During this twelve year period, New Hope purchased tens acres of farmland and began developing building plans. In 1998, construction started on the building New Hope would call home. In 2000, the members of New Hope moved into their new home without ever missing a Sunday worship service. Time heals and New Hope reconciled with North Ave Baptist having regular fellowships together.

Explosive Growth

It is apparent that the issues are similar at Willow Creek and New Hope, as both have experienced great growth. They are addressing these issues by adding additional services and by assignment of small groups or small ministries to meet their congregation’s needs. They have been successful in addressing the issue based on each church’s individual needs. Willow Creek has added services to accommodate the service seekers or the un-churched. New Hope attempts to match congregation member’s needs through joining auxiliaries or other ministries of the church.

Willow Creek’s strategy can be summed up simply in three steps Plan, Align, and Learn. This constant process signifies where each step supports the next step, yet relies on the previous to carry on. New Hope’s strategy is to mentor young people into positions of ministry leadership for New Hope’s future.

Willow Creek faces the challenge of keeping up with the un-churched services and helping integrate the un-churched to the Willow family. New Hope faces retaining their youth as an integral part of their core of the congregation. As the youth groups mature, their path may lead them away from their hometown, thus leaving New Hope with the challenge of filling in the youth ministry position.

Subsequent Ministry Overload

Both congregations approach to this issue are similar. Willow continues to experience some degree of overload in their ministries. For