I love my church!
This is what you hear over and over again when you visit Willow Creek Community Church (WCCC), and that’s what I heard again not once, not twice, but many times . . . fair dinkum!
I had the privilege to lead a small group of six pastors to the annual Christian Leadership Intensive two weeks ago—one week of superb leadership input from senior Willow staff along with Gordon MacDonald and Scot McKnight.
When Kiwis go to WCCC, they are almost always wowed. It truly is an incredible place—not so much because of its size and scope, but because there is an infectious love for the church that quite naturally oozes from most of the ‘Creekers’ you meet. And here is an easily lost truth. Almost everything you hear and see is scalable. In other words, it can be scaled (back) to a NZ context. Once you grasp what I call the PID’s (Philosophy of Ministry, Ideas for Ministry and the Design of those Ministries), then you can apply the learnings to any context in the world. That’s why leaders from every continent in the world attend this event making for a very rich experience.
Take this update for example that I received last week a few days after returning home: “Last weekend all eight Willow Creek locations, including our kids and student ministries, assembled more than 71,500 prison packs that will be delivered to every inmate in Illinois this week! “Please pray for all those who will receive a prison pack,” says Heather. “Many inmates have said this is the highlight of their year, and we hope God uses it to reveal His love to them!”
We got to see this massive packing operation two weekends ago. Imagine around 6000 people packing presents for about 10 minutes immediately after each of three services IN the main auditorium and then praying together for each gift and its recipient—an incredible logistical feat and oh so inspiring.
Please Note: If you are a Senior Pastor and would like to attend this event in the future or just find out some more information, please be in touch with me at alan.vink@leadershipworx.org.nz.
I can send you the short endorsements of those who attended this year and make an introduction for you. No problem at all.
So, to you, my colleagues: How is the ‘love’ quotient in your church? How many of your adult attenders can truly say from the heart, “I Love My Church”? How many adult attenders do you think would say, “I Love My Pastor”? My guess is that there is probably some room for growth right here. How cool it would be that more and more people would say this about you and the church you are privileged to be the pastor of. And here is the kicker. When this vibe is present in a local church, it will be so much easier to lead your people in all that God has purposed for your church including finding volunteers for all your ministries. Why? Simply because people love their home church and by that simple fact alone are usually highly motivated to help wherever they can.
Blessings
Alan
Executive Director
www.leadershipworx.org.nz
IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT
My transition from Executive Director of WillowNZ to LeadershipWorx has now taken place and has been a very happy experience. You will still receive my final two blogs for this year from our WillowNZ database. From the beginning of 2018 they will come from our LeadershipWorx database. You will also be given an opportunity to ‘opt out’ if you so wish.
It is important to note that although WCA has no replacement for me at this moment, the GLS next year IS definitely taking place in the usual months of October and November 2018. If you have any enquiry, please feel free to be in touch with joy@willowcreek.org.nz. Thank you.
Alan Vink is currently the Executive Director for LeadershipWorx. Prior to this role he has been the Executive Director of Willow Creek Association NZ (WillowNZ), a Baptist pastor (23 years), Bible College teacher, and church consultant.
