Willow

We spent 3rd Aug with people from Willow Creek Community Church.

In the morning we spent some time hanging out with Dave, who works for WCA. We talked about the strategy of the church, and spent a long time talking about small group strategies. I love how he described the change in their perspective of discipleship: it used to be ‘mechanical’, a series of steps to go through, but it’s now viewed as ‘organic’, doing life together.

Next stop on the road was Willow Creek Community Care centre. This ministry provides food and other forms of care for those in need. Joe (ministry director) described how they discovered that were they thought they were serving families in the church who were going through a one-off crises time, they were actually serving the ‘working poor’ – people who worked 2 or 3 jobs and still couldn’t make ends meet. This discovery impacted how they did ministry. We got to see around their facilities (they are moving again in October!) and meet some of their volunteers… incredible people.

At the Commuity Care centre, we also met Jill, who joined us for the rest of the day. She is a minister in Scotland, not too far away from where I will be studying. One of the most genuine, lovely woman you could meet. We caught up with her a few times during the Leadership Summit, and she was on the same flight back to Dublin with us. I’m looking forward to catching up with her when I move to Scotland!

Our last stop of the day was at the CARS Ministry, where we met Pete. This ministry accepts donated cars, and then either fixes them up to give away to people who need them, scraps them, or sells them to make money to keep the ministry funded. They receive on average 125 cars every month! While that figure seems huge to me, Pete described to us how cars are much more disposable in America than in Ireland. The concept itself can work anywhere, it’s transferable to your own context.