Willow

by emma | Aug 19, 2006 | Exodus

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.

Leadership Summit

by emma | Aug 17, 2006 | Exodus

I was going to post some of my notes and thoughts from Willow Creek’s Leadership Summit, but What If.. has posted great notes over on his site, so I will just link you over to him…

Session 1: Life Cycle of a Leader (Bill Hybels)
Session 2: Enemies of a Growing Church (James Meeks)
Session 3: Focused Leadership (Andy Stanley)
Session 4: Tribal Warfare (Peg Neuhauser) (Session 3 & 4 are from Tony Morgan’s blog, thanks!)
Session 5: The Risky Business of Hiring Stars (Ashish Nanda) & When Business Thinking Fails The Church (Jim Collins)
Session 6: Bono: An Excluive Personal Interview
Session 7: Silos, Politics, and Turf Wars (Patrick Lencioni)
Session 8: Dead Leader Running (Wayne Cordeiro)
Session 9: The Power of Clarity (Bill Hybels)

The Orchard

by emma | Aug 16, 2006 | Exodus

So time for some pictures and feedback…

At Orchard, the church mission is that they exist to lead people into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ, but they have recognised that you need to define what it actually looks like.

At Orchard, a growing relationship is characterised by:

1. Intimacy with God
2. Community with insiders, and
3. Influence with outsiders

They are a ‘Glocal‘ chuch… mission is not a department. Small groups are encouraged to adopt a missionary to support, and do local outreaches together. It is about thinking globally AND being involved locally.

“My job as a pastor is to consistently make people uncomfortable.” Scott Hodge.

Common Grounds coffee bar area.

Wahabu Land kids ministry area. (Wahabu means God’s love in some African language, I’ve forgot which one, Scott help me out here??)

More kids ministry stuff

Scott and I.