Contact with global partners gave church expanded vision

Lynne Hybels told participants at The Next Big Idea Conference how Willow Creek Church, near Chicago, became transformed through its global partnerships in developing countries. (BAYLOR PHOTOGRAPHY/Robert Rogers)

WACO, Texas (ABP) — When Lynne Hybels and her husband, Bill, started a church in suburban Chicago 33 years ago, they had two dreams. As a young pastor, he wanted to plant the kind of church where people who were far away from God could be reconciled to him. As a social worker, she wanted to develop a community of faith who wouldn’t be afraid to confront “the messiness of life.”

Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Ill. — now one of the nation’s largest and most influential congregations — combined those two visions by ministering to the spiritually broken people God led to their congregation and by expanding its outreach to meet needs and confront injustice internationally.

Through its global partnerships with churches in Latin America and Africa, Willow Creek gained a deep sense of responsibility to mediate God’s love to hurting and oppressed people, Lynne Hybels told participants at the recent Next Big Idea Conference at Baylor University. Baylor’s School of Social Work and Truett Theological Seminary jointly sponsored the event in conjunction with the Leadership Network.

Willow Creek ventured into caring ministries incrementally, she noted. The church began by offering recovery ministries, support groups and other programs for troubled people who came to the church who “who needed the compassion of God mediated to them through caring people,” she said.

Next, the church began extension ministries — entering partnerships with other churches, groups, social-service agencies and organizations already meeting needs in the communities around Willow Creek.

Lynne Hybels

The most significant step of faith involved entering partnerships with churches internationally — first in Latin America, later in Africa — that were transforming their communities.

Rather than going to churches in developing nations and presuming to have all the answers, Willow Creek learned from those indigenous Christians and was inspired by their selfless devotion, she stressed.

“We were transformed by our global partners,” Hybels said.

Contact with Christians around the world has affected the way Willow Creek members view news reports about war, poverty, disease and suffering around the world, she added.

“We are all part of the human family,” Hybels said. “Every member of the family is as important to God as you are. … If there is tragedy anywhere in the world, it is touching my family.”

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Ken Camp is managing editor of the Texas Baptist Standard.