In August Alison and I visited the United States for a fortnight: partly for a holiday, but partly to experience for ourselves what some parts of the American Church are like. We travelled with a group from the Oxford Diocese attending the Global Leadership Summit at Willow Creek Community Church, near Chicago.
This church occupies a huge campus in the suburb of South Barrington: the building with its immense car park and beautifully landscaped grounds (including a lake) probably take up an area the size of Old Marston. The church was founded 30 years ago by its pastor Bill Hybels, and from small beginnings it has grown to a usual Sunday attendance of around 20,000. It describes its mission as “to turn irreligious people into fully devoted followers of Christ”, and its present size shows just how successful it has been. This is obviously a different world of church from anything we are used to in this country!
There are lots of aspects of the church in America which it would clearly be impossible to import into this country and try to impose upon the average parish church. Yet there are also qualities which are highly admirable, which it would be good to see in English church life. There is a kind of entrepreneurial spirit, which imagines new ways of doing things, and is not afraid to make mistakes as it explores new ideas for presenting and living out the Christian faith. Many of the speakers at the conference we attended, were the ‘founding pastors’ of the churches they led: like Bill Hybels, their call to ministry involved not joining an existing church or denomination, but starting a new one. When we were asked how big our church was, we explained that although we only have 150 members, the church is 800 years old - and no, I am not its founding pastor!
Again, one of those speakers has been described as the leader of one of America’s “most innovative churches”. In Marston we place a high value on tradition - especially with an 800 year old building as part of the heart of our life - but like the rest of the Church of England we are coming to see that in a world of increasingly rapid social and cultural change, we also need to learn how to be innovative in what we do. “Innovation is not absolutely essential, but then neither is survival,” is how Andrew Papageorge expresses it.
Just when we returned home with our heads spinning, wondering how on earth we could learn to be as excitingly innovative as this, we enjoyed our own Children’s Holiday Club, which took place in the last week of August. Lots of people have said it was one of the happiest, best, most enjoyable Holiday Club weeks we have ever had. What was it that made it so good? Apart from the hard work of the leaders in planning and carrying it out, there was also the involvement of the children themselves and the group of teenage helpers. There was a real buzz and enthusiasm about the way everyone joined in with all the activities. There were dramas and games, they produced a video called ‘Don’t Stop Praising’, and they started a St Nicholas Church Marston group on Facebook (for those of you who don’t know what this is, it’s a social networking site on the Internet). All of these have been thrilling ways in which some of the younger members of the church have been expressing their faith, and their excitement about being Christians, and part of the church family at St Nicholas.
One of the hymns we sang at Holiday Club is by Sidney Carter, and addresses God in these words: “You are older than the world can be; You are younger than the life in me.” God is the great Innovator, who is constantly doing and promising new things as he works to transform the world (see Isaiah 43.19, Revelation 21.5). He is always fresher and more imaginative than his human followers - even the younger ones, who have so much to teach us oldies. And God’s great passion, just like the mission statement of Willow Creek, is to see irreligious people becoming fully committed followers of Christ.
This is what we hope to be doing in the coming months: finding ways of building on the traditional, and exploring new things, to help people find the new life which is life indeed. Jesus said, “I have come that you may have life: and have it to the full.” If we want to have that quality of life, and to share it with others, we need to be a church of people who know that they are fully committed to Christ.
Published in the Marston Times, October 2008