Six years since I’ve wondered whether God loves them more than he loves me.”. Willow Creek church pastor, ... Illinois, campus, where the news was met with applause and also protest with at least one person approaching the stage, the Chicago Tribune reported. These days, Willow Creek and Harvest are trying to build a bridge of reconciliation with their own members. Willow Creek Church appoints new senior pastor Fri 17 Apr 2020 by Premier Journalist. He led the church for 43 years until retiring early amid multiple allegations of misconduct. Willow Creek Community Church sign. Six years since I last trusted a church leader. In an email to the Religion News Service on Tuesday, Bilezikian said he denied the allegations against him. Abuse advocate Ryan Ashton has seen the pattern of pastor misconduct or coverups at multiple churches and is frustrated that more churches don’t look into the factors that can lead to such abuse: lack of accountability, lack of discipleship, or unhealthy church culture. Dozens of staff, some who have been serving for over a decade, as well as the campus pastor at North Shore in Glenview, Illinois, have already chosen to leave. MacDonald once claimed 12,000 weekly attendees across seven locations. Dr. Gilbert Bilezikian, a co-founder of Willow Creek Community Church, has filed a defamation lawsuit against Willow Creek and its elders for statements they made accusing Bilezikian of sexual misconduct.. (RNS) — Willow Creek Community Church announced Wednesday (April 15) that David Dummitt, a megachurch pastor from Michigan, will be the church’s new senior pastor. Preston Sprinkle gives guidance on thinking biblically and listening in love. Please pray for all involved," the post continued. Six Sundays into 2020, the campus (one of seven) is 26 percent behind budget, bringing in just $2.37 million of a projected $3.21 million in weekly offerings. “Just this weekend’s teaching we were told to ‘let go,’ ‘move on,’ ‘forget the past & move into the unknown,’” tweeted Ann Lindberg on January 5, just two weeks before she wrote a long post on Facebook claiming abuse by Bilezikian, which she had reported to Willow Creek leadership. I don’t think Willow will heal until they do that.”, Lindberg similarly sees this chapter in Willow Creek’s story as a pivotal one and invites her fellow members to keep praying. But internal reports from October and February showed attendance totals around 18,000. How, then, will members of these churches—who are full of questions, hurt, and distrust—feel at home again in the churches they love? (One site, in Niles, is becoming an independent church.). What should its governance look like? The departures of Bill Hybels and James MacDonald leave churches waiting for new leadership and hoping to rebuild trust. At Harvest, the new elders have implemented accountability measures “to ensure that prior problems never occur again,” according to the report. An Independent Advisory Group investigated the claims of "sexually inappropriate words and actions" brought against Hybels and found them to be credible in a 17-page report released in March of that year. Browse 60+ years of magazine archives and web exclusives. He also forwarded an email message he said he sent to Willow Creek's interim pastor, saying that the church had violated the Bible's teaching on dealing with accusations against fellow Christians. Subscribers receive full access to the archives. Rak Chazak (be strong and courageous!).”. MORE NEWS: Record … The study’s findings are in a new book titled “Reveal: Where Are You?,” co-authored by Cally Parkinson and Greg Hawkins, executive pastor of Willow Creek Community Church. (Five years ago, according to Outreach 100, Willow Creek was the fifth-largest church in the country, with a weekly attendance of over 25,000.). Initially, attendance was down 9 percent across all locations in the months after Hybels left in 2018. “Six years since I first walked out of a church I loved. Outside of sparse, careful public statements, the Willow Creek leadership has encouraged the congregation to leave the past in the past, with recent sermons emphasizing the need for moving forward. Willow Creek Community Church is one of America’s largest megachurches. Willow Creek Community Church leaders are facing backlash from staff and members at one of its campuses over restructuring plans that include centralization and staff cuts. We are committed to delivering quality independent Christian journalism you can trust. Christianity Today strengthens the church by richly communicating the breadth of the true, good, and beautiful gospel. Six years since I was finally able to admit that something was terribly wrong at that church. Willow Creek pioneered the church growth and seeker-sensitive movement – the demonic practice of gearing everything about a church service to be as comfortable and friendly to non-believing “seekers” as possible. In the fallout of Hybels’s departure over sexual misconduct allegations, the esteemed megachurch lost other top leaders: The church’s elders, as well as Steve Carter and Heather Larson, who were slated to be Hybels’s heirs, resigned the same year. Stay informed with the latest from CBN News delivered to your inbox. He recently announced he has launched a network for Christians who want to skip the “drama” of big churches. Steve Gillen, who has served as interim senior pastor since then, recently announced his plans to step down next month. Abby Perry is a freelance writer whose Prophetic Survivors series at Fathom Magazine featured profiles of survivors of #ChurchToo sexual abuse. “Willow has been under a purifying fire, and God is at work,” Lindberg told Christianity Today. The announcement comes just over two years after Willow Creek’s founding pastor resigned after being accused of abusing power and sexual misconduct. "There would be no Willow Creek without Gilbert Bilezikian," Hybels told Christianity Today magazine in 2000. “How about if we handle the ‘known’ first?”. Stay up to date with the latest news stories from a Christian perspective. Claims that Willow Creek church founder Bill Hybels engaged in sexually inappropriate conduct "are credible," according to a new report of the evangelical megachurch's handling of … (The Roys Report) A popular, former Willow Creek Community Church campus pastor is starting a new church, two months after resigning amid a controversial restructuring plan. © 2021 The Christian Broadcasting Network, Inc., A nonprofit 501 (c)(3) Charitable Organization. She worries that the church has held back out of fear that more transparency would threaten them financially. As CBN News has reported, Hybels resigned from the church in April of 2018 following allegations of misconduct. It’s been 22 months since Bill Hybels resigned from Willow Creek Community Church, and the Chicago-area megachurch—one of the biggest in the country—is still without a senior pastor..
A church spokeswoman told the Chicago Tribune this month that membership is around 6,000 across six locations. Christian Singles Aren’t Waiting for Marriage to Become Parents, The Cohabitation Dilemma Comes for America’s Pastors, Evangelicals’ Vaccine Skepticism Isn’t Coming from the Pulpit, Gender-Identity Conversations Don’t Have to Be Scary, Complete access to articles on ChristianityToday.com, Over 120 years of magazine archives plus full access to all of CT’s online archives. Willow Creek Community Church co-founder Dr. Gilbert Bilezikian is believed to have "engaged in inappropriate behavior" according to an email sent to all the church staff by acting Senior Pastor Steve Gillen. May he be a shield and a comfort. Amy Mikal, former pastor of Willow Creek North Shore, sent out an email Tuesday morning announcing formation of A Restoration Church, which will aim to serve the same North Shore and Chicagoland area. Chicago megachurch Willow Creek has appointed a new senior pastor, following two tumultuous years involving innumerable accusations of sexual misconduct against leaders and scores of resignations over the handling of the various allegations. The church’s spokeswoman declined to comment on attendance or giving trends. To unlock this article for your friends, use any of the social share buttons on our site, or simply copy the link below. “It’s like that verse. Just 7.5 miles down the road from the Willow Creek South Barrington campus stands the Rolling Meadows campus of Harvest Bible Chapel, where another group of churchgoers is waiting for more details from their leadership. B." Willow Creek confirms abuse allegations against Hybels’ mentor Gilbert Bilezikian Willow Creek Community Church confirmed that a mentor of former pastor Bill Hybels has been accused of … Willow Creek Community Church co-founder Dr. Gilbert Bilezikian is believed to have "engaged in inappropriate behavior" according to an email sent to all the church … “But obviously, if there are still things wrong that aren’t being told to us, it’s not like ‘Oh, we want to move on and don’t want to know.’”. He also asked his staff to pray for the woman and her family. Sign Up For Our Newsletter
God is everywhere—even in the news. She told her full story in a Facebook post dated Jan. 25, including the fact she first notified church leadership in 2010 but was disappointed by their response and lack of action. Hybels founded the Willow Creek Church located in South Barrington, IL in 1975. Help us continue to be a voice for truth in the media by supporting CBN News for as little as $1. The church reported 21,000 attendees each weekend when it listed the senior pastor job last fall. The multisite congregation, once celebrated as a model and training ground for Christian leaders, has struggled to transition to steady leadership in the aftermath—leaving the well-being of its eight locations and thousands of congregants at stake as attendance and tithes dip. Of Willow Creek’s eight Chicago-area campuses, only one campus, Huntley, has retained same pastor it had when the sex abuse scandal involving Bill Hybels came to light. CTWeekly delivers the best content from ChristianityToday.com to your inbox each week. In late November, the legal firm of Wagenmaker & Oberly released a scathing legal evaluation that cited MacDonald’s “powerful and subversive leadership style,” “development of an inner-circle leadership group through which he could control” the church, “marginalization of broader leadership, particularly the former elders,” and “other aggressive tactics that thwarted healthy nonprofit governance.”. One Sunday in the early 2000s, the church had a large bridge stretching across the stage, and during the sermon, Hybels encouraged people who needed to pursue reconciliation to walk across the bridge together. But for her family, “if Willow Creek gave full disclosure, took responsibility, and perhaps got sued, we would be so much more willing to tithe, because that's a church with integrity,” she said. Gillen's email is in response to allegations by a long-standing church member that Bilezikian sexually assaulted her over several years. At the time, church member Speight challenged the interactive metaphor since there were no plans for follow-up discipleship, the kind of restoration necessary for reconciliation to take place. (Five years ago, according to Outreach 100, Willow Creek was the fifth-largest church in the country, with a weekly attendance of over 25,000.) A year ago, founding pastor James MacDonald was fired and declared disqualified from ministry by HBC after elders found him to have “a substantial pattern of sinful behavior.” By May 1 of last year, the elder board at HBC had been replaced in its entirety. Help us continue to be a voice for truth in the media by supporting CBN News for as little as $1. “If [the leaders of Willow Creek] are not willing to sort of go to their knees and humble themselves and do what God calls them to do,” said James Bedell, who has attended Willow Creek for 30 years. "We, as an Elder Board and a body of believers who follow in the ways of Christ, will continue to do the work of pursuing restorative justice and being agents of reconciliation. “To this day there are people who trickle out of that church who tell me, ‘You were right, Ryan. Six years since the pastor, my hero at the time, stopped being my hero, and my world turned upside down. More evangelicals are living together before marriage. Elders at Willow Creek Community Church in suburban Chicago announced Thursday that Steve Gillen, their interim senior pastor will step down on March 17. It'll be the first time the event isn't hosted by Bill Hybels. This sinful behavior that we believe was demonstrated by Dr. Bilezikian and Bill Hybels was wrong, and we hold any person entrusted with leading at Willow Creek Community Church to a higher standard. Carter's resignation comes days before Willow Creek hosts the Global Leadership Summit where church leaders from across the world gather. Dummitt, 46, is the founding pastor of 2|42 Community Church, a … Harvest Bible Chapel is currently in arbitration with James MacDonald. While the Willow Creeks and Harvest Bible Chapels of the world make the news when their leaders fall, megachurches are far from the only congregations in which abuses of power occur. Willow Creek Pastor Bill Hybels Asks for Prayer, Resigns Amid Accusations, Traumatized Willow Creek Megachurch Turns Corner, Asks Ex-Pastor Bill Hybels to 'Repent' of Sexual Misconduct, 'Unity' and a 'Heart for Revival': How the Power of God is Changing People Across America, Rep. Dan Crenshaw Asking for Prayers After Undergoing Emergency Eye Surgery, High Court Rules Against California's Restrictions on Bible Studies, Prayer Meetings in Private Homes, Carrie Underwood's Gospel Album 'My Savior' Tops 'Billboard' Country, Christian Charts, Mossad Reportedly Behind Attack at Iran's Natanz Nuclear Facility, #GirlDad Goes Viral After ESPN Anchor Pays Tribute to Kobe Bryant», «Caribbean Dodges Dangerous Quake, but Puerto Rico Still Suffering with 240K Students Out of School. Founder Of Willow Creek Megachurch Steps Down Amid Misconduct Allegations. Marcus Bieschke, lead pastor of Willow Creek's Crystal Lake campus, says his "heart and values are not in full alignment" with the church and the direction it's going. “Thank you for the gift of tucking my kids in as they weep & cry over friendships they can longer have, the home they had to leave, & the faith they’ve watched crumble. As a church, we have an opportunity to not only help give hope, but to share in that hope as well. Bilezikian, a retired Wheaton College professor, was never employed by the congregation but had served various capacities over the years. How do you know for sure? (The announcement came with another blow as elders confirmed claims of inappropriate behavior by Hybels’s mentor, Gilbert Bilezikian, and the church allowed “Dr. April 16, 2020 April 16, 2020 Curated News bill hybels, David Dummit, Sexual Misconduct, Willow Creek David Dummitt has been named as the new senior pastor of Willow Creek Community Church, replacing its founder Bill Hybels, who resigned in 2018 over sexual misconduct allegations. But internal reports from October and February showed attendance totals around 18,000. May the Lord bless us and cover us. Gillen addressed the allegations posted over the weekend in his email to the staff writing, "while there are circumstances of the case that should have been handled differently, I believe our staff has taken these allegations of misconduct seriously.". Leaders carry a mandate to shepherd the body of Christ and guard against sinful behavior (1 Peter 5:2–4)," the post read. ), The elder board has passed its goal of naming a senior pastor by the end of 2019 but hasn’t announced a public timeline for the continued search, only stating that “filling this pastoral role is the top priority.”. My heart’s desire for the people of Willow is that they would not allow this purging to result in just dead ashes, but to see this as an opportunity for God to make real beauty, to make his love and purity shine.”Lindberg urges Willow Creek leadership to practice greater transparency by inviting victims and former leaders like Steve Carter, who left Willow Creek without a non-disclosure agreement or a severance package, to address the congregation. “Dear Bill Hybels,” tweeted Sarah Carter, whose husband Steve was appointed preaching pastor after Hybels before also resigning when further allegations against his predecessor emerged. Willow Creek spokeswoman Heather Larson told me then that having an openly gay man in leadership at the church did not signal a change in direction for Willow Creek. Late Wednesday evening, the McHenry County Department of Health (MCDH) confirmed that a COVID-19 vaccination site will be held at Willow Creek Community Church, located at … This year, it will begin the process of hiring MacDonald’s successor. But it takes a lot of hard work, time, and money to do what we do. That’s why we view every news story through the lens of faith. The new elders said in late January that after narrowing a months-long search down to two senior pastor candidates, they decided to release both and start over. And there’s no successor in sight. Hybels repeatedly denied the allegations. What about its staff? Six years since I’ve been able to shake that feeling of guardedness that now surfaces every time I step into a church. Church leaders struggle to respond. You can also find her work at, among other publications, Sojourners, Texas Monthly, and Nations Media. Six years since I felt safe among God’s people. The season for rejoicing could occur with the mourning if we enter into wholehearted integrity. (Though the Institute for Religion and Democracy’s Chelsen Vicari took issue with Willow Creek’s position on homosexuality as early as 2013.) The church’s revenue dropped by a third the year of Hybels’s resignation, from $89 million to $60 million, but its 2019 financial statement has not yet been posted by the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA). As part of our 2020 Year-End Fund, we are partnering with organizations all across our communities to make a greater impact in the areas of affordable and safe housing, job training, as well as moving people experiencing homelessness towards sustainability. Also available on most smart TVs and streaming services. Digitalhallway / Getty. Submitted by escamp on August 31, 2015 - 3:04pm. I give you & your assembly of lead staff & elders full credit for this current experience.”. Willow Creek has released the results of a multi-year study on the effectiveness of their programs and philosophy of ministry. Image:
B” to continue serving and teaching despite knowing the reports against him. But there’s such a fallout, she said, that she’s not sure they even know where to start. Not everyone is sticking around to find out. "Over the past years, behavior has been brought to light that is both harmful and unacceptable for a Christ-follower. MacDonald disputes the findings—which include an exorbitant salary and excessive spending on big-game hunting, home security, and clothing—on a page titled “Controversy” on his new ministry’s website. Willow Creek Community Church co-founder Dr. Gilbert Bilezikian is believed to have “engaged in inappropriate behavior” according to an email sent to all the church staff by acting Senior Pastor Steve Gillen. After MacDonald was fired, the church adjusted its 2019 budget from $24 million to $16.8 million, and Harvest has mostly followed its new projections. Two years after Willow Creek for 23 years, behavior has been under a purifying fire, money... 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