In recent weeks, we have looked at a number of responses to the declining vitality of American Religious life. They have ranged from the various liberation theologies on the left to more centrist groups like Promise Keepers and Campus Crusade to the radical right groups such as the Moral Majority and the Christian Coalition. This morning, we shift to yet another response to this decline--the Community Church movement--one that is just beginning to receive the serious attention of the media and students of American Christianity.

The Community Church movement grows out of a sense that modern Americans have lost their sense of community, and are hungry to re-establish a sense of connectedness with one another. These churches take as their theological foundation the doctrine of the Trinity which they believe was the first and best model of true community. Further, they contend that if we are created in the image of God as Genesis 1 suggests, then we can never reach our full potential as human beings until that original community is restored. And it is the church, they suggest, that is to be the place where this supernatural community can be found and experienced.

Willow Creek Community Church

One of the first signs that something significant was afoot in American Religious life was the birth of Willow Creek Community Church. Located in the western suburbs of Chicago, Illinois, Willow Creek began in 1975, as an interdenominational, independent Christian church. It started life in a rented theater with an unpaid staff, but quickly mushroomed into a congregation that 20 years later worships 21,000 people a week.

The leaders of this new church started with a survey. They went into the surrounding neighborhoods and asked people "Why don't you attend church?" The responses tended to be: "(1) Churches are always asking for money (yet nothing was perceived as personally significant seemed to be happening with the money). (2) Church services were boring and lifeless. (3) Church services were predictable. (4) Sermons were irrelevant to daily life in the 'real world.' (5) The pastor made people feel guilty or ignorant, so they leave church feeling worse than when they entered the doors."

A New Way of Doing Church

Using the responses to these surveys, Willow Creek proceeded to redesign the typical American church service. The result was an innovative approach to worship that blends "drama, contemporary music, and relevant messages with the underlying theme, 'You matter to God.'" Persons who are visiting are told "that the service is a gift to them, and that they should feel no obligation to give."

Willow Creek has also represents a major departure from traditional church architecture. To the casual observer, it appears to be a shopping mall or college campus. Inside, the presence of a food court only serves to give further support to this initial impression. One will also note the absence of any obvious religious symbols such as a cross. As with the worship service, Willow Creek has attempted to redesign traditional forms to make them more meaningful to a culture that no longer has an appreciation for the meaning of the old symbols of the faith. Instead, it has elected to build a facility patterned after the institutions most Americans feel comfortable visiting: the mall or a school campus.

But the changes introduced by Willow Creek were not limited to worship. The church also created a series of ministries to people including financial counseling, recovery groups from various addictions, a ministry to persons rebuilding their lives after divorce, as well as programs to help parents become better mothers and fathers. A cars ministry repairs used cars given to the church, which are then donated to people needing transportation, but unable to afford an automobile. A handy person program teaches single moms basic skills such as car repair and minor plumbing. Developmentally disabled adults are welcomed, and made part of the church family. Women facing unwanted pregnancies are made welcome, and advice and help administered. In each case, the ministry is highly pragmatic and focused on the needs of modern persons.

In addition, to these various ministries, the church has created hundreds of small groups where persons can cultivate and develop a stronger sense of community. Community building is also the focus of the expresso cafe at the church where "cool jazz" is featured. Community "mixers" sponsored by the church serve much the same function they do on a college campus. Again, the strategy of Willow Creek is not driven by traditional norms of church life, but employs new forms to effectively address modern needs and concerns.

The Growth in Influence

Willow Creek has become a model for churches all across the country. The Community Church of Joy in Glendale, Arizona was featured two years ago in Newsweek. (August 9, 1993). This new congregation has over 6,000 members, and reaches another 6,000 persons "who participate in more than 100 recovery and special interest programs."

Like Willow Creek, The Community of Joy has attempted to adapt to the changes in modern life. Responding to the same pace of life that has given rise to the fast food restaurant, the Community of Joy can administer communion to 1,000 people in just five minutes. Skits are staged "in the sanctuary instead of having the ministers preach from the pulpit." Instead of opening its doors one day a week, the Community of Joy has become a seven day a week church.

Today, hundreds of these "Willow Creek"--style community churches are springing up all across the country. Because these churches do not claim to be a denomination, few statistics or studies exist on this new phenomenon. But the Willow Creek Association--an organization created to help foster this growth--has seen exponential growth, and has become--in many ways--a quasi-denominational structure, although it denies that is its role. None the less, it performs many tasks traditionally associated with denominational structures such as matching pastors with churches, providing literature and leadership resources, and other forms of assistance to these new churches.

But the influence of the Community Church movement is not limited to the growth of new congregations. The success Willow Creek has had in making Christianity "relevant" again for large number of people has had a strong appeal to churches facing increasing marginalization in the society. The result has been that many established churches have attempted to copy their methodology and programs.

The influence of Willow Creek has become such that the Harvard Business School has prepared a case study on this congregation. Peter Drucker has cited the congregation in the Harvard Business Review as an example of "what Business Can Learn from Nonprofits." And each year over 1,000 church leaders from across America travel to Chicago to learn "the whats, whys, and hows of Willow Creek."

The Language Gap

The Community Church movement has not lacked for critics. Many tend to be in the mainline/old-line denominations. They accuse churches like Willow Creek of selling out to the culture, of giving consumers what they want, rather than what they need. They accuse these churches of ignoring theology and doctrine, and focusing instead on the trendy and relevant. Martin Marty, an American church historian at the University of Chicago, speaks for many when he says: "to give the whole store away to match what this year's market says the unchurched want is to have the people who know least about faith determine most about its expression."

And yet, one also detects in such attacks a lack of understanding about what makes these churches successful. In some ways the Community Church movement and its critics are speaking different languages. The mainline/old-line denominations express the faith in forms that do not always resonate with the society in which they function. Their language is that of the churched culture that thrived when Protestant Evangelicalism was the dominate expression of American Religious life. The Community Church movement, however, has set out to express itself in the forms and language of an America that is no longer distinctively "Christian." Its refusal to clothe itself in the symbols and forms of traditional religion, has created a language barrier between it and more traditional denominations.

Where mainline/old-line churches use oral discourse as the primary means of communicating their message, the community churches have utilized video and drama to communicate visually with a generation raised on television and music videos. Whereas the mainline/old-line churches continue to use music that is primarily classical or "old time" gospel, the newer community churches have taken note of the fact that surveys suggest only 2% of the population prefers this kind of music. Instead, they have chosen to frame their message in the universal language that can be found in every nation on earth, "contemporary adult music."

At present, it is not clear whether the emerging language gap between the mainline/old-line denominations can be bridged. But it would be a great tragedy if it is not. To survive, the older denominations need to become conversant in the language of the culture in which we live, and they can learn that language from the newly emerging Community churches. And these new congregations need to be careful they do not become too trendy, lest the winds of change alter direction, and leave them as unpopular as last year's fashions.