Willow Creek Seeker Services: Evaluating a New Way of Doing Church

by Gregory A. Prichard and G.A. Pritchard

It has been described as the undisputed prototype of a new way of doing church and as the most influential church in North America and perhaps the world. Profiles of Willow Creek Community Church have... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0801052742
• ISBN13: 9780801052743
• Release Date: January 1996
• Publisher: Baker Books
• Length: 334 Pages
• Weight: 2.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.1" x 9.0"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Balanced View on Willow Creek

Dr. Pritchard's book on the seeker sensitive movement rightly examines the "mother" of seeker churches in Willow Creek Community Church. Willow Creek seems to be defining church these days along with Saddleback Community Church. Entire denominations have reshaped their methods to adapt to the seeker movement. Is it any wonder than that a book such as this is needed? Pritchard examines Willow Creek Community Church after attending the church for over a year and having unlimited access to the pastors and staff of the church. He divides his book into two formats. He first gives an insider's view of Willow Creek and their history, philosophy, and practices. He covers Senior Pastor Bill Hybels in-depth. The second section of the book offers a critical review of the church's practices and theology. To be fair, Pritchard is not overtly critical of the church but he does find some faults but I'll leave that to you to read on your own.

A very informative book

Beginning in the 1970s, pastor Bill Hybels, and a group of excited young believers began for a new way to "do church." Focusing on the church's duty to evangelize unbelievers, Hybels studied what kept people out of church and what would bring them into church, and they reformatted their church service for these "unchurched Harrys." And now, more than twenty years later, the Hybels' church, Willow Creek, is one of the most influential churches in Evangelical circles and beyond. In 1983, sociologist Dr. Gregory Pritchard examined Willow Creek, how they operate and why, and what they do that is good and what they do that is not so good.This is a very good book. The first section is a sympathetic look at Willow Creek, which is sure to please supporters and inform those unfamiliar with the Willow Creek way of doing things. The Second section is a critical look at Willow Creek, examining what some of the unintended consequences of the Willow Creek way are. As the author is at pains to point out, every church's modus operandi is bound to have positive consequences and negative unintended consequence, with Willow Creek being no different.If you are interested in an evenhanded analysis of Willow Creek, then I highly recommend this book to you. Having read it, I now understand a great deal more about this phenomenon.

Disagree? Probably... while you agree

So my title sounds goofy. However, "Willow Creek Seeker Services: Evaluating a New Way of Doing Church" by Dr. Gregory A. Pritchard solidly examines the processes of an internationally influential church. Churches across the world, of all denominations, are utilizing Willow Creek's ideas.Dr. Pritchard, with his background as a adjunct professor at acclaimed schools like Wheaton College, and executive director of a communications institute/think tank, has established credentials in the field of contemporary church leadership analysis.Willow Creek Community Church, for all the fame it enjoys, is also controversial for its leadership methods and for its contemporary-style worship.Does Willow Creek Community Church water down its message? Or is it showing the Christian Church (Catholics included) a new way of thinking about church and its members?Does its leadership development resemble the MLM/Amway method of raising up the shining stars... the quarterbacks and class presidents... to develop followers drawn to beautiful people?No one can say Willow Creek Community Church isn't leading people to the Lord. Despite being in an extremely affluent community, it addresses aggressively pride, greed, materialism and lust. But by what model should a church follow?Dr. Pritchard looks at both sides. Willow Creek leaders themselves will likely applaud and be frustrated by the truth of this evaluation. Detractors of Willow Creek will see the complexity of the church's mission and the successes, while acknowledging the clear struggles faced by such a megachurch.In all, "Willow Creek Seeker Services: Evaluating a New Way of Doing Church" is valuable food for thought. Starting a Willow Creek-style church? Consider some of the dilemmas this puts you in. Rejecting the ideas presented by your pro-Willow Creek elders? Read more about the foundations behind the mission.I fully recommend "Willow Creek Seeker Services: Evaluating a New Way of Doing Church."Anthony Trendl

Scholarly analysis, fairly written on Seeker sensitivity

I used this book on a Master's level class for History of Christian Worship (pre-Christian/synagogue roots to present).Gregory A. Pritchard wrote his doctoral dissertation on the Willowcreek movement, which is the prototype of all "seeker sensitive" or "seeker oriented" movements. Whether churches like it or not, they may all try to emulate Willowcreek, or utilize some of their methods, methodologies, or even philosophies. "Seeker oriented" tends to indicate that the church is primarily directed towards finding and ministering to seekers, e.g., even changing to be better accommodating toward seekers (which is what Willowcreek is). "Seeker sensitive" tends to indicate some desire to also incorporate seekers into services. Willowcreek is the prototype, as it is the first most-successful and most well-advertised church that utilizes various art forms such as contemporary drama, visual and fine arts, music, multi-media, contemporary and relevant preaching.Pritchard tries his best to be neutral, neither being an advocate of Willowcreek, or being one who would be anti-Willowcreek. Pritchard reports in this book, which is a summation of his findings of his doctoral dissertation about his experiences at Willowcreek, interviews with Lee Strobel, Bill Hybels, and others.Pritchard splits his book into two halves, the first half is more reporting what is going on and why they do what they do (history of Willowcreek, background, personalities, philosophies, methodologies), and the second half is more of an analysis of how these are effective and how they could be improved (i.e., how some of these fall short or how the methodologies need to be brought in line with theological/biblical principles).For instance, Pritchard discusses in the first half of the book how Willowcreek uses the arts, the relevance of Christianity and the gospel, Willowcreek's use of rhetoric/oratory/persuasion, the speaker's identification with the audience, building the credibility of the speaker, programming (i.e., Willowcreek's development of their program), and reaching out to the unchurched (specifically, Willowcreek makes an assumption that it is harder to reach men and get them churched than it is to reach women, so they go after a fictious "unchurched Harry") -- and profiling unchurched Harry.In the second half of the book, Pritchard tries to analyze what the rest of Evangelical Protestantism has to learn from Willowcreek, both good and bad. For instance, that positively, we could do more with rhetoric, persuasion, and oratory, and being relevant. This agrees with what I've been taught about any type of ministry ("Meet them where they're at, take them where they need to be.") However, Pritchard also looks in-depth at the difficulties of this philosophy of church ministry, for instance, how they import the psychotherapeutic culture/worldview directly without thinking about it critically. Or how they use [church] marketing as a way to figure out what to sell people. Witho

I found this book to be both fair and exceedingly careful

I found this book to be both fair and exceedingly careful. I learned things in Greg Pritchar's critique that I could not have found anywhere else. Every pastor and lay leader should read this book. Lyle Schaller, certainly no harsh critic of Willow creek in particular or church growth methodology in general, is right when he notes "This is the definitive study of the most influential chruch in North America." The theological evaluation offered at the conclusion is devastating.