Willow Creek has been one of the fastest growing and largest churches in the United States over the past 30 years. They did a very interesting study over the past few years which revealed that the most involved people in the church weren’t necessarily the ones who felt like they were growing the most in their walk with the Lord. This DOES NOT mean that people should run away from the church, but instead it means that each one of us should learn from the findings of this study and realize that we’re each responsible to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Savior. We still need to be connected and involved serving and worshiping in our local church, but living the Christian life isn’t quite so connected with going to a certain Bible study group.

Anyway, It’s looking like this in-depth study is saying absolutely nothing new. Willow Creek is learning that the traditional spiritual disciplines of personal Bible study, prayer, meditation, fasting, etc… are where people are growing deeply. They don’t grow deeply showing up every other day to a super-cool high-intensity church experience.

Clicking on the image below will take you to a video where Bill Hybels, the senior pastor of Willow Creek explains this more in-depth.