On October 11, 1975, Saturday Night Live presented its first live show. The next morning, October 12, 1975, offered another premier – the first service of Willow Creek Community Church. Both of these “movements” are now celebrating 50 years. It can be argued that both events ushered in something new, highly innovative, and controversial.
I had a front row seat to Willow’s beginnings. But to provide context, we have to go back about 3 years to 1972 when I was a high school sophomore.
Our family attended South Park Church in Park Ridge, Illinois, just a few minutes from O’Hare airport. The Senior Pastor in 1972 was Rev. Leroy Paterson. I vividly remember his joy, storytelling, and quick laugh. About that time, he left to become a beloved chaplain at Wheaton College. Our new pastor arrived – Rev. Arthur Evans Gay. Both of these pastors had a season of overseeing two young upstart leaders – Dave Holmbo, Asoociate Minister of Music, and a bit later, part-time Youth Pastor Bill Hybels.
Our high school youth group at the time consisted of about 30-40 students singing “Pass It On” on old living room couches in the church basement. But with Bill and Dave, everything began to change. Bill discovered he had an emerging teaching gift, and started teaching us the Bible. We were young and open and took the Bible very seriously. We also began to care deeply about our friends at school who didn’t know Jesus.
Meanwhile, Dave was highly creative and his music was deeply influenced by the Beach Boys (Dave even looked like Brian Wilson) and the group Love Song, led by Chuck Girard. Dave formed us into a traveling music group called “The Son Company.” This band of young people experienced genuine community - though we didn’t know the word for it – as we rode buses to our concerts, laughing and sharing our lives. We truly loved Jesus and one another.
I think God does some of his most surprising work through young people just because of childlike faith, a belief that what God says can actually happen. Bill and Dave cast a vision for launching a weekly event to reach our non-churched friends, which we called Son City. We took this ministry seriously, and all held various roles according to our gifts. We divided into teams, and I served as one of the team leaders. I also loved drama and theater at school and brought that to Son City with a drama team who prepared sketches to be used before Bill’s message. Our core team of students fasted and prayed for our friends by name – my prayers were for Lorraine, my Biology partner, who eventually came to Son City and prayed to become a Christian.
By the time I was a Senior in High School, Son City had exploded to 1200 students a week, larger than the adult population of South Park Church. We felt like we were in the midst of a miracle, and much later, referred to that era as the Camelot years. Then Bill and Dave sensed a leading to start a brand new kind of church, separate from South Park. They headed further west to a town called Palatine. I stayed back for about 6 months, and then chose a local college for my freshman year so I could be a part of the new church.
Willow Creek was named after the Palatine movie theater where we met on Sundays. We arrived extremely early in the morning to unload our white truck filled with sound and lighting equipment. All of us first cleaned the movie theater of popcorn and other trash on the sticky floor. We set up small barricades in the lobby to make spaces for the children to gather. Our services included contemporary music, short videos (actually multi-media with slides), and a live drama sketch every week related to the theme of the teaching. We met mid-week as the core (called New Community) to worship and dig deeper into Scripture. We never lost sight of our goal to reach our friends outside the faith – and we thought through every part of the Sunday experience through the eyes of a new person. We had learned from door-to-door conversations that the majority of non-churched people described church as boring and irrelevant to their lives. We hoped to change that.
Bill and Dave recruited many volunteer leaders to shepherd and fulfill a variety of ministries. But it was hard to keep up with the phenomenal growth. By the first year anniversary, we had over 1,000 people per week, with two services. After the second service, we raced to break down all the equipment back into our little white truck before the matinee movie began.
Most importantly, people were becoming believers and more and more devoted as followers of Jesus. So many people sacrificed time and money to make the ministry possible. We were in over our heads. At the age of 19, I was asked to serve as the Director of Women’s Ministries (as a volunteer). The women I tried to serve were mostly old enough to be my mom. That role didn’t last long as I headed away to college. A couple years later, my boyfriend (now husband), a brand new believer, was asked to lead the Discipleship Ministry! We used a Navigator tool called Design for Discipleship. Literally hundreds of people were baptized during those early theater days.
We were inspired by the Acts 2 passage about the early believers: “Everyone was filled with awe and the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.” That was truly a big part of the story. However, we lacked the wisdom of mature believers, did not pace ourselves or practice Sabbath, and did not understand the need for accountability. A couple of our key early staff members were unfaithful in their marriages, ushering in an era we called “The Trainwreck.” Bill would later tell of the night he lay prostrate on his living room floor, begging God for guidance and rescue.
As I watched the 50th anniversary celebration of SNL, I was reminded of many highs and lows among early cast members. I saw the reunion of all the old friends. Willow’s 50th is truly bittersweet for me. I will always be deeply grateful that I got to be a part of a grand adventure. I do believe God ushered in a new movement of church life and growth that forged an unmistakable worldwide impact. There will be thousands of people in heaven because they met God through Willow or a Willow-inspired church. All of that is true. But it’s also true that the story took a dark turn, made public in 2018. It’s not at all the way any of us wanted the story to go.
On this Anniversary weekend, I’m choosing to embrace the part of the story filled with wonder and awe – forever grateful for my invitation to play a part…
I want to wish a very heartfelt Happy Anniversary to:
Every single staff member from any era, past and present
The countless faithful volunteers who cared for children, served the under-resourced, sacrificed money and hours upon hours of time, made conferences a deIight for all of our guests, led small groups, guided traffic, and served in a host of other ways!
All of our Global Partners who lead transforming churches, ushering light into dark places
I thank God for the lifelong friendships so many of us made because of a place called Willow. I pray regularly that the Willow congregation of today – and its leaders – will flourish and continue to be a bright light for Jesus. Happy Anniversary….