Willow Creek Community Church has announced it’s closing its Chicago campus because the congregation there can’t support its mortgage.
en un video announcement today, Willow Creek Senior Pastor Dave Dummit explained that when Willow purchased the building at 1347 S. State St. in April 2018, the church felt it could afford the building.
“At that time, we had pledges to fund almost the entirety of its purchase with a plan to carry a responsible level of debt in line with the size and budget level at the campus at that time,” Dummit said.
Un página web archivada announcing the purchase noted that 40 percent of Willow Chicago’s operating budget went toward leasing the Auditorium Theater and space for children’s ministry. The new building would enhance Willow’s ability to “move people along in becoming fully devoted followers of Jesus,” the webpage stated.
“But since then . . . Willow at large and Willow Chicago went through some pretty significant changes. And while Chicago was a growing congregation, we’re faced with an unsustainable financial scenario,” Dummit said.
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Those changes involved COVID and a major sexual misconduct scandal, involving Willow Creek founder Bill Hybels.
The scandal prompted Hybels to resign under pressure on April 10, 2018, and eventually led to the resignation of Willow Creek’s entire board.
In 2019, Willow Creek’s new board released a statement accusing Hybels of “unchecked sin and intimidating behavior.” And the board admitted that the church’s initial response, blaming the alleged victims, harmed the victims and their advocates.
Since 2018, Willow Creek has shrunk in size, and giving has plunged as much as 45 percent.
At least nine Willow Creek campus pastors have also resigned in the past five years. The latest to resign was ed ollie, who left as pastor of Willow Creek North Shore on Jan. 31. Prior to that, Ollie had served as lead campus pastor at Harvest Bible Chapel, where disgraced pastor james macdonald pastored for more than 30 years.
The former campus pastor at Willow Chicago—Pastor Rob Campbell—renunciar his position in March 2021.
At the time, Campbell said he and Dummit disagreed on what church model to adopt. Campbell wanted to embrace a “highly contextualized model,” where the local campus designs its core ministry and service programs. Dummit, however, wanted a “aligned model,” where the main campus creates the ministry and programs.
Campbell has since planted a new church in Chicago, called Awaken Chicago.
For a couple months following Campbell’s resignation, Miguel De La Mora served as interim pastor of Willow Chicago. However, in Jun 2021, Willow installed Thomas Anderson, Jr., as the pastor of Willow Chicago, who has served in that role ever since.
De La Mora is currently the pastor of Willow Creek’s Crystal Lake campus.
Willow Chicago hosted a Town Hall meeting yesterday with congregants. Willow Creek also sent an email with a link to Dummit’s video to those on its email list.
El Informe Roys (TRR) reached out to Willow Chicago for comment but did not immediately hear back.
Willow Chicago announced its closing on Instagram, saying, “It is with heavy and grateful hearts we share that our last service will be on February 25. Let’s come together and thank God for all He has done during our years together. While this season comes to a close, we will forever be united as brothers and sisters in Christ.”
According to Dummit, Willow Creek has been trying to avert closing for three years by working with a developer “to build up” the State Street building while retaining some space for the church.
“But as the economy has shifted, and interest rates increased, the timeframe for that project continued to extend farther and farther out,” Dummit said.
He added that Willow also considered renting space for the church elsewhere but decided closing was “the best decision for our immediate future.”
Dummit said Willow does not intend to close any of its other seven congregations throughout the Chicago area.
“I just want to say this has not been easy for our entire team,” Dummit added. “Our Chicago team, in particular—they are fantastic. They have built a beautiful multi-ethnic, growing congregation in the South Loop. And we’re committed to walking with them in this and hopefully finding new roles at Willow should they choose to stay.”
*This article has been updated to explain the “aligned” and “highly contextualized” models accurately.
Julie Roys es una reportera de investigación veterana y fundadora de The Roys Report. Anteriormente, también presentó un programa de entrevistas nacional en Moody Radio Network, llamado Up for Debate, y ha trabajado como reportera de televisión para una filial de CBS. Sus artículos han aparecido en numerosas publicaciones periódicas.
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God’s judgment upon the wealthy, spiritually dead Laodicean church continues.
Tear it all down, Lord!
Amen I don’t think willow creek ever was a Biblical church although many true Christians did attend there
Unfortunately, the embracing of worldly values in the name of “church” that has become a national hallmark within our country, a distortion of the Gospel message, an advance of business minded individuals who promote carnality according to their own understanding; the massive underpinning of a new church order that has replaced true worship of God.
Willow Creek it’s Open for all of us even for non believers of the word of God in this church that don’t tickle your ear to what you don’t want to hear they start soft and it’s delicate if ppl where Born Already in the Gospel keep all of your learning and understanding keep learning what you know a thousand times more with the ministry raise new comers educate Establish it
What’s happening here is a warning to other megachurches. You may have to downsize or close your operations if you don’t have the cash to keep up operations.
This may not be the end of Willow Creek. To date the church runs about five other active satellite congregations. Time and the changes in our culture will tell us what happens next.