Crowdsourcing III: The Congregation from Willow Creek to Wild Men

What does a Crowdsourced Congregation look like? If "Crowdsourcing" truly is the name of the Reformation rattling through America's spiritual landscape, then that's a crucial question.

It’s easier to start with a negative form of the query: What doesn’t it look like? That’s easier to answer, because it doesn’t look like most of the hierarchical denominations we’ve inherited; and it doesn’t look like most of the big Pentecostal churches, which tend to turn themselves into spiritually anointed fiefdoms led by the ruling preachers whose hands are raised behind the pulpit—and, finally—here’s some provocative news, we think—it doesn’t look like the Seeker Church.

Now, anyone who has been carefully watching this niche in American religion knows that the Seeker pioneers already are modifying the way they talk about this popular evangelical parlor trick of the 1980s and early 1990s.

The Seeker Church marketing concept, fueled by the enormous success of Willow Creek Community Church near Chicago, rested on the assumption that those Baby Boomers who were turned off by organized religion, nevertheless were spiritual “Seekers.” Behind this movement were eager young evangelists cut in the mold of Willow Creek's Bill Hybels (above). Most of these evangelists had never really rejected the church themselves, and they had a real passion to bring their Boomer compatriots back to Jesus. Following Hybels' lead, they figured out that they could reconnect with their wayward brothers and sisters by presenting, on Sunday mornings, an entertaining religious stage show of light-rock music, comedy, drama, colorful images and casual sermons about real life. Once hooked on the Sunday shows, the targeted Seekers then would move inward toward Bible study groups and, in many Seeker Churches, toward full membership in the “real” congregation that often met mid-week.

These churches haven’t disappeared. Willow Creek continues to draw more than 17,000 people each weekend, but the jargon used in this kind of church already is changing from “Seeker Church” to phrases like “Seeker Sensitive,” which sounds a little more compassionate, or even “Purpose Driven,” borrowing the phrase from Rick Warren’s hugely popular book. For those outside the movement who haven’t been watching Willow Creek or Warren’s immense Saddleback too closely in recent years, take a fresh look and you'll find: Both churches now are looking much more like denominations than cutting-edge pioneers. They’ve both formed vast, loose associations around the world, exporting their marketing techniques, musical scores, theatrical scripts and books. Willow Creek's signature event each year is its Leadership Summit, beamed live around the world.

At the core, "Leadership" is the key at the gigantic Seeker Churches. They're run by anointed ministry teams, still focused on luring the unwashed … errr, unbaptized … into America’s evangelical mainstream.

So, what would happen if a church truly were Crowdsourced? And we hasten to add that this isn’t a heretical concept. The idea of the Divine Spirit manifesting itself and speaking through the discernment of an entire community is as old as rabbinic Judaism and the foundations of the Jewish-Christian movement 2,000 years ago. In different forms, it also remains a key element in Orthodox Christianity, where national identity is bound up in religious tradition, and in smaller movements like the Quakers and the Shakers, as well.

But let’s get specific for a moment! What might this new kind of church look like?

Would a Crowdsourced Church look like Oake Pointe Church in Novi, Michigan, which has grown from 60 founders of the church in 1997 to the weekly crowd of 2,000 who attend services now? The church borrows from the Willow Creek model and even promotes Willow Creek materials on its Web site. At first glance, it walks, talks and squawks like a Seeker Church, right down to the light-rock music, theater-style sanctuary, casually dressed clergy and a youth minister sporting a baseball cap. But, I had a long talk with the Rev. Bob Shirock, the senior pastor, on the church’s Grand Opening weekend in October and Shirock is exploring a model of church that differs sharply from the Seekers.

“I was told that I had to tone down what we do on Sunday mornings here and draw in seekers and make them feel comfortable—don’t turn them off—and then get to the substantial stuff later,” Shirock said. “But I don’t think we have to separate ourselves that way.”

So at weekend worship, sometimes, Shirock preaches about everyday issues in his members’ lives. But, often, Shirock digs into substantial evangelical theology and biblical analysis, occasionally preaching his way through heavy-duty sermon series that run for weeks.

Actually, it’s not so much what Shirock says from the pulpit that may make his church a Crowdsourced model. His innovation seems to lie in the way he brings people together behind the scenes to shape the church. While he’s preaching, for instance, he has a group of lay people who volunteer to go back stage, out of view from the rest of the congregation, and pray for him until he’s done speaking. This concern also lies in the twice-a-month, congregation-wide prayer meetings he holds to shape the church’s ministries. It’s in the church’s attention to organizing small groups, fueled by a full-time Pastor of Cell Groups. It’s in the church’s outreach to local high schools to welcome community events into the gorgeous, new, $15-million building.

But here’s the other edge of the Crowdsourced sword: If Shirock and his team continue to take the crowd’s prayerful discernment seriously, then how do they prevent the crowd from prayerfully discerning that what they really want is a spiritually satisfying suburban country club?

OR – would a Crowdsourced Church look like the Rev. Rob Bell’s Mars Hill Bible Church in Grandville, Michigan, where 11,000 flock each Sunday? Bell’s ministry team puts as little money as possible into its enormous building, which originally was a shopping center and still looks pretty much like ... well, like a shopping center. It's not a pretty sight. Instead, Mars Hill squeezes as much money as possible out of its budget to fuel missions and fund a whole host of professional missions teams that keep springing up from the Mars Hill community.

In casual conversation, Bell loves nothing more than to rattle off the latest “news” he has just learned about what volunteers from his church are doing around the world – without his knowledge, let alone his approval. He loves to say, “That’s what a Christian community should be: Pople just getting up and getting on with helping other people because they’re called to do it, not because somebody tells them they need to do it. I don’t know about half the things Mars Hill is doing until after they’re done and people are trying to thank us.”

But here’s the other edge of the Crowdsourced sword: How does Bell keep his amoeba of ministry from dissipating itself in a hundred directions until the body of Mars Hill simply fades away? (By the way, Bell just recently announced that he plans to explore the whole concept of “Church” at a two-day conference at Mars Hill, 3501 Fairlanes Avenue SW, Grandville, MI 49418. Click here to read more about it or to register, if you care to go.)

OR – would a Crowdsourced Church be more like Burning Man? Emblazoned across The New York Times’ “SundayStyles” section this week is “Buning Man Spreads Its Flame: From the Nevada Desert to Los Angeles, New York and Oregon, the Burming Man Trip Continues Long After the Festival Ends.”

Two years ago, while crossing North America for the Detroit Free Press, I spent a couple of days camping out in this truly stunning utopian experiment in the remote, dusty desert of Nevada. Now two decades into the experiment, 40,000 people spend a huge amount of money to travel to the desert, build creative encampments and explore the outer boundaries of social and spiritual interaction. This truly is Crowdsourced spirituality on a scale that rivals Cecil B. DeMille. But, the city--and it really is a carefully planned and designed city--is unlike any other city on the planet. For instance, money can only be used at Burning Man to purchase ice and—what else? Fresh-brewed coffee, of course. Each encampment is challenged to think of a creative (and often spiritual) currency that the members of the camps can produce and give away, for free, to the other residents of this desert utopia.

Often, this takes the form of artwork—from gigantic, fantastical installations to inspire visitors’ reflections--to small items like tiny ceramic bowls that visitors can decorate with glazes and fire in a communal kiln. Or, this might take the form of music. Many camps are like mini-music festivals from hard rock to chamber music to esoteric jazz. Or, this spiritual currency might rise up into the shape of a temple like the half-mile-long, three-story wooden temple built for the 2004 Burning Man (shown at right). Thousands of visitors voluntarily built the temple, then used it as an immense memorial pyre by leaving heartfelt epitaphs and symbolic gifts for fallen friends and loved ones—all consumed in the final flames that end each year’s Burning Man festival.

But here’s the other edge of the Crowdsourced sword: Reading the New York Times overview of “Burner” culture on Sunday, the Times writer veered toward an acidic scouring of the Pagan-wannabes who also are an essential part of Burning Man each year. This is, after all, an ultimate, no-holds-barred, utopian experiment in Crowdsourced culture each year and not all of that culture is exactly spiritual.

The Times writer, Julia Chaplin, quoted one Burner she encountered, who “dressed like a Goth minotaur,” called himself DJ Wolfie, and, when asked to explain why he was carrying the gospel of the Burners to communities far from the Nevada desert, told her frankly, “We want to preserve the vibe. You know, so women can dance topless and not get harassed.”

That's not exactly a movement of the ... the Spirit, hmmm? But, the question about the future shape of Crowdsourced congregations is a crucial one and the wild experiments in the Nevada desert are a part of that search for Crowdsourced answers.

Whether we're active in a house of worship or not, this is a huge question for America, because congregations are America’s spiritual skeleton. There are far more houses of worship in the U.S. than Post Offices, Wallmarts and McDonald’s put together. So, if Crowdsourcing truly is the name of this Reformation, it’s worth considering what a Crowdsourced Congregation will look like when this Reformation reaches its zenith -– or its nadir.

Tell us what you think, either by posting a Comment (click below) or by sending us an Email. And, please: Stay Tuned for the fourth and final chapter in this series, coming early this week: “Crowdsourcing IV: Whose crowd?”