#7 Willow Creek / WCA

I first heard the name Willow Creek Community Church (WCCC or Willow for short) while attending Wooddale Church in Eden Prairie, MN. Brian, the Youth Pastor I had gotten to know and played basketball with, mentioned it to me one day when he learned I was going to Chicago on the weekends to see my two kids who were living with Liz. He thought I should stop and check it out, that he was hearing good things about Senior Paster and Founder Bill Hybels and the seeker-sensitive model he was using at Willow.

When I decided to move to Chicagoland in April 1991, I chose an apartment in Hoffman Estates, one town over from South Barrington where Willow is located. On my very first official service, Pastor Hybels announced that he had just received a large gift to start-up the Willow Creek Association whose mission would be to train church leaders all over the world.

That was all I needed to hear. The light bulb turned on and I told myself they need someone like me who understands startups. The very next day I tracked down the Willow staff member who was running the Willow conferences and asked for an interview. He interviewed me but did not offer a job. I followed up a week later. Still no job. This went on for over a year. But I think I wore him down. After about the 10th phone call or so, he finally relented and offered me a part-time bookkeeping job at $15.00 per hour. An insulting offer for a 13-year veteran like me. But I took it knowing that God was calling me to this place for reasons I did not yet fully understand.

Eighteen months later that manager was fired and replaced by a young MBA from Harvard Business School (Jim Mellado) who I had gotten to know well during my tenure as bookkeeper. His first move was to give me a raise, a new title as the fulltime CFO, and basically made me his #2. Mark Mittelberg moved over from Willow a little bit later and the three of us became the Leadership Team at WCA for the next 4+ years. My patience was rewarded. It was definitely a God Thing.

In a future post, I will write about my role at the WCA and why I still describe 1994 to 1997 as the best four years of my life. I used all my leadership gifts and financial skills, and we had one heck of a run including starting the Global Leadership Summit via satellite which is still going strong today. The same can’t be said for Bill Hybels. He was forced to resign back in 2018 due to sexual harassment allegations and has not been heard from since.