Monday, October 17, 2005

A2

I was away last week. I was in Chicago at the A2 Willow Creek conference. I still haven't fully recovered or been able to process the whole event.

First off, 25 hours in a van with 4 other people wasn't at all what I expected it to be. The trip itself was wonderful, as was the ride back.

Secondly, Willow Creek (did anyone know that the church is actually by a creek with lots of weeping willows? The name makes sense now) is HUGE. Their new sanctuary seats 7095 people in 3 tears (I'll have pics up on my photo blog when I get a chance). Now, I've never really been a fan of mega churches for a bunch of reasons, the two most important being the practicality of it (organizing community in a large group would be very difficult) and also because I'll all for church planting. That aside, Willow does an amazing job. Even from the highest point furthest away from the stage it didn't feel like the nose bleed section. The entire sanctuary felt cozy, not huge. Hard thing to accomplish.

Now, as for the actual content of the conference, I'll get to that in a series of rants as I work thought it. I will say that it was amazing.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

As a member of Willow Creek I'm glad you enjoyed your time with us at the A2 Conference. FYI, the pond and willow trees are all additions to the campus. The church name came from the name of the movie theater the church met in in the early days.

Glad you came away with a positive impression of Willow. I can assure you that it has been my experience that authentic community abounds at Willow.

Cheers,