Small Group World

06.15.10

Bill Donahue Interview I, Small Group Models

Bill Donahue announced his exit from full-time staff at Willow Creek Community Church a few month ago. Having learned much from him and his journey while at Willow I knew there was much to learn from his years there. Bill was gracious and allowed me to do an interview with him. Check out his candid responses to a few questions. Be wise and read between the lines. There's much to be learned.

Rick: Bill, many of us were surprised to hear you were leaving Willow Creek. How many years were you on staff there?

Bill: Eighteen.

Rick: And how many of those years were you responsible for small groups?

Bill: I was never the ultimate guy responsible. It was mostly team led. I was responsible for leader development almost the entire time I was there. I was on a team of people that led the small group ministry. And that included all kinds of people. I mean, I was there 18 years. I probably worked with a dozen people who had a role at some senior level around it, either on the management team or, you know, like Ray Hawkins handled systems for a while, while I was doing leader development, and Brett Eastman was doing some work with the staff. We each took a chunk of what was needed, and we owned it. So, you know, it was kind of a co-leader model.

Rick: What would you say were some of the most significant things you and your small group team accomplished during your Willow Creek years?

Bill: Well, I think a number of things. First of all, we took a value that was a part of the church and watched it get embraced by the entire church. Group life and community life has become an embedded practice and value at Willow. Our last Reveal—internal Reveal survey—indicated that almost 70 percent of the adults at Willow are connected to some kind of group for spiritual growth and relationship and formation. That's a huge, you know, that level of participation, and that's been ongoing.

Second thing is I think we created an environment for leaders to grow and develop at all stages. Small group leaders… certainly this area of coaching allowed people to take on increased responsibility and leadership in the church, honoring the priesthood of believers. I think we saw the integration of group life and community life with spiritual formation, seeing it as a vital component, not an add on, not an adjunct thing, that spiritual formation takes place in the context of community—not exclusively, but you can't have full formation without it.

Another big thing was the small group conferences. We were able to create a movement by God's grace that allowed us to touch other churches and to learn from other churches and to create platforms where not only we could tell our story, but other churches could tell their story about small group life and how to build it. We created an advanced training vehicle that allowed us to equip point leaders across the country and provide them with resources to build group life and create quality groups. So resource creation was really important, the network of point leaders; yeah, a lot of fun stuff happened there.

Rick: Bill, there are at least seven models for doing groups. Which one did you guys utilize at Willow Creek?

Bill: Well, we began with a very focused discipleship model. Right before I came that's what we were doing. As I arrived we began to transition through a modified Carl George MetaChurch model, using most of the components of the structure and philosophy that he had outlined. And most of that was carried through to about the year 2000. After 2000 we began to look at sort of expanding that model by incorporating geography into the model. We did that on our own for a while. Then Randy Frazee came and helped us think more specifically about the neighborhood component of that geography and what that could do. So I guess the model that we had for the longest period of time that really grew the ministry was sort of a modified MetaChurch model.

Rick: Why did you choose that particular model?

Bill: I wasn't responsible for choosing it initially. Jim Dethmer, who was a sort-of partner with Carl George, he and Carl George worked on this together. Jim's church, the Grace Community Church in Baltimore, was kind of a pilot church for Carl, and that's where Jim was pastor. So they were doing that and had that kind of up and going when Jim came to Willow to be a teaching pastor. Jim brought that philosophy to Willow and hired me to help build that. I was also doing that same philosophy at Fellowship Bible Church in the Park Cities—what is now Fellowship Bible Church Dallas. I was doing that at the same time, and so Jim Dethmer said, "Hey, you're doing this model. We're trying to bring this to Willow. Would you be interested in coming?"

But I would say it was chosen primarily because it had a clear structure and roles for people to play in leadership. It had the idea of integrating group life throughout the entire church. It had an apprentice model for leadership development, which appealed to us and the duplication of that. It had a strategy for multiplying groups, and it incorporated a variety of—this was real important to us—a variety of kinds of groups into one cohesive model so that we had not just, you know, discipleship groups. We had serving teams, and small groups, and recovery groups in a variety of different shapes and sizes all integrated into a coherent strategy. We felt that that model did the best job at that time of bringing it all together. And frankly there weren't many models to choose from at the time. There might be seven or eight or—actually I think there's more now, but back then it was pretty much a cell group approach or the Meta approach, and that was pretty much it.

Rick: Ok. If you were going to Willow Creek right now and you could independently make the decision what model would use with the way the world has changed, with the way people think differently than they did then? You think you'd choose the same model?

Bill: Well, I would probably modify it. There were components of the structure that served us well. I think it gave clear leadership relationships and clearly outlined people's roles and responsibilities. I think that clarity is essential regardless of model. However, the incorporation of the geographical component and the idea of making the groups increasingly missional and outward focused, certainly not exclusively, but more outward focused, those things that have become more of a deal in recent years, they would be more of the model if I could wave a wand today.

By the way… Don't miss Bill with Steve Gladen. They will be together webinaring tomorrow. For information go to http://www.ccn.tv/grouplife/