Willow Creek news crashes server

Todd Rhoades, editor and publisher of MondayMorningInsight.com, breaks the news to the blogosphere about changes at the top over at Willow Creek Community Church, founded by Bill Hybels, and he’s getting to experience that “digg” or “slashdot” effect:

Well, it seems that the Willow announcement in this morning’s MMI has brought down our servers (or made them, at the very least, very very slow). There have been over 1,000 pageviews on this one story alone so far this morning.

Please be patient… things will speed up very soon… hopefully.

In the mean time, here’s the link to the Willow Creek elder’s announcement.

And just one other note… it appears that both Gene Appel and Randy Frazee are leaving Willow on very good terms. That’s a good thing for Willow and for the Kingdom. Let’s keep them in prayer as this is, yet another, huge transition for Willow, and for everyone involved. Many will blog about this in the coming days, trying to dissect the reasons why there are two departures announced on the same date. It’s important not to jump to conclusions as some already are.

[disclosure: Todd is also my colleague at Leadership Network]

January 28, 2008 | filed in internet 

Comments

  • Hey DJ,

    Yes, my wife and I were shocked at the news when we attended Willow this Sunday. It's really interesting to see how Willow handles changes like these. This is going to be an admittedly hard time for Willow - as told by one of their elders, Steve (in all of my time at Willow, I have never even seen a Willow elder). Not only are Randy and Gene going, but Mike Breaux will also be leaving (that was announced several weeks earlier).

    You should have seen the people in the congregation... when Steve came out, it was weird to begin with; but when he announced that Randy was going to leave, there was a loud gasp and collective "oh my/no!"... and then after Randy came up to express his thanks, Steve came back on the mic and then also said that Gene was going to leave... the congregation's response was even louder and sadder.

    It was eye-opening to see how Willow handles transitions like these... I was really impressed at how everyone was very open about it and how gracious it was. However, afterwards, my wife and I were wondering how it really went down! :) Did Bill have a mini freak out? Did he throw things when he heard his speaking duties would nearly double or triple? Then my wife and I laughed at how jaded we were by the Korean Church! Haha
  • Tony Wang
    I have the same reaction as John, how did it really go down! I suppose it's none of our business to be speculating or jumping to conclusions, but anyone who's been around long enough knows that there's usually a story behind the story. And after living in Dallas through the whole 1st Baptist fiasco, I can assure you it doesn't just happen in Asian churches. It's just hard to believe that so many major moves are coincidental. But alas, we must wish them all well for God's glory, whatever really happened. If everything is as they stated, all the better.
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