Megachurch Reels Following Week of Resignations

SOUTH BARRINGTON, IL – It has been a tumultuous year for megachurch Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington. Amid allegations he overstepped his boundaries with women in the congregation, lead pastor and founder of Willow Creek, Bill Hybels, announced he would be stepping down in April. His 42 years with Willow Creek ended and new leadership took over.

This past week, multiple other church leaders also resigned. The resignations came following a New York Times article, which shared the story of Pat Baranowski — Hybels' former executive assistant. Barnowski lived with Hybels' family for a period in the 1980s.

Now 65 years old, she told the New York Times how Hybels first crossed the line in 1986. While his wife and children were away, she said he offered to give her a back rub and straddled her, unhooked her bra and touched her near her breasts

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On Sunday, the same day the New York Times story broke, lead teaching pastor Steve Carter announced he would be stepping down. In a message to the congregation, which was posted to his personal blog, he wrote he could not "in good conscience, appear before you as your Lead Teaching Pastor when my soul is so at odds with the institution."

"After many frank conversations with our elders, it became clear that there is a fundamental difference in judgment between what I believe is necessary for Willow Creek to move in a positive direction, and what they think is best. That is not to say that I am right and they are wrong. But I must follow the path that I believe God has laid out for me to live with integrity, and that path now diverges from Willow Creek," Carter wrote.

Then during a special meeting on Wednesday, lead pastor Heather Larson and the entire Board of Elders for Willow Creek also announced they would be resigning. As she addressed a congregation of thousands, elder Missy Rasmussen said the "painful and troubling events have scarred these women, their families and tarnished our church."

Rasmussen, who sat on the Board of Elders for six years, said when allegations regarding Hybels having an affair surfaced in 2014, the board was shocked.

"We thought we knew what Bill’s weaknesses were, but his interactions with women were not something our board thought we had any reason to be concerned about," Rasmussen said.

She added the allegations seemed out of character, but "were so serious we knew we had to investigate.

"We can now see this investigation was flawed. It focused on whether there was definitive evidence of an affair rather than whether Bill's actions were above reproach," she said. "We viewed the allegations through the lens of trust we had in Bill, and this clouded our judgement, which resulted in us not acting quickly enough to secure and examine his devices and in us allowing him to have counseling conversations with the woman who was the subject of the first investigation."

Rasmussen also publicly apologized to alleged victims of Hybels' abuse. She said leaders at the church initially lacked the appropriate level of compassion. She also called on Hybels to publicly apologize for what he had done.

"While we will probably never know with certainty everything that’s true about each of your stories, we have no reason not to believe you. We are sorry that our initial statements were so insensitive, defensive, and reflexively protective of Bill. We exhort Bill to acknowledge his sin and publicly apologize," Rasmussen said.

Larson also addressed the church on Wednesday.

"Trust has been broken by leadership, and it doesn’t return quickly. There is urgency to move in a better direction. It is the job of a leader to define reality, and it is the job of a leader to put the team and the organization first, and I am committed to doing that," she said.

She also announced Steve Gillen, who previously served as lead pastor of Willow Creek’s North Shore campus since 2008, would take over as the interim lead pastor at the church's main campus in Willow Creek.

"I pray that we can come together and do the hard, and much needed, work of reflection, repentance, and healing," Gillen said in a statement. "Please continue praying for our church as we navigate this season. I look forward to getting to know many of you and walking with you in the weeks and months ahead."

Willow Creek is a deeply influential, non-denominational evangelical church that has a congregation of about 25,000, which makes it the fifth-largest megachurch in the U.S., according to Mother Jones. The church's main campus is in South Barrington but Willow Creek also has locations in Chicago, Lincolnshire, Wheaton, Crystal Lake, Huntley and Glenview.

For the full statements from Larson and the Board of Elders, visit Willow Creek's website.

Photo via GoogleMaps

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