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By John Keery
PEOPLE are now clamouring to become involved in their
churches and communities, Scott Cochrane says, as he takes over as head of
the Kelowna-based Leadership Centre Willow Creek Canada.
Coming off of a five-year stint as executive pastor at
Kelowna’s Trinity Baptist (attendance 2,000 plus), Cochrane says new
people coming to church today want to get involved right away.
“Churches like Trinity will continue to be
seeker-sensitive, existing to present the gospel in a relevant way,”
he said.
“But the seekers have changed. Five years ago
churches understood people wanted to be left alone, to slide in and out of
the back benches. Now that is no longer the case. They want to be involved
right away.”
Cochrane has conducted classes for newcomers at Trinity
for many years – starting long before he was on staff.
“People used to want to fly below the
radar,” he said. “Now they all show up and want to
volunteer.”
The organization Cochrane will direct helps
Canadian churches improve the way they do things. It helps them become more
relevant to their members and their communities.
“‘This ministry is all about church
renewal, helping churches be all God intends for them to be,”
Cochrane said.
John Baergen started the Leadership Centre 17 years ago
to help struggling churches. It was associated with the Fuller Institute in
California. In 2000, the centre joined Willow Creek Canada, the Canadian
arm of Bill Hybels’ Chicago-based Willow Creek Church organization.
Cochrane, who has a media background (mostly radio),
worked there for seven years, before becoming moving Trinity.
“The two organizations were doing basically the
same thing,” he said.
Baergen is now leaving the centre to begin a new
ministry with pastors. “He felt he is being called to devote himself
to the soul care of pastors,” Cochrane said.
The centre focuses on developing church leaders –
both pastoral staff and lay people – through conferences,
distribution of resources and providing a network to help leaders interact.
Part of its job, in the next while, will be to help
churches update the seeker-sensitive model developed by Hybels’
organization and adopted by many large evangelical churches such as
Trinity.
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Willow Creek Church did a major study in 2007, which
showed that the seeker-sensitive model was bringing people into the church,
but not helping them become mature Christians. Trinity did a similar study,
Cochrane said.
“They realized they were not doing as good a job
as they hoped,” he said. “The hope that people were growing up
in Christ was not being realized.”
He said it is unfortunate that some commentators began
to “throw stones” at Hybels and Willow Creek as a result,
rather than congratulating them on their honesty.
The study, involving 500 churches in the U.S. and
Canada, was entitled Reveal: Where Are You?
It showed that the people doing the best in the
churches are those who have learned to study the Bible themselves, rather
than relying on the teacher/student model.
“The people who were the most mature spiritually
were those who read the Bible the most,” Cochrane said.
“Churches must have less spoonfeeding, and far more instruction in
how can people feed themselves.”
At the same time, he believes the Holy Spirit is
creating a movement among Canadian Christians, to make them want to help in
their communities.
“People don’t care how much you know
– until they see how much your care,” he said.
February 2009
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