Ok, I'm making my response and thoughts on comments to Thoughts on "Pastoring Thoughts" an entry in itself!
I think Willow Creek is great - for being a megachurch and being committed to the discipleship of every member. It is a "success story" of sorts, to be applauded. I think I was unclear here: the problem is that the leadership of many (other) churches are awed at Willow Creek, think, "Wow, that's the way to do church," and then try to copy it wholesale for their church (which is most likely congregational in form, and more on that later). Then they wonder why their "plan" isn't working.
I think there is a larger issue at hand: much of our churches' leadership lean towards "doing church growth" because we're uncritical of the underlying consumeristic values in our culture - that "bigger is better", for example.
It's pretty safe to say that Christ values quality (the heart) and not necessarily numbers (the parable of the woman giving her 2 coins is just one example, God spitting out the lukewarm is another extension, and Israel being punished after David orders a census in 2 Sa 24). Matt, I'm not sure if you're saying that the cause of Willow Creek reaching out to the poor is from the effect of having many people (and an organizational structure)? I'd say for Willow Creek it is just one factor. Congregation numbers of a given church should not be decisive factor in whether or not they are involved in Christ's call to the "poor, widowed, etc." Aren't we all called to that ministry (it's all over the OT and NT)? As Brian (and many others) note, smaller churches - especially house churches - are freer to minister in such a fashion because of their structure. Well, check out New Heights Church - especially their pastor Scott William's blog (link in my blog entry above), reflecting on their mission to the poor (most of the church is involved, and I'm pretty sure they're not that large.) Of course Willow Creek and several other megachurches are doing well in this regard, despite their size. I believe many models can coexist (and be truly united) in the larger Body of Christ - I agree with Alan: the right model, given the circumstances. The question perhaps should be: "what's the right model for us?"
I believe Acts 2:41 was descriptive, not prescriptive (just that narrow passage/verse, though). I'd love to see this happening now, of course! But I recall that this number was added to the fellowship of believers, not a congregation. An aside: the early church didn't resemble a church with congregations as we know now. Many members of the house churches in a given city would meet about once a week at a larger house to celebrate the Lord's Supper. When we read Paul's scathing words about the abuse of the supper with a fuller exegesis, the context provides a clearer picture (the poorer believers were being left out - because they had to finish their chores, and it was extra humiliating to come late and hungry to an empty table).
A deeper ecclesiology is necessary. Unknowingly we've been caught up in the models and assumptions of our society: upscaling, consumeristic, instant gratification, number-oriented bottom lines vs. people and relationships, etc. (My course on "Mustard Seed vs. McWorld" at MCBC spent some time on how our churches have been seduced by these underlying assumptions and worldviews, and the kinds of problems that have emerged from that.) Much of the critique comming from the emerging culture/church/theologians/etc. is against these modern-age assumptions and institutions (and also against the failings of extreme post-modern thought), but reaching towards something like an ancient-future faith (Robert Webber among many others talk about this).
I was never really exposed to house-based churches (I thought they were an anomaly), but my China trip training, subsequent ethnographic research, and post-report-writing processing gave me much food for thought for these "alternative" church models (the Perspectives course covers much of this, too). Actually last Urbana (2000) I went to a seminar about experimental, missional church which really inspired me and blew me away. Of course the numbers in attendance (5!) were an indication of the lack of interest the North American church has in stuff like this - and this was at the missions conference.
Tracking society, culture and business trends, the CEO and leadership issues were hugely popular in the 80's and 90's - something that fit the business environment in North America (and west, to an extent) at that time. Business trends and issues today are leaning towards "softer" approaches, moving from shareholder-orientation to stakeholder awareness, from downsizing as a primary burn-and-slash cost cutting method to valuing employees as #1 asset, etc. I sense a greater yearning towards Kingdom values slowly seeping into the landscape: we have talk about (and small progress in) sustainable growth, replacement vs. growth economies, corporate governance vs. corporate greed, fair trade vs. unfettered capitalism, bridging the poor-rich and digital gaps, etc. It's still very much a slow transformation, of course.
And I hear you about accountability being so low and the failings of many initiatives. But, I wonder if that's mainly due to our shaky foundations? We've traded apprentice-discipleship for churchianity, no? And we're trying to fix it up patch-wise. Do we have too much invested in our current systems to break out of our molds and start fresh? Why are we so tied down to our current forms of church? Over years of conversation and sharing, I know that that many of us Chinese-Canadian-Christians are starting to feel there's something wrong with "church as usual" and about leading what has become "lives of quiet desperation".
Now I dunno why I can't be as concise as all of you, but, those are my (hopefully humble) thoughts. I reserve the right to be rebuked (for being unhumble, nastily critical, or just plain wrong), of course. It's just from my own processing, reading, and conversations - hopefully Spirit lead!
