Bucket List Tour - Day One

So we hopped in the old “Mega-Bus” as I’ve decided to call it, and hit the road. We got in this bad mama-jama at about two o’clock in the morning Sunday morning to head to Chicago so I made the obligatory “we just left” small talk in the Mega-Bus shotgun seat for about fifteen minutes, then I found my resting place and checked out until the morning. I woke up in a very snowy and cold South Barrington, IL. And I was in the parking lot of Willow Creek Community Church. That was our first stop on the trip. I had visited there once when I was a freshman in college. Chad Meister loaded us up on bus and took us for a tour. They have built a new auditorium since I was last, and all I remember about the last time I was there was thinking ‘man this place is enormous.’ Well that auditorium that I thought was enormous was the room that their Sr. High meets in now. During my first visit there, I was a bit fresh off the farm, if you will. I went to a church of 75 my whole life. Now that I’ve been working at Granger, my breath stayed in my lungs when I walked into the youth room that was about the size our our auditorium…minus the balconies that weren’t in use.

Student Impact was great. Let me just say, from my experience in youth ministry, that if someone comes up to me 10 minutes before a gathering and says “we’re from out of town checking things out” I’ll be the first one to say, “I’d love to chat but I’ve got a million things to check on before we start so…I’ll see you at 10:30 when I’m done.” Not so with Ruth Durband, who is Student Impact’s Operations Director. She smiled, shook our hands and gave us an entire run down of their system, and even had a little bit of time to answer some of our questions. Now I’m sure that, Willow being the place that it is, she’s probably very used to that kind of thing happening. But it doesn’t mean she didn’t have work to do. And I could see in her head that a million things were going on in there while we were chatting. So we let her be and headed down to the Jr. High room/gym to see what was the happy-hap’s down there. They decided to do business ‘theater-in-the-round’ style this weekend, but according to…umm that guy we talked to, they don’t always do it that way.

We headed back to the Sr. High room and they were off and running, I’m guessing we missed family time. But the worship band was going to work, and boy they were daggum good for some high school kids. They had an adult worship leader but the rest of the band looked like they couldn’t have been older than 16. They busted out a two song set, and then times two pastors got up and did some more introduction. Apparently they were trying something new this week, and they were showing a Rob Bell video of his “Honey” or “Dust of Your Rabbi” message. That was actually nice because I didn’t feel bad about not paying attention to the message as I was scanning the room. They had a very relaxed feel. Students were coming in and out, leaders were chillin in the back and on the end of the rows. Some folks were handing out bibles and honey sticks (message illustration). The kids were broken up by which area of the city they were from and there was a pretty sweet animation in the welcome area to illustrate that. I wish I could show you some photo’s and/or video of that stuff, but unfortunately, photography was a big no no, as I was politely told twice to stop…oops.
We ventured around the campus a little bit more and we made our way into their new auditorium and that would be the moment when I lost my breath again. That place is not only huge but it’s breath taking. It’s gorgeous with very comfortable seats, screens for all to enjoy, I’m guessing the stage had a full fly system, there were two balconies, a multi-tiered tech area (not to mention the tech wonderland that I hear exists in the basement), and it came complete with Bill Hybels on stage. He was having a question and answer session in there with I would guess around 2,000 leaders. Some of those leaders seemed to be very concerned about…something. I don’t really know what because I walked in late. But let me just say, Bill Hybels is the man. Not only is he a brilliant communicator and great leader, but he’s also a very gracious man and a patient man. He had to cut the Q&A at a certain point because they were coming into to build the set for Easter. But he personally sat on the end of the stage, let people line up, and he stayed and answered all of their questions. Trust me, there was a long line.

I loved my time at Willow Creek. I wish I could’ve probed around a bit more and gone behind the scenes a little bit, but maybe that’s for another day. We downed some Italian food for dinner then packed into the Mega-Bus to head for St. Louis which is where I leave you for now. Hope everyone is doing well, and I’ll check back with you shortly. Be praying for the Mega-Bus-Boys, especially that we get some decent nutrition, and that we sleep when we need to sleep, laugh when we need to laugh, pull away when we need to, and can follow where God wants us to go on this Journey. Peace!