Pastor Hybels retires under a cloud

The founder and spiritual leader of Willow Creek Community Church, one of the most successful megachurches in the United States, is taking early retirement amid a flurry of accusations of inappropriate behavior with women employees and church members.




Willow Creek is a non-denominational Evangelical megachurch whose main campus is located a few miles away from my home in the northwest suburbs of Chicago.  Based on the number of church members, it has experienced astonishing success, one of the great American stories of Evangelical church planting and growth.  As is frequently the case with such stories, Willow Creek's founder is a brilliant and charismatic church entrepreneur: Rev. Bill Hybels, one of the best-known Evangelical faith leaders in the world.  Here is how the Chicago Tribune recapped the church's history in a recent article:

Hybels grew Willow Creek from a group of zealous 20-somethings inside a Palatine movie theater to one of the largest megachurches in the U.S., hosting more than 25,000 worshippers at its main campus in South Barrington and seven satellite sites any given weekend. The Willow Creek Association has expanded Hybels’ vision to more than 11,000 churches worldwide that share Willow’s core philosophies.  From the beginning, he has affirmed women in leadership, tapping them to serve as elders, key volunteers and teaching pastors. Last October, Willow Creek made history in evangelical circles by naming a woman as lead pastor or effectively as chief executive of the megachurch. 

This description appeared in an investigative article that the Tribune published last month, recounting a lengthy series of allegations of sexual impropriety against Hybels from a number of women, most of them former or current leaders or employees of Willow Creek.

It seems that these accusations have been percolating for several years.  Hybels has put in place a governance structure, consisting of a board of elders, who apparently have been appointed by him, to run his various church-related initiatives.  When complaints reached the board, it made several attempts to investigate them, first trying to look into the accusations on its own, and then hiring an outside law firm to investigate.  Neither investigation was able to adequately substantiate the allegations.  Hybels, for his part, has consistently and flatly denied any wrongdoing whatsoever.  The Tribune article does a good job of detailing the series of accusations, as well as Hybels' across-the-board denials.

A couple of weeks ago, in the wake of that bombshell newspaper article, Hybels spoke twice to gatherings of members at his church's main campus in South Barrington, IL, looking to address the situation head-on.  He also issued a statement, again denying any wrongdoing.  That statement was accompanied by one from Pam Orr, the chairperson of the church's board of elders, providing some details of the outside firm's investigation and expressing "full confidence" in Hybels.  (NewGathering readers who have analyzed and discussed the Catholic church's attempts to stand up and execute an independent review board and who may be in interested in Willow Creek's process should read Orr's statement.)

Despite the board of elders' conclusion that the accusations against Hybels weren't substantiated, Hybels announced today that he is retiring six months earlier than he had originally planned.  He hasn't admitted to any wrongdoing but acknowledged that he probably has made some mistakes along the way.

Hybels said he "too often placed myself in situations that would have been far wiser to avoid. At times I was naive about the dynamics of those situations created. I'm sorry for that lack of wisdom on my part." 

"I have taken these allegations very seriously, as have our church elders," he continued. "While some of the stories that were about me have been misleading and some entirely false, and while investigations found no evidence of misconduct, I have been sobered by these accusations."

Although he is stepping down from all leadership responsibilities, Hybels doesn't intend to leave the faith community.  "Willow will always be my church home."  According to newspaper reports, many members of the faith community continue to support Hybels: shouts of "No!" were heard when he announced his retirement today.

 The leadership baton is being passed to a woman, Heather Larson.

It's difficult to read the litany of accusations against Hybels and not suspect that they are credible.  At the same time, Hybels is a pretty effective denier

All of us who post and comment here at NewGathering are veterans of reading, thinking and commenting about the alleged misbehavior of Catholic church leaders, and the hierarchy's various attempts to deal with the allegations, scandals and lawsuits.  In this Willow Creek story, there are some similarities with the many stories of Catholic leadership failures.  Those would include the explaining-away of the incidents by the accused party, and the attempts by the church leadership to conduct an independent investigation and to be transparent about the findings and the outcome.  Also similar is the dissatisfaction with the process and the outcome on the part of the accusers and others.  From the Tribune investigative piece:

Pushing for the investigation were two former teaching pastors and the wife of a longtime president of the Willow Creek Association, a nonprofit organization related to the church. Some of those pressing for more scrutiny say the church’s prior investigation had shortcomings in their opinion and at least three leaders of the association’s board resigned over what they believed was an insufficient inquiry. 

A humanitarian aid agency also chose not to renew its sponsorship of the church’s Global Leadership Summit over concerns about the association’s process for reviewing complaints about senior leaders.

 The story also follows a number of the contours of stories from the #MeToo movement with which we've all become familiar: women have decided that they no longer can keep silent, and have found courage from others stepping forward.  The Tribune article notes that a number of the women who allegedly were victimized by Hybels didn't feel comfortable speaking up: he was their boss, and at least one of the women found him intimidating.  It also seems that some of these women knew  Hybels' wife and considered her a friend, and didn't want to hurt her or her marriage by going public.  The alleged victims were affiliated with Willow Creek and Hybels because they were in leadership positions on a dynamic pastoral team that was accomplishing great things, and found the alleged incidents of personal misbehavior from Hybels to be unexpected and rather bizarre - having an intimate relationship with Hybels wasn't why they were there, and some of them seemed willing, at least for a time, to set his advances aside as an aberration.  And some of them seemed unaware, at least at first, that what happened to them had also happened to other women.  In addition, at least one woman subsequently was fired after complaining, although it's not clear that her complaints were the cause of her termination.

Many Catholic priests and other Catholic leaders have crossed lines that are far worse than the lines that Hybels is accused of crossing.  Nevertheless, if the allegations are true, lines were inappropriately crossed.  Even a lingering hug can be exceedingly uncomfortable in the context of a pastor/member relationship.  Hybels' early retirement is a reminder to religious leaders that we must be impeccable in our relationships with the members of our churches.  We must avoid anything that can be construed as inappropriate.  Among the things that Hybels is accused of include complimenting women on their outfits and their physical fitness.  You can't do that sort of thing when you're a pastoral leader.

I have to admit that, even though I've lived in this area for nearly 30 years, and even though there are a number of former parishioners who have joined Willow Creek over the years - the church's membership is reputed to be 50% or more former Catholics - I've never visited it.  Perhaps these events will spur me to take a Sunday morning to go over there and check it out.  But it seems that I've missed my window of opportunity to hear the legendary Bill Hybels preach from the pulpit.