Two top leaders at the Willow Creek flagship campus have announced their departures. Bill Hybels has stepped back into the top leadership role. I will have to admit, although I am far removed from the corporate style mega church model of ministry, I am fascinated about what all of this means. Gene Appel, the pastor who assumed the lead role from Hybels in 2003, will "move toward being the senior pastor of a local church again."
Willow has been the target of Harvard Business School case studies in the past. The inability to make a successful transition to a new generation of leadership will provide ripe fodder for further analysis I am sure.
