Integrating Church

Time magazine has gone and run a piece about Pastor Bill Hybels, who runs Willow Creek church and is best known in Christian circles for being an innovative youth pastor. Hybels' most recent concern has been in changing the demographics of his church; that is, making his sanctuary welcome to all ethnicities and the styles of worship these people are used to.

The article does a pretty good job of what an article should do: It tells us about the situation and ties it in with what the Bible says. (No one comes across as crazy or bigoted, either, which is always a good thing when Christians end up in the spotlight.) It's an interesting story about what big churches are dealing with, in a world where integration has always been seen as political, and when belief systems aren't just a plaque saying to love everybody but actually a practice where everyone, skin color aside, is in this together.