The Business of Filling Pews

In the past decade, crowds at the Foggy Bottom church have grown. And more important, the Rev. John W. Wimberly Jr. says, Western Presbyterian has energy to spare. (Photos Jonathan Ernst For The Washington Post)

Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Ill., a mega-church with a 145-acre campus, founded an evangelical consulting arm in 1992 with about 250 congregations that wanted to imitate the church's astounding success (Willow Creek's Sunday Christmas service drew 50,000 people). Today there are 10,500 congregations worldwide that each pay about $250 a year to be members of the Willow Creek Association.

A nonprofit agency separate from the church, the association has an annual budget of $30 million and a Harvard Business School graduate at its helm. Glossy brochures advertise its mission "to extend His Kingdom worldwide." A recent conference hosted by the association in Germany drew 11,000 pastors and church leaders in Europe. Many more had to be turned away for lack of space.

The basic goal is to teach pastors how to implement Willow Creek's contemporary brand of ministry without watering down the Gospel message, said Steve Bell, the association's executive vice president.

"We are all about values . . . not methods. But we do share some of the best practices that we are finding on what's working," Bell said. For instance, "we encourage more multimedia options. If somebody does a special performance, the music tends to be more contemporary, and maybe there'll be a media presentation that goes with the song. So you are tapping more into the senses in what people learn."

On the marketing front, member churches said they have learned how to mail out well-designed materials to a targeted audience.

The Rev. Michael Simone, senior pastor of Spring Branch Community Church in Virginia Beach, said he "totally credits" the Willow Creek Association for his church's success. He launched his nondenominational evangelical congregation in 1992 with about 140 people and carefully followed the association's models and advice. Sunday attendance is 1,700.

"Without Willow Creek, I think we would have poked along or floundered," he said. "I don't think I would have made it. But with the association, we are a successful, expanding ministry far beyond what I would have imagined when I went to seminary."

The Rev. J. Philip Wogaman, senior pastor of Foundry United Methodist Church in Dupont Circle, paid $1,200 a day to hire a consultant from Alban when he took over for a popular senior pastor three years ago and some of the staff left. The consultant got new and remaining staff members involved in team-building exercises.

Wogaman said the consultant provided much better research and advice than he would have gotten free out of his parent denomination.

"It sometimes makes me wonder how churches that are in poor communities and with less financial resources manage to tap that kind of expertise," he said.

Catholic parishes also are seeking help outside their dioceses as they seek to draw more young adults on Sundays.

A symposium at Catholic University last month featured church consultant Katherine F. DeVries, who urged priests and lay leaders to update stodgy programs. Her book, "The Basic Guide to Young Adult Ministry," includes a "seven-stage plan" for creating successful young adult programs in parishes.

The Rev. Mike Johnson said he attended because he recently started a young adult ministry at his parish, St. Camillus Church in Silver Spring. As a baby boomer, he said, it sometimes is difficult for him to understand the mind-set of younger generations.

"To have someone like Katherine, who's been doing this for a long time in a major diocese, is an incredible resource for a church to have," he said. "I think it's always good for somebody from the outside to look at the ministry and give you their perspective."