Recently I've been reading Bill Hybels' Courageous Leadership with a brother in the congregation.  It's been a good time of fellowship with the brother, and sometimes some surprising moments of agreement with Hybels.  The book draws from his 30 years with Willow Creek and shares the leadership lessons he's learned in that time.  It's light on Bible and heavy on personal experience, but still manages some good nuggets.

Take this reflection following a kitchen conversation with his daughter's a college-aged friend, who had attended Willow's youth group for four years throughout high school.  After the young woman stunned Hybels by admitting that she was converted, discipled, and learned to serve at the youth group but never heard much about or attended Willow, Hybels offered this reflection:

Without my being consciously aware of it, Willow had evolved from a close-knit, single-identity, biblically functioning community into a decentralized, multi-identitied, loosely connected federation of sub-ministries.  For many people, all they really knew of Willow was the sub-ministry to which they related.  Even on staff, many people identified more strongly with the department they were working in than they did with the church as a whole.

That's why we don't all seem to be on the same page.  We're not!

The problem with this was that not every sub-ministry was as committed as it needed to be to the goals of spiritual growth that we had agreed upon as a church.

I think Hybels hits on a problem that weakens many churches: members being more committed to a part of the church--their favorite ministry or small group, etc.--than they are to the entire body of Christ.  Hybels' concern was the way it seemed to distract people from pursuing the same goals in the church.  But it's deeper than that.  It may be an indication of of a weaker love than we imagine.

Each part of the body is called to show equal concern for every other part of the body, and the body as a whole for each individual part (1 Cor. 12:25).  That's a high calling.  But that's what it takes to love as deeply as Christ Jesus has called us to love.  And that's what it takes to build church-split-preventing unity, lost-member-seeking concern, caring-for-the-poor-among-us compassion, and suffering-with-others empathy.  If the members love only their little clique or part or ministry, then the muscular body we may enjoy at one point will slowly atrophy over time.