SOUTH BARRINGTON, Ill. (RNS) — David Dummitt, who became pastor of Willow Creek Church at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, announced Sunday (March 23) that he is stepping down as leader of the influential Chicagoland megachurch.
Shawn Williams, the campus pastor of Willow Creek’s South Barrington, Illinois, location, will succeed Dummitt as senior pastor starting April 1. Dummitt will remain on staff until July 31 to help with the transition.
“Dave came to Willow during a critical moment in our church’s history, leading through a time of change with wisdom, humility, and a heart for unity,” Willow Creek’s elders said in a statement Sunday. “He has played an essential role in bringing stability and ensuring a strong foundation for the future. We thank Dave and his family for how they have served, and we will have time to celebrate the Dummitts before Dave’s official transition off staff.”
Dummitt’s departure comes as Willow Creek has largely rebounded from the shutdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic. The church ended 2024 in the black, with its first budget surplus since 2019, according to a church spokesperson. In-person attendance for 2024 was up 16 percent, to 9,875 per weekend, with an additional 3,700 people viewing services live online.
The church has also largely recovered after years of turmoil following the 2018 resignation of longtime pastor Bill Hybels amid allegations of sexual misconduct. Hybels’ handpicked successors and the church’s entire elder board resigned that same year. The church went through several interim pastors before hiring Dummitt.
At its peak, the church drew more than 25,000 worshippers to services at several Chicago-area campuses under Hybels, known for his ambitious, corporate style of management and obsession for excellence. Hybels denied allegations against him and has largely disappeared from public life in recent years. After his departure, attendance dwindled and giving dropped, leading the church to lay off 30 percent of its staff in 2022. The church closed its downtown Chicago campus last year but still has seven locations in the suburbs.
Dummitt, who had pastored a Michigan megachurch before coming to Willow Creek, told RNS in 2020 that he knew restoring trust and a healthy culture at the church — which for decades was one of the nation’s largest and most influential congregations — would be a long process.
“This is a place where trust has broken down over time,” he said in an interview then. “And I think everybody here wants to be able to believe in each other again.”
During a meeting with key congregants and donors in South Barrington on Saturday, Dummitt said he and the church had accomplished most of what they had set out to do when he arrived. The church was growing and healthy and Dummitt felt it was time for someone else to lead the church into the future.
Drawing on a familiar passage from the Book of Ecclesiastes, Dummitt said that in life, there is a season for everything — and that it was time for his season as pastor to end. Mindful of the church’s tumultuous past, Dummitt told about 800 people gathered for Saturday’s meeting that the transition to a new pastor was a healthy change, not a crisis.
“You can relax,” he told attendees, before announcing his departure.
“Let me be clear on what this is not. No one has asked me to step down,” he said, adding that he had approached the elders about resigning last September. “There’s no scandal, no moral failure, no dirt to dig up. I stand here very grateful for the last five years, and grateful to be a part of a very healthy, smooth momentum-building transition.”
Dummitt said in announcing his resignation that he had been a senior pastor for 25 years and was “a little tired” and that it was time for him to do something new. He said he hopes to do some coaching with pastors and pursue some of his other dreams — and volunteer at church as a greeter in the future.
The tone of the Saturday meeting in Willow Creek’s Lakeside auditorium on a warm and sunny spring morning was mostly filled with gratitude for the church’s recovery and a message that the church is in good hands with Williams, the new pastor.
Harold Engelmann, chair of the church’s elder board, walked congregants through the process of choosing a new leader, which included developing a new job description and then evaluating Williams as well as some potential external candidates against that description. He said that early on, Williams emerged as the right candidate.
Engelmann was moved to tears at one point on Saturday, when acknowledging Dummitt’s time as pastor.
“Dave had come in a moment in our church’s history when — and I think you remember this — we needed a kind, humble, wise, faithful pastor to help us heal and to move forward.”
In an interview, Engelmann said the past five years had not been easy. The church had been in sharp decline, staff and congregational morale was at a low, and the church’s future was uncertain.
“He walked into a congregation that was wondering what’s going to happen, what’s the future look like?” Engelmann said. “How are we going to stay together?”
Today, he said, the church is in a much healthier place and ready to move into the future under Williams’ leadership. He said the congregation already knows and trusts Williams, which will make the pastoral transition easier.
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