We spent the night in the Willow Creek Community Church parking lot last night so that we didn't have to drive to far to get to church. I was really excited to take the family to Willow. I have been there before when I was working at Bayside. If you haven't been to Willow let me tell you a little about it. It is the second largest church in the US. It has over 23,000 regular attenders (The largest is Lakewood Church in Houston with over 47,000). Willow was founded in 1975 by Bill Hybels. The property that Willow sits on is over 155 acres. Every year Willow puts together a Leadership Summit that is satellited to over 130 cities and 80,000 leaders. When I worked at Bayside I helped run the Summit there. Well, our visit to Willow was great. The kids enjoyed the children's Ministry and Dave and I really enjoyed the sermon. Willow had a guest speaker Dave Workman, senior pastor from The Vineyard in Cincinnati, Ohio. We really e
njoyed his message and his humor. He talked about the unique ways his church serves the community. After church we had breakfast in Willows food court, bought some books in the bookstore and wondered around for a while. We then hit the road and drove to Peoria. We stopped at a country story and hopped on a tractor to go pick our own strawberries. It was really a cool experience and we all had a good time doing it. Although it was really hot and we only picked for 10 min. All three boys decided they didn't want to be professional strawberry pickers. We finally arrived at the campground and got
settled in. We met a really nice English couple and shared a campfire and conversation with them.Tip of the day - many companies have factory tours. There is a website you can go to to find these tours all over the US. here is the link www.factorytoursusa.com
