Willow Creek Community Church Names David Dummitt as New Senior Pastor

The Christian executive search firm Vanderbloemen announced that David Dummitt has been selected as the new senior pastor of Willow Creek Community Church in Illinois.

Before coming to Willow Creek, Dummitt founded and led 2|42 Community Church in Michigan for over 12 years. Dummit and a group of friends started the church which sees a weekly attendance of over 10,000 people at seven campuses across Michigan. And its weekly online attendance has skyrocketed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"I'm grateful for the role Vanderbloemen has played in helping my family and me find a new home at Willow Creek,” Dummitt said. “Their ability to find points of connection and to navigate candidates and a church through the placement process is invaluable; they helped both Willow and me ask the right questions along the way." 

With eight campuses near the Chicago area, Willow Creek is reshaping the way churches lead their congregations. And its impact urged a worldwide movement for churches to rethink how to attract church attenders.

Willow Creek has grown into one of the largest churches in the US — often called America’s most influential congregation and the nation’s largest.

Willow Creek was founded by Bill Hybels in 1975, who led the church for 43 years until an early retirement that followed multiple allegations of misconduct.

In a comment, Vanderbloemen said, “We have completed hundreds of senior pastor searches for churches of all sizes. We have consistently done searches for churches in trauma. But Willow was a perfect storm of a massive congregation experiencing seismic trauma that only God could have led them through. I applaud the elders for their faithfulness, for their courage, and for their heart to follow Jesus into the next chapter of Willow.” 

Pastor Dummitt will begin working at Willow Creek in early June. Click here for more information.