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Six months ago I realized our church had a problem, so I invited the senior staff to join me in a conference room. I closed the door and announced, "We're not leaving until God gives us an answer."

Part of a church leader's job is to identify and define the reality his or her church is facing. As I thought and prayed about our church's reality, I came to the distressing realization that we didn't have the financial resources to meet the growing spiritual need around us.

"Here's the new reality as I see it," I said, standing in front of a flip chart. I drew a line ascending from left to right. "This line I'll call spiritual opportunity. Never in the history of Willow Creek have we known an era of greater spiritual opportunity.

More people are willing to talk about the gospel or let you pray for them—even come to church—than ever before. Not long ago, if we asked our seatmates on an airplane if they ever thought about the spiritual life, they'd roll their eyes as if to say, Two hundred people on the plane and I get seated next to a spiritual wing nut! Today, if you ask that same question, eight out of ten people will say, "Yeah, I'm thinking about the spiritual side of life more than I ever have before."

Then I drew another line from the same starting point, but level from left to right. "This, however, is our resource line. It's flatter than it's been in a decade." Then I reminded the staff of our recent capital campaign that had stretched our people financially to their eyeballs, even before the stock market crash and 9/11.

"Resources have never been this tight," I admitted. "But, here's the deal. I believe that despite the new reality, despite the growing disparity between our opportunities and our resources, God wants Willow Creek Community Church to continue to prevail. I think our best days are ahead of us. This is not the time to circle the wagons and whimper and cry. We have to figure out how to minister in a way that brings God glory even in this new reality.

"Now, does anybody have an idea?"

The men and women in that room were bright, godly people. I love to gather people like that around the table and then watch God work through them to solve problems. But I had no idea how God was going to solve this problem.

One of my colleagues walked to the flip chart, took the pen and wrote X+Y=Z. We all groaned. "We've got enough problems," I said. "Don't confuse us with algebra."

"No, listen," he said. "We still want to give God glory, right? Well, John 15:8 tells us that the way to bring God glory is to bear much fruit. So let's consider 'much fruit' as the end result of the equation, the Z. We have only two variables with which to bear much fruit. Let's think of the X as paid staff and of the Y as volunteers. Those are the two variables we have to work with. We are going to generate ministry fruit primarily through the efforts of paid staff and volunteers. Are you with me?" The rest of us nodded in agreement.

"Alright," he continued, "if the new reality is that the resource line is flat, then that dictates no increase in paid staff." Then he said these prophetic words as he pointed to the Y. "If increasing paid staff is not an option, then the ball game will be won or lost right there." That was our introduction to "The Y Factor."

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