Willow Creek church starts 'Love Everyone' campaign

Willow Creek Community Church is launching a billboard campaign with a unifying message that will reach commuters during a bitter election season.

The "Love Everyone, Always" campaign by the South Barrington-based megachurch will go live Monday on digital billboards over the Jane Addams Memorial Tollway at Elmhurst Road near Des Plaines and at the Ogilvie Transportation Center in Chicago.

The billboards will run past the election through Nov. 20. Willow Creek leaders planned the campaign over the summer, troubled by the shooting deaths of black men in Minnesota and Louisiana, Dallas police officers and Orlando night club patrons, among other violence.

Meant as an antithesis to fear and divisions, the church's message aims to promote a central teaching of Jesus Christ: Love your neighbor as yourself. As part of the campaign, volunteers will distribute yard signs and bumper stickers.

"I think our world would be fascinated in a time where there seems to be so much negativity, so much rhetoric, so much cynicism, by just a fresh pop of inspiration that brings you back to roots of good news," Teaching Pastor Steve Carter said Saturday.

The animated message on the billboards also will include other reminders to "respect," "forgive" and "serve."

The campaign coincides with a fall sermon series at Willow Creek, a 41-year-old Christian church with a main campus in South Barrington and seven other locations in the Chicago area. The series starts Oct. 22.

"We wanted to kind of get back to this is what Jesus invites us to do, to love and respect and welcome and bless everyone always," Carter said.