Some of the biggest news in the generation of church growth has gone largely unreported, because the admission of Bill Hybels and Willow Creek falls short of repentance and they want you to buy the book. That's right, during their 2007 Leadership Summit, the Willow Creek Community revealed a new book that contained the shocking results of yet another internal survey. What they found was that their church-growth methodology and seeker sensitive movement is faulty. It simply is not working in terms of leading people to a true relationship with Christ or helping people grow spiritually. Here is what Hybels says:
Some of the stuff that we have put millions of dollars into thinking it would really help our people grow and develop spiritually, when the data actually came back it wasn’t helping people that much. Other things that we didn't put that much money into and didn’t put much staff against is stuff our people are crying out for.
That God for their admission of what most of us already understand, a non-biblical model for doing church will never produce spiritual fruit. It may and often does produce large congregations, but it will not serve the purposes for which God instituted the church. The sad part is that this admission falls short of repentance, which is what Hybels should be doing because his admittedly faulty methodology has led thousands of churches astray. However, not only is there no repentance. there is no real change in methodology.
We made a mistake. What we should have done when people crossed the line of faith and become Christians, we should have started telling people and teaching people that they have to take responsibility to become ‘self feeders.’ We should have gotten people, taught people, how to read their bible between services, how to do the spiritual practices much more aggressively on their own.
A mistake? Sounds like a return to biblical discipleship, but perhaps the most shocking thing of all in this revelation coming out of Willow Creek is in a summary statement by Greg Hawkins, the Executive Pastor of Willow Creek:
Our dream is that we fundamentally change the way we do church. That we take out a clean sheet of paper and we rethink all of our old assumptions. Replace it with new insights. Insights that are informed by research and rooted in Scripture. Our dream is really to discover what God is doing and how he’s asking us to transform this planet.
Isn’t that what we were told when this whole seeker-sensitive thing started? The church growth gurus again want to throw away their old assumptions and “take out a clean sheet of paper” and, presumably, come up with a new paradigm for ministry.
Please note that “rooted in Scripture” still follows “rethink,” “new insights” and “informed research.” Someone, it appears, still might not get it. Unless there is a return to a biblical view of the Church and biblical discipleship principles, a new faulty scheme will replace the existing one and another generation will follow along. Why will they not simply ask, "what does the Bible say about the nature, role and character of the Church?" Why do they not come out and publicly repent before all of the churches they have led astray that they are false teachers. I do not have those answers. All I know is they have made a new book available so that we can all learn from their mistakes and I expect they will release another one when they are ready to reveal their next burst of creative genius.
What may be encouraging in all of this coming from the highest ranks of the Willow Creek Association is that they are coming to realize that their existing “model” does not help people grow into mature followers of Jesus Christ. Given the massive influence this organization has on the American church today, let us pray that God would be pleased to put structures in place at Willow Creek that foster not mere numeric growth, but growth in grace.
To hear some clips of the Hybels confession: http://www.wayofthemasterradio.com/podcast/2007/11/01/november-01-2007-hour-1
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