Post Calendar
-
Podcast Feeds
Oct
18
Bill Hybels Says Willow Creek Philosophy is Not Working
October 18, 2007 |
Posted by michaelp · Filed Under Theological News, Theology
I am glad to know that Hybel’s and the Willow Creek gang are able to admit when they are wrong. This honesty says more to me about their character than if their program driven church had worked. Now they just need to realize that The Theology Program is the way to go!
From the article:
“Participation is a big deal. We believe the more people participating in these sets of activities, with higher levels of frequency, it will produce disciples of Christ.” This has been Willow’s philosophy of ministry in a nutshell. The church creates programs/activities. People participate in these activities. The outcome is spiritual maturity. In a moment of stinging honesty Hawkins says, “I know it might sound crazy but that’s how we do it in churches. We measure levels of participation.”
Having put all of their eggs into the program-driven church basket you can understand their shock when the research revealed that “Increasing levels of participation in these sets of activities does NOT predict whether someone’s becoming more of a disciple of Christ. It does NOT predict whether they love God more or they love people more.”
(HT: Justin Taylor)
Comments
8 Comments so far
-
-
Theologica
Check it out here.
-
Parchment and Pen Blog - Internet Monk
- An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later.
- Faith and Theology
- An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later.
-
Warning: Attempt to assign property of non-object in /home/ttpstude/public_html/blogs/wp-includes/rss.php on line 428
Warning: Attempt to assign property of non-object in /home/ttpstude/public_html/blogs/wp-includes/rss.php on line 428
Powered by FireStats
Quote from Hybels from the link above:
“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 service,
how to do the spiritual practices much more aggressively on their
own.”
It sounds as if he believes he failed to impart the proper
skills, but does not mention whether or not he failed to impart
Biblical truth.
We secure God’s favor through faith in His Son. This is a
scandalous message. People who are called to believe it and have
confidence in Christ, will bear genuine fruit. Those seeking a
sense of righteousness through religious practices will not.
It will be interesting to see how Willow Creek does in the months and years to come after admitting the need for change. I sincerely hope as many churches and church leaders adopt WC’s example of humility as they did its philosophy of ministry.
In reading his article he states that instead he should have “taught people, how to read their bible between service,how to do the spiritual practices…”
So rather than teaching the radical truths of the Gospel, he should have taught them how to go through and do the motions, to do spiritual looking “stuff”?
I agree, it was a big thing for him to openly admit that he was wrong about the program-focused approach and I do applaud him for that. But I’m still not convinced he’s got it right based on his statements.
-steve
Steve, right…the absence of teaching and doctrine still striking, as is increasingly the case generally in modern day evangelicalism. The call for the church is to produce disciples, not just believers and program participants.
We must not take religion and the Christian faith for granted.It is not a ‘get rich quick’
scheme as many ‘pastors’and I use the term loosely,believe it to be setting them on an ego trip.We MUST bring those who want to believe in Christ back to the basics using the teachings of the early church fathers,the patristic era.I wish more people like Hybels would admit to these problems before we lose more people.
It took me years to get the seeds of deception
out of my mind from sitting in church following Hybel & Warren’s model. Teaching of sin, Satan, and judgement left the church, but after hearing a lady sing one Sunday, I also realized that teaching of heaven and the blessed hope had left as well. The two extremes go and the teaching is in the middle, God is love. I am thankful for those who have spoken out and have provided the answers to those who realized their faith was not based on truth. Shame on those who were afraid to speak out and the book store for selling their books to make money.
[…] Bill Hybels Says Willow Creek Philosophy is Not Working I am glad to know that Hybel’s and the Willow Creek gang are able to admit when they are wrong. This honesty says more to me about their character than if their program driven church had worked. Now they just need to realize that The … […]
Now I’m very interested in finding out how the new church models will help, and what will change. I can imagine, that it’s gonna be more about personal relationship to God and to each other, smaller groups, less professional, and more people oriented.