Bill Hybels says “We Made A Mistake”
It was somewhat of a surprise for me to read the following from Bill Hybels:
“We made a mistake.”
Hybels is the Pastor of Willow Creek Community Church – the 5th “top Church” in the US. Many of you have read his books. In a nutshell. Hybels Pastors one of the largest and influential churches in the US.
In a recent article in Christianity Today’s “Out of Ur” blog, is an article outlining the results of a “multi year qualitative study” into “what programs and activities of the church were actually helping people mature spiritually and which were not.”
Being a “program driven” and “seeker sensitive” church, Willow Creek has spent millions of dollars setting up all kinds of programs designed to increase participation and therefore making the participants better disciples of Jesus.
What the research actually showed is that all these programs did not lead people into a deeper relationship with Jesus. Having spent 30 years building this church model and advocating it to others, Hybels has called this report the “wake up call” of his life.
“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.” – Bill Hybels
To get a feel of what Willow Creek has learnt from this study, I recommend you check out the video’s mentioned in the above article. Greg Hawkins is the Executive Pastor and his video can be seen here. Bill Hybels is here.
Every church leader should look into what they have to say. You may come from different denominations and/or have different views. But this research is good and you will glean wisdom from it if you’re humble enough.
The Bible talks about building on the foundation Christ has begun. He is the Cornerstone and everything will be built around Him. Man has been building for 2000 years and some of the best and worst of humanity has been witnessed as people build upon the great Foundation.
But there is a sobering passage of scripture for all leaders..
“Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw— each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.” 1 Cor 3:12-15
Anything you and I do “for the Kingdom” will be tested by fire. Probably most of what we do will be burnt up due to the pathetic nature of our “works.” Things we do thinking that we are doing a great job will probably mean nothing – mere straw in a raging fire.
It’s great to see Hybels re-evaluating his efforts at Willow Creek. Maybe without him even knowing it, his building materials are changing into something more fireproof. In doing so, he will be more effective then he already is and God will receive more glory.
Tags: Bill Hybels, Willow Creek, Seeker Sensitive
Great stuff, it is big of him to admit this.
http://www.matthewsblog.waynesborochurchofchrist.org
It would be very nice of him to admit this problem to former Pastors from all over the world who are continuing with the tapes/videos etc from before this confession. A letter to ALL participants is in order.
I am in South Africa and have recently watched John Ortberg’s “Seduction of a leader” and was totally appalled that this is presented to pastors of a church. No scripture involved, no Bible terminology at all.
Paul said “I am not ashamed of the Gospel”.
We change the church so that is is acceptable to the lost. They must find out how lost they are when they come into the church.
Christ is the stumbling block over which many fall.
Churches here are still (today) seeking input from congregants as what they WANT TO HEAR. This is very dangerous, please communicate directly with our churches in South Africa.
Yours in Christ
Dawn
What is that Satanic advert for Satanistic jewelry doing in your webpage? Can I suggest that you find out? I am glad that a seeker-sensitive church has repented…they are not preaching the gospel of Christ but entertaining the unrepentant. It would be great if more could turn from their worldliness! Beware of Contemporary Christian Music too – it is also advertised on this site!
Yours faithfully,
Debbie
wow – ads for jewellery are satanic? Never knew that! Thanks for enlightening me!
There is nothing to be wary of regarding contemporary christian music. Try not to go around scaring people with legalistic outbursts.
If Bill Hybels all along thought and said that he was doing the “right” thing, that doesn’t necessarily mean that it was always true. Even now he says he made a mistake.
CONVERSELY, though, just because he now says that he feels he made a mistake, that doesn’t mean for a second that there is not some extremely useful material in his published work.
The REAL danger would be to limit ourselves to learning only from those are are getting it right and not making any mistakes. Not one of us lives up to that standard. Any of us that are being used by God must understand that it is in spite of ourselves.
He may be at a point where he is seeing the need to drive with a different kind of passion or to embrace a different understanding of what it means to serve and disciple, but we are all often the worse judges of our own fruit, especially when trying to compare it to the fruit of someone else.
The gospel is not a message to be memorized, debated, intellectualized, or finalized solely in the academia of “theology.” It is to be lived as a message of peace and hope.
What is the difference between a church that is sensitive to the heart of a seeker and a church that is sensitive to the heart of the religious traditionalist? It all depends on the person to whom you are trying to reach out. Christ demonstrated a high value on being sensitive to knowing and speaking the language and getting to the heart of a seeker and making sure that the connection was made before he invited his seeker to come (go) and sin no more. It was the religious leaders, pious and proud of their holiness that he rebuked and to whom he challenged to live with the faith of children.
So whether Bill looks back and recognizes God working through his imperfect life, books, and messages or not, we don’t have to question the possibility of God working through people all around us.
Let me know if you find the pastor/ speaker whose material *shouldn’t* be filtered through context and comparison to scripture.