LayGuy

I’ve been blogging at www.layguy.com for just over two years now.  Before that I posted a few items on Yahoo 360 and I copied a few of those posts over.  Tonight I took a trip into my stats just to see what’s been popular on this blog and below are the top half 5 posts over the years.  Hope you enjoy..

1. Man Turning Into A Tree

When I wrote this post, I had no idea just how popular it was to become.  It was the story of Dede – a man in Indonesia who contracted Human Papillomavirus (HPV) – a bug which causes skin diseases and warts.  However Dede suffered from a rare form of immune disorder where his body was unable to cope with HPV and his warts took on a “bark like” quality and just kept on growing and growing and growing….

2. Bill Hybels says “We Made A Mistake”

Will always remember when I heard Bill Hybels say, “We made a mistake” in regards to the “attractional” or “seeker sensitive” approach.  He admitted that this created a breed of shallow and spoon fed Christians.  Research by his church concluded that the goal of churches is to create disciples who are “self feeders” and are able to grow in their spiritual maturity and develop a deeper relationship with Jesus.

3. Watch Rob Bell’s NOOMA Online For Free!

While I am not a big fan of Rob Bell – mainly because of his emergent type need to need to question everything – I am a fan of this guy’s ability to communicate.  A great example of this is his NOOMA series of video’s – short stories designed to draw out conversation on spiritual matters for small groups.  I collected all his NOOMA video’s I found online (21 at the time), made a VODPOD collection and posted them on my blog.  Worked like a charm until they were deemed copy write and whoever posted them online had to take them off.

4. America’s Top 50 Influential Churches

This was posted back in July 2007 and has been getting constant hits ever since.  Snatched and expanded from www.churchrelevance.com at the time, this post lists (with URL’s and some Pastor’s blogs) the most influential churches in the US back in July 2007.  Makes for interesting reading and a great place to check out church websites and resources on some of the best churches around.

5. The Demon Seed – Fallen Angels

This is one post from a series of posts I did on the Nephilim – the hybrid offspring of angels and humans before the flood and the real reason God destroyed the earth.  Most Christians (including Reformed) don’t take this topic seriously and brush it off as fantasy.  But I invite you to take a journey with me with this series of posts and you will never see history the same way again.  Entire series (although unfinished) listed below.

The Demon Seed

The Demon Seed – Pt 2

The Demon Seed – Text & Questions

The Demon Seed – Fallen Angels

The Demon Seed – The Nephilim

The Demon Seed – Demon DNA

The Demon Seed – And Also Afterward

Hmm…. makes me want to complete this series.

With all the talk these days about Emergent/Missional and Seeker Sensitive Churches plus the discussion around liberal or fundamental Churches and whatever else, I ground myself in Scripture as to what to expect as a reaction to the Gospel being taught.

As Christians, lets not kid ourselves about the message we deliver. We preach Jesus’ life, death and resurrection and the reasons for it. This is the Gospel and this is the message we are asked to spread across the whole earth.

All the different streams of Christianity mentioned above attempt to get this message across in a meaningful way in the hope that people respond to it. But what gets in the way is when we deliver it in a way to maximize acceptance rather then focus on the substance of what we teach.

More and more I am shifting my opinion to focusing on the message instead of focusing on the acceptance of it. And in doing so, scripture says that we will always encounter 3 responses to what we believe:

1. Disbelief and mockery
2. Interest and further discussion
3. Belief and commitment

As anyone following this blog would know, I am a fan of Mark Driscoll and the Church he pastors – Mars Hill Church. Mars Hill gets its name from an interesting passage of scriptures found in Acts 17 when Paul visits Athens. The entire story can be read here.

In a nutshell, Paul visits Athens and is moved by the idolatry found there. Being the center of civilised society, Athens is alive with culture, education and arts. But because of the idols found in the town, Paul is moved to reason with the Jews, devout people, anyone in the market place and philosophers about the Gospel.

Read the passage this way: Paul speaks to everybody and anybody about the Gospel. And in doing so, he comes across Epicurean & Stoic philosophers. The “epics” taught that the pursuit of pleasure, not knowledge, is the meaning of life. The “stoics” taught that wisdom is found in being free from intense emotion, unmoved by joy or grief and a belief that everything in nature is God – aka pantheism.

In many ways, what the “epics” and “stoics” stood for is what we in modern society also hold dear to our hearts.  So perceived as a “babbler,” Paul is asked to address Mars Hill – where all these goonies get together and try to “out-philosophise” each other. There, Paul tells the Gospel in a relevant and missional way – a way their mindset is able to digest.

The result of this?

Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. But others said, “We will hear you again about this.” So Paul went out from their midst.  But some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them. Acts 17:32-34

Here are our 3 responses:

1. Some mocked
2. Some wanted to know more
3. Some believed

What Paul did was address Mars Hill in a relevant, and yet confrontational way – not shying away from controversial issues and then he hit the topic of resurrection. And this is when “the *@!# hit the fan” at Mars Hill.  Anything in regards to resurrection was a major issue at Mars Hill given their philosophical beliefs – and this is probably why Paul didn’t get to finish his spiel and get to his favorite topic – the resurrection of his Messiah.  And Paul simply left Athens leaving a few members of Mars Hill as believers, some wanted to know more and probably most chasing him out of Athens in mockery.

Fast forward 2000 years and we find ourselves in the ridiculous cycle of which “conversation” or approach is better in getting people to accept the Gospel of Jesus.  I hear and get every perspective:

• To the fundamentals, I get your desire to hold onto truth and prevent the twisting of scripture in order to make the Gospel more “palatable” to the masses.
• To the emergents, I get your desire to present the Gospel in a relevant, new and fresh way – to keep up with the times.

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