WCBC Blog

I commend Bill Hybels for his honesty in evaluating his methods of church growth. In a recent book co-written with his executive pastor, Greg Hawkins, he said that in essence their (Willow Creek’s) methods have encouraged shallow Christianity.  “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.”

What Bill Hybels and Rick Warren have done is created a “genie” they cannot put back into the bottle. Thousands of pastors have followed their methods of “do whatever it takes to attract the crowd” without ever considering how this waters down the message of sin and its consequences. These pastors now realize that the “cookie” that attracts the crowd must get bigger and better or the crowd will stop coming. Gimmicks like a McDonald’s theme service, using Christian Mimes and Comedy Nights are a mockery to the house of God because they never challenge the audience to face up to their sin and what God requires for forgiveness.  If it’s all about fun and tricking the seekers to “see how we are just like them” what has been accomplished? Fads have come and gone in Christianity and the “Seeker Friendly Model” has now evolved to a new fad called the Emerging Church.  This fad rejects traditional church doctrine and its theology denies the exclusivity of Christ for forgiveness of sin.  Further, it desires dialogue rather than solid biblical preaching. Pastors in the Seeker Movement that try to stop this drift to the Emerging Church will find much the same resistance we found when we confronted the methods and pragmatism of the Seeker Movement 20 years ago.

So what can be done? A revolution of back to the bible preaching would be a great start. Let people know that Christ died for all but a price must be paid if you are going to follow Him. Pastors need to challenge people to serve and follow Christ and it’s not all about you but following Christ involve service and sacrifice. Bring back God honoring Christian music that has doctrinal message and set the stage for the people to receive the preached word. Lastly, love people by give them the truth not some Christian pop-culture bait and switch tactic that will lead to false professions and discourage many from never attending church again after the “cookie” no longer attracts them.