Found this last days church research on the web ...What kind of a parent is this ? 1. negligent 2. ignorant 3.
immature 4. controlling 5. ?Willow Creek Repents?
October 2007
...
So what happens when leaders of Willow Creek stand up and say, "We
made a mistake"?Not long ago Willow released its findings from a multiple year
qualitative study of its ministry. Basically, they wanted to know what
programs and activities of the church were actually helping people
mature spiritually and which were not. The results were published in a
book, Reveal: Where Are You?, co-authored by Greg Hawkins, executive
pastor of Willow Creek. Hybels called the findings "earth shaking,"
"ground breaking," and "mind blowing."If you'd like to get a synopsis of the research you can watch a video
with Greg Hawkins here.http://revealnow.com/story.asp?storyid=48
And Bill Hybels' reactions, recorded at last summer's Leadership
Summit, can be seen here.http://revealnow.com/story.asp?storyid=49
Both videos are worth watching in their entirety, but below are few highlights.
In the Hawkins' video he says, "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."Speaking at the Leadership Summit, Hybels summarized the findings this way:
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.Having spent thirty years creating and promoting a multi-million
dollar organization driven by programs and measuring participation,
and convincing other church leaders to do the same, you can see why
Hybels called this research "the wake up call" of his adult life.Hybels confesses:
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.In other words, spiritual growth doesn't happen best by becoming
dependent on elaborate church programs but through the age old
spiritual practices of prayer, bible reading, and relationships. And,
ironically, these basic disciplines do not require multi-million
dollar facilities and hundreds of staff to manage.Does this mark the end of Willow's thirty years of influence over the
American church? Not according to Hawkins: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.