Friday, May 16, 2008
Changes at Willow Creek
OK, I am glad to hear about projected changes in Willow Creek, the quintessential consumerist superficial baby boomer church. But do they really care more about the historic orthodox biblical Christian faith (and true Christian discipleship) or do they care more about keeping the coffers full. One wonders. What do you think?
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I would suspect they will remain in the eyes of the religious pious community in a no win situation as did Jesus among those who considered themselves the religious elite. On the other hand, those who have been exposed to the thousands of hours of in depth teaching and watch first had how their hearts break for the lost will celebrate their constant attempts to be used by God to reach our generation. I recently returned from LA where several of their staff where among the leaders there and they shared insights into these changes and it was driven by a passion to reach the and disciple their community better. Those who know their hearts will applaud their willingness to humble learn and make changes recognizing they do not have all the answers but because lost people matter so much to God, its worth recalibrating at any level to come more in line with what God calls us to in this world. Those who do not know them will continue to cast stones regardless. I do not agree with al of their theology but I do know this from first hand experience with them; their faith burns white hot and is passionate to reach and disciple this generation. I recall watching their 20th year anniversary at the Chicago Bulls stadium where those attending were given a little key light. At one point during the service all of the lights were turned out and they asked people to turn their light on if they came to have a personal relationship with Jesus through the ministry of Willow Creek. One of the pictures taken there captured one of their founding Elders with tears streaming down his face. I for one celebrate their willingness in putting on display their shortcomings and struggles and victories that others may learn and together, we might be a more effective bride of Christ. They do this knowing that those who do not know them will take cheep shots at them. I believe they realize ours is a calling to live before an audience of one. I, like others, long for the day when we can humbly learn from one another and realize that the enemy is elsewhere.
Jeff, umm, they are the religious elite. I am troubled that when they sense people are leaving they discern that having their people understand their faith better would be a key strategy in retaining them. We live in a Christian generation of people barely able to understand and communicate their faith, as Willow Creek's research has shown. This has had a huge impact on the ability of our generation to impact our world and culture. Willow Creek has offered up itself as the WAY for two decades; it's hardly reasonable to paint them as innocent victims like Jesus, as opposed to the mean old establishment church. I am grateful for the people who have truly come to faith through their ministry, and I have no doubt that there are hundreds and even thousands of people associated with them who have have a passion for Jesus, however he and following him is understood. But becoming more rooted and grounded in Jesus as a tool for member retention or even evangelism seems odd to me. Maybe the CT article did not do the situation justice. I am glad for the changes. We are perhaps the most ignorant and inept generation of Christians in US history. Maybe, just maybe, our generation of Christians is growing up. Better late than never. Willow Creek has taken upon itself a huge leadership and visionary role vis a vis other American churches. They have published material, offered seminars, offered their guidance to other churches for two decades. They have opened themselves up for reasonable review. It is not throwing stones to grapple with an article as was published by CT.
PS
Thousands and thousands of elders, in normal average humble churches all over the world, have wept, and do weep, for the salvation of sinners, and over the Lord's goodness, week after week, Sunday after Sunday.
On another note--read your website over at CF this morning. I love what your doing there! Thanks for your servant model--that helps me become a better pastor. I love your comments about being freed up to serve one another and our community. Let's get together for lunch sometime!
Jeff,
Thank you for your kind words. After I posted my replies above I thought, "That might be Jeff Weber." Lo and behold...Lunch would be great. I know you have benefited greatly from Willow Creek along the way, and when I put two and two together I thought, crud, I just offended my friend Jeff. I am happy with Willow Creek being Willow Creek. I am not happy with our generation of Christians (and we're about the same age) being so incapable of articulating its faith and world view and into a world that needs the message of historic orthodox Christianity. Somewhere along the way the biblical understanding about the nature of true conversion, and thus real evangelism, has gotten lost, even if by extremely well meaning Christian people. Their own internal research showed them that. The article paints a picture of people converted - more or less or sort of - but not really able to speak powerfully about what they have "found." So the article painted a picture and left an impression that disturbed me. Anyway, what's done is done. That's the good and bad of blogging.
And brother I am sorry if I overreacted. I sometimes get a little defensive because of my friendships on their staff. My greatest benefit from Willow (other then my friendships) is how they bring such an array of different thinkers and leaders around the topic of reaching our culture. I think sometimes they get tagged with an arrogance that I just have not found. But your right, we have to be able to talk about it and to always check our hearts and work against the truth of scripture. What is transpiring at Willow is a reminder to me that if we put our eyes on anyone other then Jesus and root our work in anything other then God’s word, we will find ourselves off track. I love learning from my brothers and sisters though even when I don’t agree with them. It sharpens me and, as you have, makes me think. I do advocate for grace with any critique. I know you do as well. I need that grace and God’s forgiveness because in my own heart I can talk more easily about the way things should be then I live them out. I could not agree with you more about the issue of discipleship. I have been learning a lot from Tim Keller and Alan Hirsch these days around that topic. Thanks for your grace Joel in putting up with my, at times, overzealous spirit. It is indeed a long road to obedience☺.
Jeff, maybe we could continue this more off line - my e-mail address is jsgillespie@mindspring.com. Normally I don't use this blog to critique the brethren, but the general cultural issue of the knowledge or lack thereof of biblical Christianity is significant, and it isn't much better in the evangelical church than outside. I think the methodology and assumptions of the "seeker" movement have contributed to this. It's an important and controversial subject. Anyway, write me. Joel
Joe, my good friend, thanks so much for this wonderful and insightful ministry through your blogs! As you probably know already, I have been in the ministry for about 24 years. In that time, I have been involved in a fundamentalist Bible church, several Southern Baptist churches, planted Venezuelan Baptist churches among the poor for 5 years and among urban professionals for 7 years. I am currently a corporate chaplain and a member of a Southern Baptist church that is patterned more closely after Andy Stanley's North Point church, but incorporates a good many of the Seeker-sensitive principles of Willow Creek. I have seen the strengths and weakness of all of these church "models" as they have been fleshed out by their members. Without exception, I have not observed a general conflict with historical Christian orthodoxy...that which distinguishes true Christianity from a Christian cult. I am not sure which points of dogma that you are referring to with regards to Willow Creek, so I would need more info to be able to agree or disagree with you there. Needless to say, Anita and I wouldn’t be members of our church were it not doctrinally sound. We finally decided to join not because we were oblivious to its weaknesses, but because its strengths provided greater access to the lost in our community. We have had the opportunity to discuss the need to improve both discipleship and evangelism with our pastor and staff over the last 2 years, and I can assure you that they love the Lord, His word and the lost. Despite the fact that 6000 people (and growing) attend corporate worship services and small groups in homes each week, they are under no illusions that they have “attained” or that there is no need for self-examination and improvement.
Considering the broad range of church and ministry experiences that I have had in many different cultures and subcultures, allow me to share some of my personal perspectives (to date) about the evangelical church in America, as well as some suggestions that I believe would help us to address the challenges we face in remaining both faithful to God and effective in fulfilling His purposes for the church. (You might want to get comfortable! ☺)
1) Never confuse content with packaging: How we "do" church is the stuff of culture (packaging). To ignore the importance of cultural relevance and the dynamic nature of cultural expression in the church is to ignore the basic principles of Biblical missiology (i.e., 1 Cor. 9) and assure the eventual impotence of the church to fulfill the Great Commission. At the same time, the essence and integrity of the "content" (gospel message, orthodoxy) must never be compromised. We must be careful that our concern for relevant "packaging" does not cause us to change what is immutable. We must also be careful that the package does not confuse the content in the minds of those that we are seeking to reach for Christ.
2) The field determines the model: How we approach any mission field (at home or abroad) must be heavily influenced by the perspectives, prejudices, needs and context of those who live in it. This point is really an amplification of point #1, but worth articulating here. It has been my observation that our strategies for evangelism have only minimally considered the perspectives of the lost. Our organized attempts at engaging our communities have often been something akin to a Trojan Horse, as though we could trick the lost into the Kingdom. It might help to repeat this phrase aloud to ourselves each morning before we leave the house: “They’re lost, not stupid!”
3) Once and for all, we must reject the commonly-held yet unbiblical notion of “guilt by association”. I defy anyone to demonstrate this in Jesus’ ministry! I believe that this phony principle has done more damage to our gospel mission than almost any other! “Take a stand for Jesus”; “Don’t be like the world.” “Come apart from them and be separate.” “Friendship with the world is enmity with God.” These and many other out-of-context biblical references and extra-biblical expressions have served as battle cries for many of us over years. In this 24-hour news society, fear of just about everything drives much of the decision-making of both Christians and non-Christians alike, and this principle provides us a great excuse not to get too closely involved with our lost neighbors and co-workers. Protecting our families from all the evil in the world has left us with our wagons circled and in a culture war against immorality and post-modernism. In the minds of the lost, evangelical Christendom has taken on a predominantly adversarial role against them in the name of God and godliness. I don’t think that this was the intention of those who first adopted political activism several decades ago as a strategy of influencing our country for Christ, but I have no doubt that this misconception defines the major challenge that we are facing today. I believe that the plan was short-sighted, misguided, disastrous to the primary mission of the church and a primary reason for our consistent decline over the last decade. It’s tough to win those with whom we are fighting!
4) Holiness and purity are not the chief ends of the Christian life: Were this so, we could fulfill them much better if God were to just take us to heaven now! I agree with the Westminster Confession that “the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” Don’t misunderstand me here! Holiness and purity are important elements of glorifying God, so long as we rightly define them. However, when our understanding of spirituality handicaps our efforts to redemptively engage the lost (the Great Commission), then we better start rethinking things. It has always puzzled me that the most judgmental, legalistic and Pharisaical (separatist) in our midst seem to also be those with the most extensive knowledge of the Bible. (Forgive the generalization.) We hear a lot of derogatory things about the Willow Creek crowd, but you’re not likely to find a great many Pharisees in their ranks. Of course, it is much easier to live a “holy” life if you don’t have to completely enjoin the time-consuming and often uncomfortable struggle of cultivating, planting and reaping in the fields of the unregenerate. The hardest, dirtiest and least-recognized part of this process is the work of cultivation, which is why we tend to focus on the sowing and reaping…and much of that is done by a miniscule portion of us between 7:00 & 8:30 on visitation night! BTW, I unwittingly spent the better part of my Christian life as a Pharisee, and I sincerely believed I was just trying to be faithful to God and His Word.
5) Be sure that they’re rejecting Jesus and not us and our style: My experience living with and ministering to unbelievers tells me that their biggest stumbling block is us, not Jesus. Of course, just about everyone has something good to say about Jesus so long as there is no mention of His exclusive role as redeemer, creator, judge and sovereign Lord. Yet the truth is that most lost people never get beyond their stereotypical image of us and the Christian life in order to even confront the claims of Jesus that we find in the Bible. We need to be sure that “taking a stand for Jesus” is not a euphemism for telling non-Christians how bad they are and how good we are. It might earn us kudos with our church friends, but I’m pretty sure that neither our victims nor God are very impressed.
6) Don’t focus so much on their sin that we confuse them about salvation: We know that salvation comes through repentance and faith in response to the gospel. Nevertheless, our preoccupation with “taking sin seriously” can sometimes confuse the lost and cause an imbalance in the message we proclaim. (I realize that one of the big complaints about the Seeker churches is that they ignore the message of repentance altogether, and I’m sure that this is true in some cases.) Despite what we think we have been communicating through the culture war, I’m convinced that unbelievers in this country have received a message that says if they just stop doing all the bad stuff we are against, that they will be right with God. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth! If you think about it, why should we expect lost people to live as though they were Christians? I have a saying that I use to share with pastors in Venezuela: “No regañe al gato solo porque no sabe ladrar!” (Don’t fuss at the cat just because it doesn’t know how to bark!) We must be sure that we present a balanced message and lead them to Jesus by the grace of God. He will change their lives.
7) The goal of our evangelistic efforts is not preaching, but winning (persuading). Read through 1 Corinthians 9 once more and you will see that Paul made himself “a slave to all men” in order to win them. If the goal were just preaching, then it wouldn’t matter how, when, where or why. “Winning”, according to the Apostle Paul, involves much more than the proclamation and truth of our message. It very much takes into account the context of the hearer (Jew, under the Law, without the Law, weak, etc.) I remember once hearing an evangelist say, “Preach ‘em the gospel every time you’re with ‘em, and you’ll eventually wear ‘em down!” Ha! The truth is that we can “hinder the gospel” (vs. ?) if we are unwilling to lay down our rights and make appropriate adjustments in order to facilitate the clear communication of the gospel according to the individual recipient.
8) We can create a caring, non-threatening and receptive environment for lost seekers in our churches and still preach the whole counsel of God with integrity: I refuse to believe that it’s an either/or proposition! Maybe we still haven’t gotten it right, but I believe we can and must. If we think we must choose to sacrifice one for the other, then both we and the lost are in BIG trouble!
There is much more that I could write, but I’ll try not to fill up your entire blog site! Thanks again for hosting these critically important forums to hash out the stuff of eternity!
Your childhood buddy,
Bob
Bob,
I guess we could have a contest to see who had been to the most different sorts of churches.
You err if you think if I am coming at this from some strict hyper reformed standpoint. I don't and I'm not. There may be people out there beating up on Willow Creek for whatever reason and from whatever perspective. Don’t assume that I share the same reason or perspective, or am coming at this from the same place.
There is WAY too much in your comment to answer in detail, but more briefly...
1. Packaging in fact does matter. Medium does convey message. I am as flexible as I can imagine being about almost any part of Christian gatherings culturally speaking, but there are basic aspects to being the church, however packaged, that transcend cultural packaging. And there are aspects to other cultures that aren’t included in the packaging, not because they are dissimilar to our culture, but because they are idolatrous or whatever. And we should not confuse or conflate cultural sensitivity (when bringing the gospel to people of other non western cultures) on the one hand with adopting the mediums of western materialism and consumerism in packaging church for post Christian/post modern western narcissists on the other hand. The latter is more like the stuff of non western cultures that cannot and should not be included in the packaging.
Neither the article from Willow Creek nor my brief comments said anything about their theological statement being unsound. So I have no idea what you're referring to there. Their point was that their own people didn't understand their own theological statement, or more, the Christian faith generally. They realized that their prior assumption that newer converts were better evangelists was wrong. They found that Christians that had a deeper knowledge and deeper passion about their faith were better at reaching non Christians. Also they found out that people were getting weary of the sale ole same ole (my words of course) and were thinking of going elsewhere.
2. Exactly, but we are not kind to others when we appeal to their baser and more ignorant selves, and act as if they are too stupid to get the whole message, and too lazy or immoral to respond to it. I would refer you to the writings of sociologist Peter Berger about the overwhelming power of non spoken habits in forming how we see the world and how we think. There is a point in western culture when secularism, pluralism, and especially consumerism create a way of seeing and viewing the world that is more powerful than anything that can be articulated. It is “underneath” self understanding. It is the grid through which we see, and we don’t see it well, unless it is pointed out. It is inherently and profoundly self absorbed and narcissistic. It is the opposite of the Christian message. To structure church around this pattern of mind and thought is to create an environment where it is almost not possible for sinners to embrace Christian discipleship, which is the antithesis of this mindset. What is created is one set of affirmations in the brain (one’s creed) and another unarticulated set of life assumptions at the ground of one’s being (consumerism, narcissism, pluralism), and the two never meet or collide. If we as Christian leaders do not do all we can to force the collision (by God’s grace) then it is hard to say that people have been converted to Christianity at all. This problem goes way beyond seeker churches, yet seeker churches seem particularly naïve about it. Thankfully the folks at Willow Creek are bolting up in their beds and saying “something is just not right.”
3. I have no idea what inspired the soap box in number three, but certainly not me. I speak and preach all the time about premier importance of getting involved in the lives of people who aren't Christians. This past Sunday I preached on the call of Levi in Luke 5 - where Jesus says that he did not come to call the righteous but sinners (like me) to repentance. I have written for years against the fortress mentality of the evangelical subculture. I have written and spoken all my Christian life about the necessity of Christians being educated and informed and bearing influences upon the structures of our culture. But, this really has nothing to do with the point at hand. One can be fully committed to these principles without embracing the "seeker" movement; indeed, one can see the seeker movement as a culturally cheapened shortcut to the hard work of real engagement.
4. The people I know who are passionate about holiness are so about their own holiness, and though I know a few Pharisaical type folks (and pity them) I know of no negative or adverse connection between real holiness and real engagement in the lives of others. Real holiness does not have a separatist spirit about it. Jesus said be in the world but not of it. Having a separatist spirit is not consistent with Jesus’ call to be in the world but not of the world. Both the “being in” and the “not being of” stand as demands of discipleship. But I would be cautious about how you speak of holiness. You seem to have an ax to grind about certain people (maybe your old self). If you have lived a separatist life, afraid of being stained by the sins of other 'sinners" it is good that you have repented of it, but don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. But do not downplay the central importance of whatever you want to call it - putting off and putting on, putting on the mind of Christ, becoming like Christ, being renewed in mind. Whichever image you may want to use this process is part and parcel to the end all of salvation; it cannot be separated from the goal of a renewed and restored relationship with God in a new heaven and new earth. The grace available for sinners to have access to God through Christ is also the grace through Spirit to walk in newness of life. And when the Word actually says "this is the will of God for you, your sanctification" it might be pretty important. Or when it says "strive...for that holiness without which no one will see the Lord." That is not positional holiness spoken of there. This matter is relevant because by Willow Creek’s own admission, and the very clear openly confessed witness of many people who have come out of the seeker movement, the full expectation of what Christian discipleship involves is not provided in preaching to “seekers.” At Willow Creek they realized that folks were wanting "more" and were starting to look around. I was at a church once where the same thing was happening. Some of the people simply level out – they don't know or want more. If “more” were pushed upon them they might leave. For others, maybe a minority, they wanted further teaching in Christian theology and life. What Willow Creek realized was that the more mature Christians who were more devoted to and passionate about their faith were more effective at evangelism. That's a big change. But I’m wondering, as regards their prior assumptions, what were they thinking?
5. Yeah, particularly us sleeping around, us being mean and rude, us stealing money from our work, us being gossips, us turning our hearts away from the needy, or us having no integrity in our business dealings. I suppose us treating non Christians as "unclean" would also qualify.
One of the things that put off non Christians is the lengths some Christians go to water down their message, install coffee bars and pipe in the stuff going on in the main room via flat screens and life feeds for laptops, and make their church into a full service mall, all in the name of relevance and such. It’s not just Christians who shake their heads at this.
6. Yeah....Duh....I have no idea who teaches that people have to come to some prior level of advanced repentance before becoming Christians. I think we have become SO imbalanced in the direction of NOT preaching the necessity of repentance as part of saving faith (putting off, putting on, etc) and part of what comes with being a Christian that as we go back and try to “work that part in” we just can't find balance. Sometimes I think a lot of older baby boomer type people are rebelling against some sort of strict weird upbringing as if that stuff is still prevalent. It isn't. Add to that the post modern weirdness about "authenticity" (in all sorts of strange ways) and we have a newer generation of leaders frozen in the headlights as far as repentance and such. It's an odd state of affairs. I think you would find perfect balance in Ephesians 4.
7. I don't think that winning and persuading are the same. It's a cop out to say, as people do, that we are to just preach the full council of God, and people will respond or not, and it’s God’s job to sort that out. That quickly becomes an excuse for doing nothing or doing something poorly. True, we are to persuade. Paul spent years in the same place teaching and arguing and answering questions. He didn't preach and run. He invested. We must do that. Still, in the end, it IS up to God. But I am not comfortable with the word "winning." Too retro 70's "I Found It" for me.
8. I just flat out do not agree with this. The two are antithetical. And besides, find for me where the meeting of the church is meant to be designed for unbelievers. That's just an incorrect assumption. The one case where we know of an unbeliever being moved by a Christian meeting (1 Cor 14), the only accommodation was related to speaking in tongues, and that was not only an accommodation for possible unbelievers who were present, but for believers present as well.
Bob, my longest standing friend alive, I appreciate your passion, and it appears you've been fighting some battles along the way. Both you and Jeff seem a little bit on a hair trigger as regards even possible criticism of Willow Creek, and in your case you're making assumptions about me, lumping me in with whomever you've run across along the way. We've spent most of our adult and our Christian lives apart, so I should cut you a break on this, just don't assume more than you're sure of. Perhaps if I were more like Jesus I would let it slide but I don't like being thrown in with Pharisees and such. Perhaps I erred in asking a question that suggested as an answer a possible less than noble motive. I think the article that prompted the question opened the door to the question, but in retrospect I would not have asked it the way
Hey Joe! Thanks for the excellent feedback to my rambling comments. I have to confess that I wrote most of it as simply an opportunity to respond to many of the issues of our day related to the church and our mission. Though I was not at all clear about this, please know that I was not really responding to what I think you believe about all that stuff! You just gave me a launching pad from which to share some thoughts which I believe merit some discussion and debate in the broader community of believers. After the times that we have had to talk over the last few years, I think I have a good idea where you are on those issues, and I am most likely in agreement with you on them. And yes, I was writing with many different people in mind (mostly those like myself years ago) who I believe are hindering the work of evangelism today. In NO WAY do I include you in that group!!! Sorry again!
Just a few comments (really!)...
The comment about Willow's orthodoxy was related to your initial comment, "But do they really care more about the historic orthodox biblical Christian faith..." I probably read something into that other than what you intended. Sorry.
I am very much in agreement with your feedback. That's the weakness of not being able to having face-to-face, back and forth conversation...just can't clarify immediately so that wrong assumptions aren't made and then expounded on.
I have never been comfortable with the term "winning" because I believe that term, when used in the 70's kind of sense, implies a human role in justification. I am pretty much a Calvinist when it comes to soteriology. However, I am using the term directly from Paul's writings in 1 Corinthians 9:19-23: "Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible..." It would be interesting to discuss Paul's perspective of his role (to win) in the process of God's sovereign act of regeneration. I can say from that chapter that Paul believes the gospel can be "hindered" in some way by our behavior, and that he views the context of the receiver as important to the effective proclamation of the gospel.
I would love to get together sometime and discuss some other thoughts, some of which we have touched on here. Gotta go to work right now!!!! Love you, bro!
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