Have you seen this Bill Hybels lecture on how Willow Creek's strategy for maturing Christians has been wrong all these years? It's a great discovery...but, the video disturbed me a little.
http://revealnow.com/story.asp?storyid=49
I'll start with the Greg Hawkins interview (the pastor who discovered this problem at Willow Creek). Here's a quote:
"And I sit there Sunday after Sunday and I wonder, are we spending those folks money in the right way? Really...would they feel great about how we're investing their resources?"
I understand the need to be good steward of the money God trusts us with. But, really, the standard here seems a little fishy to me. I know I'm bordering on judgmentalness and over-analysing a single two and a half sentences...isn't there a bit of an overemphasis on the people in the pew? Should our motivation stem from the fact that we're misusing money...or, even better/worse...because people wouldn't "feel great" about how we're spending their money? Something seems awry here...shouldn't a church be wondering: How does God feel about how we're spending His money? What does the Bible indicate I should do with the money? These are oversimplistic questions...but, I don't get the vibe that Greg Hawkins started with anything except wondering how he could give people more bang for their buck.
Here's what I like, though. I like a big church admitting that they made a big mistake...I like the fact that they aren't trying to hide anything. I like the fact that the crowd applauds when he says: "...we should have started telling people and teaching people that they have to take responsibility to become self-feeders."
I'd like to be optimistic because I think Hybels hits the nail on the head with the problem...people are relying on the church too much and not learning how to grow on their own. But, the solution to the problem - a health club style discipleship program? - seems like more of the same to me.
4 comments:
Yessir. Good job. Is anyone out there still really trying to defend the Church Growth movement on grounds that it is either biblical, or effective?
I think that in both of those areas, the failure of the faddish Church Growth movement has been fairly well demonstrably lacking.
I recently read an article where a leader of the "worship movement" (the idea that we sing cool worship-ish songs in large part in order to bring in, and make to feel comfortable, or seem attractive to, the so-called 'un-churched') was saying how she was giving up on it, due to it's lack of success, not only of not drawing worshipers attention to the God who is there, the God of the Bible, but it was also not resulting in un-churched people being reached. It was just transfering people from smaller churches to hipper, larger churches. And many of us have seen this, or somethign like it, first hand.
A good question is what do we do Post-Church Grwoth, as many are now coming to understand the weakness of that fad. And you deal with it well in your post. What do we do now? Do we start another "new, exciting, innovative" PROGRAM? Or do we go back to the Word?
Many of us (if not all of us, I know I am) are so ingrained with modern evangelicalism's methodology that we have trouble seeing in the Bible what is there, without our sub-cultural lense. Of course that problem applies in all areas, not just how to "do church." But it's pretty foundational, of course.
Of course Church Growth is a sinking ship, and really all the Fad-driven stuff likewise, and it appears the Emergent solutions are even worse. So what now?
I see hopeful things, but the landscape can be difficult and I hardly trust myself, with all the errors around.
Maybe you could post on solution-oriented ideas. Maybe I could. What's right to do?
Great blog. Keep it up.
That's what happens when you decide to run a church as a business. The latter always becomes the more important aspect, and the Gospel is crowded out by expense reports.
Jesus had good reason to throw the money-changers out of the temple.
Jimmy (GOSH)(Josh),
I have a felt need that needs scratched. Let's survey everyone who has an itching ear (like me) and find out what to do in our church.
What about this is perverted?
ANSWER: Everything.
Let's look primarily to the Bible for our practice.
Can he be serious that "scientific" focus groups give us the data that we need to be holy?
My 13 y/o daughter understands that we search the scripture, not our primarily seeker audience for truth.
It is a case of "what I like"ism that prevades our culture with its this is "way not cool."
What we need is people who examine the scripture, examine themselves, examine each other in light of what the bible says about life, not "if it feels good do it."
The purpose, seeker driven church has failed us. Many of us feel it's demise all too painfully. We placed our hopes in this "man driven craze." I'm sorry. May we avoid the next fad who takes us captive.
Hamlet 2
I think problems exist when a church gets big enough that they don't understand their culture anymore. Surveys are great in some respects, but they imply an impersonalness...for example, I don't need to give a survey to my wife to see what the culture is like in my home. Similarly, I have a good feel on the culture of my weekly small group...I can tell what the atmosphere is like without handing out a sheet of questions.
I think a big chunk of the problem in this mega-church scenario is that they are too big to understand their church culture. It seems a little silly to think that the 3-4 minutes it takes to fill out a survey offers a shortcut that 3-4 year relationships typically provide.
Of course, this all implies a "give 'em the benefit of the doubt" attitude that assumes the surveys and statistics are intended to help them understand how to state the message in a culturally relevant way...as opposed to surveys so they can understand how to modify the message for the sake of the hearers...either way, I think there's trouble.
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