Running to the Word of God...

How important is discernment? Is it worth studying the Bible so that we can detect what is false? I would argue yes. Whenever we read anything, or watch a video, we need to know what is wrong and why it is wrong! Abner Chou, my Life of Christ professor here in Israel, took the time today to teach a lesson that we need to be running to the scriptures all the time.
There is a movement in western churches, called the “seeker sensitive” movement. The church that is spear heading this is called Willow Creek, in Chicago. What is a “seeker sensitive” church? Well, by their own definition it is a church that has the goal of taking people that are far from God, bringing them into the church and getting them involved in services, small groups, Sunday school, etc., and soon enough they’ll be disciples of God.
Greg Hawkins, Executive Pastor at Willow Creek, has a video that we watched in class, and it was scary. He starts out the video explaining how he is so distracted in church. First off, he gets so distracted by the amount of people that are sitting next to him and behind him and in front of him. He’s watching how many people should be at the church. If there are a lot of people he starts to feel good, and if not, his mind starts racing in a hundred different directions on why people aren’t coming to his church. A church that is supposed to be bringing the people in, not keeping them away. By his own confession, he isn’t even engaged in the service once it’s started because he’s so preoccupied about the demographics of the people at church. So after he has “realigned” himself to the right mindset, it just gets pushed off kilter again, because of the offering. Now, his concern with the offering is probably a good one. He is wondering if the funds that are given (and at Willow Creek, it’s a multi-million dollar church) are being used correctly and the best way possible. This is a legitimate concern. Are they spending the money rightly?
He wasn’t so sure that they were. So, in 2004 Greg wanted to get to the bottom of it. He wanted to know what was working and what wasn’t working in the church. So, instead of running to the scriptures to find out what was going wrong in the church, and what the Bible says about people spiritual lives, he decided to poll the audience. Greg made a church wide survey. And evidently the results were astonishing. These questions were designed to communicate what was helping the congregation grow spiritually and what wasn’t. Basically how they “do” church.
In the video he goes on to explain what Willow Creek is trying to do, which is to bring people who are far from God to disciples of Christ. This is done through programs, services, classes, small groups, care, etc. and all of these give the opportunity for people (i.e. “seekers”) to serve. Now there should be about 37 red flags going up in your mind right now and you should have some questions about what is going on. For example, we need to know what the purpose of the Church is, we need to know what the Church is, what is a seeker? what does participation in activities have to do with what is produced? I will try to answer those and some more.
It is clear in the Word of God that there are two types of people in this world: alive and dead. One who is alive has been brought to life through salvation. The dead remain dead because they can not do anything. Something that is dead has no use. Something that is dead can not do anything. That is just the nature of death. Ephesians 2:1, “You were dead in the trespasses and sin,” and once you have been made alive there is no hope for the dead. There is no such thing as a “seeker”. Greg Hawkins describes the “seeker” as someone who believes that there is a God, but just hasn’t moved into the, and I quote, “Jesus thing.” It is clear in scripture that a person who does not have a relationship with Christ, and who has not repented from their sins, and is not living a holy life, that person is damned.
This is a scary thing if these are the kinds of people that Greg Hawkins wants to be involved in serving others on a weekly basis at his church. This leads to great problems. If we start blurring the line between Christians and non Christians it will be catastrophic. The Church will be infected. Sin affects other people. Brothers and sisters in Christ can confront and resolve sin. There are some church functions that will be tough to carry out because we can not tell who is saved and who is not. For instance, Church discipline (Matthew 18) and communion (I Corinthians 11). We can not discipline a non Christian for doing non Christian things. And it is not good to present and approve of non Christians taking part in the Lord’s supper, because they will be judged for it.
Greg goes on to explain the results of the surveys. He says that they learned that the level of participation in church activities does not enhance their spiritual growth. What he says they discovered was a spiritual continuum made up of 5 groups. 1-“Explorers” 2-“New Christians” 3-
Close to Christ” 4- “Centered on Christ” 5- “Stalled”. He says that each one had different needs, which is true! And his church was more geared for the first two groups, the “seekers” and the new Christians. But what about the more mature Christians? They are disappointed with the church, they are discouraged, and they are the ones who are thinking about leaving the church. Why is that?
It is because the seeker friendly movement is too focused on how the Bible can be used for them. They are focused on what they can get out of the Christian life. They want the Bible to conform to them and their lifestyle. That is bogus. We need to be asking not how can the Bible apply to me, as if the Bible can change to fit our lives, but we need to ask what we need to do that our lives fit what the Bible says.
Why isn’t the current strategies working to make better disciples of God in the “seeker sensitive” movement? It is because of the lack of focus on the scriptures. This is where it needs to be. There is nothing better than the Word of God. II Timothy 3:16 “All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.” The Word of God is enough for any situation. This is what is going to help a church grow. This is what is going to make disciples of God. Teach the scriptures, nothing more, nothing less. Teach it with passion and conviction. This is what will convict people. This is what will pierce the heart: the Word of God.
The Senior Pastor, Bill Hybels, gave a talk at a leadership summit in October reviewing the same things that Greg, his executive pastor, went over. This video was even more disturbing and frustrating. Basically all of the statistics that came in was evidence that all of Bill’s work over the past years have been detrimental to peoples spiritual lives. He goes over the statistics and results of how people from those first four people groups in the church. The first group, the “seekers”, out of 10, he says, put them at a 9. And he said that, that was good news! That is not good news. He is saying that at church, the non believers needs are being met! How is this possible, if the message of the Cross is foolishness to men (I Corinthians 2). How is it that Jesus says that people will hate Christians (Matthew 10)? Why are non believers in the church any way? The Church is rightly named the body of CHRIST. Each member identifies with Christ. The Church is here to encourage and edify believers. That is not to say that when non believers come to church you kick them out by any means. But the church is for believers, and our evangelism should not be asking people to come to church. On the contrary, we need to be going out and sharing the good news with non believers.
The next group, the new Christians, rated the church a little lower, but still pretty high in the area of meeting their needs. And as the stats came in the group most disappointed with the way the church was helping them… or the lack of help they were giving, was the “Mature” Christians. Bill says that it was disappointing for him because he couldn’t understand what more they wanted. And this is what he said they said, “We’re not being fed.” “That they want more meat of the word of God.” “They want more serious minded scripture being taught to them.” “They wanted to be challenged more.” Bill had a surprising response. It was one that was more of a lashing out to the people who wanted to be fed. He says with an attitude, “I’ll feed those people, I’ll get some seminary prof. who’ll feed them till they barf.” What is so wrong with that? If people want to grow, why are we stopping it? I do not understand why that is such a bad thing to Bill.
Instead of Bill changing what is taught to what is scriptural, and repenting from his ways of not caring for the flock of Christ, he shifts all of the blame onto the ones who want to grow. He says that if they wanted to grow they should have learned how to do that and then do it on their own. There is some truth to that… a Christian should know how to study the bible. But with Bill’s thinking there is not a reason for them to still be in the church. And I think that there in lies the truth of the whole “seeker sensitive” movement: it is just a ploy to get people in the church and then out of the church. Because it is all of the mature Christians who want to learn, or even because they have been teaching themselves, they understand that they are not getting fed so they have to leave in order to find that shepherding.
There is a lot of danger in asking what they people think. As humans we are deceitfully wicked, and there are even sins that we have no clue that we struggle with. How do we even know what would be better for our spiritual walk. The way that we know is by careful evaluation and study of the Scriptures. What we need is for faithful men to rise up and study faithfully, preach faithfully, and train faithfully. We do not need surveys and questionnaires.

I hope that this is encouraging to you to study the Word.

These are the links to the two videos:
Greg Hawkins : http://revealnow.com/story.asp?storyid=48
Bill Hybels: http://revealnow.com/story.asp?storyid=49