Tag: bill hybels

  • 3 Things I’m Wondering About What Church Leaders Believe

    Yesterday, Kristen and I went to the Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit. It’s an event I’ve always loved… I’ve gone 3-4 times in the past decade and the years that I couldn’t make it I always wanted to. Looking back, it’s an event where I always learn a lot.

    I’m probably a lot like you. I’m tired of talking about why humpty dumpty sat on a wall, why he had a great fall, or why all the kings horses and all the kings men couldn’t put humpty dumpty back together again. Deconstruction is so… 2005. My time is spent coming up with ways to reconstruct the church in new ways, in ways that people currently disconnected from Christ want to connect with Him. It comes from a deep respect for the Scriptures, leaning into the truths of the Gospel, and a relentless hope that our best days must be ahead.

    All that to say– I walked away with 3 things I’m wondering about based on what I heard yesterday. These were the working, meta-narrative, definitions of how the speakers/hosts seemed to view the world around them. And it left me wondering… is this what they really believe?

    1. The church is the hope of the world – I walked away wondering… Is that really a true statement? I know I just have an undergrad Bible college degree. And I picked Spanish in college because Greek and Hebrew didn’t seem all that practical for youth ministry. But I think Jesus is the hope of the world. I think the church is the bride of Christ. The church is Hope’s wife, they are wed, they are one… but the church is not the Hope of the world. Jesus is. (I can accept the phrase as a metaphor but the phrase was not said as a metaphor– it was said as an axiom/truism/fact.)
    2. Neighbors are people you invite to church – I walked away wondering about the application of one of the stories… Bill Hybels told a story about a man who came to their property looking for his cat. The man asked Bill, “What is this place?” (Assuming it was a college) Bill used that story to illustrate that they, for the first time in 30 years, needed to do some marketing to retell the Willow story to people in their community. His story left me screaming inside! Dude, you blew it. Jesus didn’t say, “Love your neighbor and invite them to church.” He said, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” The guy didn’t come and ask Bill for a flyer or an invitation to church. He wanted help looking for his cat. It was an invitation for Bill to go to the man’s house! It was an invitation to get to know his neighbor— not fill his mailbox inviting neighbors to hear him preach. Oh, I really wanted that to be a turning point for Bill to see that a church dispersed in its community, as Hope’s representative and wife, is far more potent than a church coming to his “college.” [If you know me, you know my prayer is that the church becomes Good News in the Neighborhood.]
    3. Leadership is the most important spiritual gift – Oh, there was so much insider language and playing to a senior pastor audience about “leadership!” Bill Hybels repeatedly pumped up leadership as the only important spiritual gift. He “thanked God” that he didn’t have the other gifts. (There was a lot of woman bashing from the stage, too. I hope someone mentions that to him. That’s beneath leaders of his caliber.) It made me wonder about the definition of Christian leadership. Paul makes it clear in 1 Corinthians 12, no one is more important in the body of Christ than anyone else. And Jesus corrected his disciples again and again… to be great, you must be a servant. (Mark 10:42-45) Those weren’t popular concepts at Willow’s Summit. In fact, in an interview with an organization that has two equal leaders the question came up again and again… “Is it possible to have 2 leaders?“

    So that’s what I left wondering with after day 1. Just wondering. Not criticizing or tearing down. Just wondering. 

    If you went to WCAGLS— what were your highlights? What did you leave wondering about? 

    QUICK UPDATE: Day 2 of WCAGLS was very good, I didn’t stick around for Bill’s closing talk, but really enjoyed all of the speakers today. Pranitha Timothy was absolutely stunning today. Very thankful for that talk.

  • MegaThoughts

    The first part of my week I am spending at Harvest Bible Chapel. It’s a little odd every time I hang out with folks who work with big churches because their mindset is completely different from my mindset. In the end, we do very similar things. We both invest in, disciple, and dream about world changing stuff. We just happen to do it at two completely different scales. I work with 15-20 students and they have several hundred. Major scale difference! Likewise, the problems that we encounter are completely different. So it’s cool. I have great respect for the people whom I have interacted with here. They love the Lord, are great at what they do, and I’m happy to receive their wisdom.

    Speaking of big churches, yesterday we visited a church that makes “Megachurch” seem like the wrong word. It wasn’t a big enough word. My friend Jason Raitz was kind enough to show us around his church, Willow Creek Community Church. Size-wise it’s hard to describe how big Willow is. Some numbers that stick out as we walked for two hours, dragging our jaws through half of it after seeing their amazing new worship center. 24,000 people attend a service on the weekend. 1900 of them make it to a middle school small group. The new worship center seats 7800. I think Jason told me he oversees 250 volunteers. There are about 500 employees at Willow. (4-5 times our churches size!) Those are things I remember. It was so nice of Jason to give up all that time to show us around. It was awesome.

    Both Harvest and Willow are great churches. And I don’t mean they are great because they are large. They are great because they do big, bold, and great things in the name of Jesus.  It’s all about God, His Word, and proclaiming Jesus for these churches.

    It’s funny because there are people in our church who will read this and think, “Great. The pastors want Romeo to be a megachurch.” Nah. We’re so far from “mega” that we’re only thinking “We want to be a great church.” Size doesn’t make something great.