October 06, 2015:
A Shocking “Confession” from Willow Creek Community Church
By Bob Burney,
Posted Tuesday, November 06, 2007
| COMMENT: I do recall this article published in the Adventist Review back in 2007. Given the present condition of the church, perhaps it is even more relevant now than then? |
Something just as momentous, in my opinion, just happened in the evangelical community. For most of a generation evangelicals have been romanced by the “seeker sensitive” movement spawned by Willow Creek Community Church in Chicago. The guru of this movement is Bill Hybels . He and others have been telling us for decades to throw out everything we have previously thought and been taught about church growth and replace it with a new paradigm, a new way to do ministry.
Perhaps inadvertently, with this "new wave" of ministry came a de-emphasis on taking personal responsibility for Bible study combined with an emphasis on felt-needs based "programs" and slick marketing.
The size of the crowd rather than the depth of the heart determined success. If the crowd was large then surely God was blessing the ministry. Churches were built by demographic studies, professional strategists, marketing research, meeting "felt needs" and sermons consistent with these techniques. We were told that preaching was out, relevance was in. Doctrine didn't matter nearly as much as innovation. If it wasn't "cutting edge" and consumer friendly it was doomed. The mention of sin, salvation and sanctification were taboo and replaced by Starbucks, strategy and sensitivity.
Willow Creek has released the results of a multi-year study on the effectiveness of their programs and philosophy of ministry. The study's findings are in a new book titled "Reveal: Where Are You?," co-authored by Cally Parkinson and Greg Hawkins, executive pastor of Willow Creek Community Church. Hybels himself called the findings "ground breaking," "earth shaking" and "mind blowing." And no wonder: It seems that the "experts" were wrong.
The report reveals that most of what they have been doing for these many years and what they have taught millions of others to do is not producing solid disciples of Jesus Christ. Numbers yes, but not disciples. It gets worse.
Incredibly, the guru of church growth now tells us that people need to be reading their bibles and taking responsibility for their spiritual growth.
Just as Spock’s “mistake” was no minor error, so the error of the seeker sensitive movement is monumental in its scope. The foundation of thousands of American churches is now discovered to be mere sand. The one individual who has had perhaps the greatest influence on the American church in our generation has now admitted his philosophy of ministry, in large part, was a “mistake.”
Click on Link:
On-Willow Creek
Adventist Review,
December 18, 1997
Andy Nash
| COMMENT: If you go back a few years, however you will see how involved the Adventist churches have been with the “seeker” programs at Willow Creek. |
Adventists, both pastors and laypeople, consistently make up one of the largest groups at Willow Creek's half-dozen annual seminars-including church leadership conferences in May and October and a leadership summit in August.
The three latest Adventist churches to divide or depart [separate from the denomination] Oregon's Sunnyside, Maryland's Damascus, and Colorado's Christ Advent Fellowship-were clearly influenced by Willow Creek's ministry hallmarks small groups, spiritual gifts discovery, friendship evangelism, contemporary worship.
| COMMENT: Since this article is archived in PDF we thought we would save you the page below. Also, I wonder where Mr. Nash is presently serving, and does he hold the same opinions? |
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EDITORIAL On-Willow Creek Adventist Review, December 18, 1997 Andy Nash What to do with Willow Creek? Fact: America's most attended church, a non charismatic nondenominational in suburban Chicago, continues to shape not only its immediate community* but, more notably, the 2,200 member churches from 70 denominations participating in the Willow Creek Association. WCA endeavors to "help churches turn irreligious people into fully devoted followers of Christ." Fact: Adventists, both pastors and laypeople, consistently make up one of the largest groups at Willow Creek's half-dozen annual seminars—including church leadership conferences in May and October and a leadership summit in August. Fact: The three latest Adventist churches to divide or depart—Oregon's Sunnyside, Maryland's Damascus, and Colorado's Christ Advent Fellowship—were clearly influenced by Willow Creek's ministry hallmarks (small groups, spiritual gifts discovery, friendship evangelism, contemporary worship), if not its congregational status. Fact: Many Adventists who haven't been to Willow Creek are sick of hearing about it from Adventists who have been to Willow Creek. In some cases local members have divided over how "seeker-sensitive" their church services should be. What to do with Willow Creek? Some personal background. I'm not a pilgrim of Willow Creek. I don't, like many Adventists, journey there for every conference, every summit. I've attended portions of only two conferences and while a student at nearby Andrews University several of their Saturday night seeker services. Yet I'm grateful for Willow Creek. It was there that my former academy church, Forest Lake, got intentional about worship; that Adventist friends and relatives recognized their natural abilities—from drama to maintenance—as natural ministries; that hundreds of Adventists, young and old, became passionate about reaching the lost. Indeed, apart from wishing Willow Creek would embrace the Sabbath, I've never exited the $34.3 million complex without positive thoughts. From this perspective I offer these sentiments: 1. Adventists should give Willow Creek a fair shake. As a people often prejudged, we should avoid prejudging others. Some of the strongest, most biting comments about Willow Creek come from those who have never visited. To these people I say: Voice your opinion, but make sure it's educated. If God is, in fact, using Willow Creek, deeming it "not of God" is dangerous (see Acts 5:38, 39). 2. Adventists should continue gleaning from Willow Creek. Selective borrowing is an important part of our history. That a person or church has different beliefs doesn't mean they can't teach us something. As one religion professor put it, Willow Creek has its place in prophecy too. Granted, it's a different place. But we can learn from each other. 3. Gleaning from Willow Creek's message doesn't mean forfeiting our message. I join those disappointed to see some Willow Creek-influenced churches blushing at our distinctive beliefs, avoiding the word "Adventist" in print and from the pulpit, begging separation from the world body, planning short-term only. This behavior isn't necessary. I think of Mountain View church in Las Vegas; of the freshly planted New Community in Atlanta; of my home church, New Hope, in Laurel, Maryland; and of other churches mature enough to incorporate Willow Creek principles without giving up their Adventist identity. Reaching the unchurched and being openly Adventist aren't mutually exclusive. People have misused Willow Creek—but we shouldn't blacklist it. As dozens of stagnant, if not dying, Adventist churches demonstrate, we haven't exactly arrived in our efforts to share Jesus Christ with the world. Until our church offers comparable training, Adventists can benefit from outreach specialists such as Willow Creek. Still, of a church that aims to be "culturally relevant while remaining doctrinally pure," we must keep asking: How long will they ignore the seventh-day Sabbath and other doctrines so purely biblical? We can learn from each other. * Up to 6,000 adults attend the midweek believer service; up to 17,000 attend weekend seeker services, including Axis, a new service targeting Gen Xers. The church, begun in 1975 in the nearby Willow Creek Theater, has a roller-coaster story that, unfortunately, can't be told in this space. |
S.C. flood is 6th 1,000-year rain since 2010
Doyle Rice , USA TODAY 7:07 p.m.
EDT October 5, 2015
The biblical flooding in South Carolina is at least the sixth so-called 1-in-1,000 year rain event in the U.S. since 2010, a trend that may be linked to factors ranging from the natural, such as a strong El Niño, to the man-made, namely climate change.
So many "1-in-1,000 year" rainfalls is unprecedented, said meteorologist Steve Bowen of Aon Benfield, a global reinsurance firm. "We have certainly had our fair share in the United States in recent years, and any increasing trend in these type of rainfall events is highly concerning," Bowen said.
A "1-in-1,000 year event" means that there's a 1 in 1,000 (or 0.1% chance) of it happening in any given year in a given location, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said.
In addition to this weekend's floods in South Carolina, which killed at least nine people, the other 1-in-1,000-year rain events include the Tennessee floods in May 2010, the Mid-Atlantic, Northeast and New England drenching during Hurricane Irene in 2011, the Colorado Springs floods in 2013, the deluge in Baltimore in August 2014, and the flooding earlier this year in Nebraska, according to Bowen.
Click on Link:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2015/10/05/south-carolina-flooding-climate-change/73385778/
South Carolina governor calls deadly rain a 'thousand-year' event
By Kevin Conlon and Nick Valencia , CNN
Updated 8:54 PM ET, Sun October 4, 2015
Charleston, South Carolina (CNN) South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley didn't mince any words Sunday about just how dangerous a situation the weather -- which was blamed for five deaths in the state by Sunday night -- had become in her state.
"We are at a 1,000-year level of rain," Haley said at an afternoon news conference. "That's how big this is."
It wasn't hyperbole.
Since weather records don't go back far enough to know if it's rained this much in South Carolina in a 1,000 years, a "thousand-year rainfall" means that the amount of rainfall in South Carolina has a 1-in-1,000 chance of happening in any given year, explained CNN meteorologist Taylor Ward.
Certain areas of South Carolina had never before been deluged with such eye-popping rainfall tallies: more than 24 inches in Mount Pleasant, nearly 20 inches in areas around Charleston and more than 18 inches in the Gills Creek area of Columbia, according to Ward.
Click on Link:
http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/04/us/east-coast-rain-flood/index.html
