Bob Burney Live / Saturday, October 27, 2007

A generation of Brats

If you are older than 40 the name Benjamin Spock is more than familiar.  It was Spock that told an entire generation of parents to take it easy, don't discipline children, and allow them to express themselves.  Discipline, he told us, would warp a child's fragile ego.  Millions followed the guru of child development and he remained unchallenged among child rearing professionals.  Before his death, Dr. Spock made an amazing discovery; he was wrong.  Dead wrong.  In fact, here is what he said,

"We have reared a generation of brats. Parents aren't firm enough with their children for fear of losing their love or incurring their resentment. This is a cruel deprivation that we professionals have imposed on mothers and fathers. Of course, we did it with the best of intentions. We didn't realize until it was too late how our know-it-all attitude was undermining the self assurance of parents." 

Oops!  We raised an entire generation of  brats; and an entire generation has suffered the consequences.  In retrospect, that old Black Book on the Coffee table had far more practical advice for parents than Dr. Spock's  revolutionary; methods.  Even Christians rejected the clear teaching of scripture for the educated musings of the  professionals;.

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 Church in Chicago.  The guru of this movement is Bill Hybels.  We were told to throw out everything we had previously thought and been taught about church growth out the window.  It was a new wave, a new paradigm, a new way to do ministry. 

Gone was an emphasis on personal Bible Study, personal responsibility and it was all replaced with  programs; and slick marketing. 

The size of the crowd rather than the depth of the heart determined success.  If the crowd was large it had to be blessed by God.  Churches were built by demographic studies, professional strategists, marketing research,  felt needs; and sermonettes.  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 were replaced by Starbucks, strategy and sensationalism. 

Thousands of pastors hung on every word that emanated from the lips of the church growth experts.  Satellite seminars were packed out with hungry church leaders learning the latest way to  do church;.  The promise was clear; thousands of people, millions of dollars couldn't be wrong.  Forget about what people need; give them what they want.  How can you argue with the numbers?  If you dared to challenge the  experts; you were immediately labeled as a  traditionalist;, a throwback to the 50's, a stubborn dinosaur unwilling to change with the times.

All that changed recently. 

Willow Creek has released the results of a multi-year study on the effectiveness of their programs and philosophy of ministry.  Those findings are in a new book Reveal: Where Are You?, co-authored by Greg Hawkins, executive pastor of Willow Creek.  Hybels himself called the findings  earth shaking,;  ground breaking,; and  mind blowing.;  It's no wonder; it seems that the  experts; were wrong; dead 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, disciples no.  It gets worse.  Hybels laments:

Some of the stuff that we have put millions of dollars into thinking it would really help our people grow and develop spiritually, when the data actually came back it wasn't helping people that much. Other things that we didn't put that much money into and didn't put much staff against is stuff our people are crying out for.

If you simply want a crowd; the  seeker sensitive; model produces results.  If you want solid, sincere, mature followers of Christ; it's a bust.  In a shocking confession Hybels further states:

We made a mistake. What we should have done when people crossed the line of faith and become Christians, we should have started telling people and teaching people that they have to take responsibility to become ‘self feeders.’ We should have gotten people, taught people, how to read their bible between service, how to do the spiritual practices much more aggressively on their own.

Incredibly the guru of church growth now tells us that people need to be reading their Bibles and take responsibility for their own spiritual growth!  A really cool coffee shop does not assure that people are growing in their walk with Christ.  We're now told that innovation does not assure a New Testament Church.  Now, it's suddenly discovered that giving people everything they want and ignoring what they need produces a generation of  spiritual brats;. To summarize;  we made a mistake;.

Just as Spock's  mistake; was no minor error, so the error of the seeker sensitive movement is monumental in its scope. The very foundation of thousands of American Churches is now discovered to be but sand. The single greatest influence on church growth in America has now admitted it was a  mistake;.  The scope of this error almost defies measurement.

Is every aspect of this paradigm of ministry flawed?  Of course not; but enough is, that an entire generation has been influenced to follow a path cluttered with error and shallowness.

Here is the most shocking thing of all in this revelation coming out of Willow Creek.  As part of the summary Greg Hawkins writes:

Our dream is that we fundamentally change the way we do church. That we take out a clean sheet of paper and we rethink all of our old assumptions. Replace it with new insights. Insights that are informed by research and rooted in Scripture. Our dream is really to discover what God is doing and how he's asking us to transform this planet.

Isn't that what we were told when this whole seeker-sensitive thing started!  The church growth gurus need to throw away the  clean sheet of paper; and return to scripture as the primary authority.  I'm not encouraged that this is the direction they are headed.   Please note that  rooted in scripture; still follows  rethinking;,  new insights;, and  informed research;.  Someone still doesn't get it.  Unless there is a return to simple Biblical (and relevant) principles; a brand new scheme will replace the faulty one and another generation will follow along as the latest piper plays.

What we should find encouraging, at least, in this “confession” coming from the highest ranks of the Willow Creek Association is that they are coming to realize that their existing “model” does not help people grow into mature followers of Jesus Christ. Given the massive influence this organization has on the American church today, let us pray that God would be pleased to put structures in place at Willow Creek that foster not mere numeric growth, but growth in grace.

Bob Burney is Salem Communications’ award-winning host of Bob Burney Live, heard weekday afternoons on WRFD-AM 880 in Columbus, Ohio. Contact Bob at bob@wrfd.com.