October 14, 2008
Live from REVEAL: Bill Hybels on Self-Centered Christians
Jumping the chasm between self-centered and Christ-centered faith.
by Skye Jethani
Last week it was Catalyst in Atlanta. This week's it's Willow Creek's REVEAL Conference in South Barrington, Illinois. (At least I'm closer to home.) I'll be here for the next two days with a number of updates from the conference. First up: Bill Hybels.
Greg Hawkins began this morning with a recap of the mission - to move people who are far from God toward being fully devoted followers, which means increasingly loving God and loving their neighbor. In churches we create services, classes, small groups, etc. He said, as people participate in these activities, we assume, they will become disciples - those who love God and their neighbors. REVEAL was designed to measure how effective the church's programs have been in order to refine programs and allocate resources to those that work best.
Willow first conducted the REVEAL survey with its members and attenders in the fall of 2003. The results, says Hawkins, showed that "participation in [church] activities doesn't predict whether people have a heart for God and a heart for other people." Instead, one's maturity was not related to activity but intimacy.
After the opening remarks, Bill Hybels took the stage to talk more about REVEAL's impact from his perspective. He began by noting that this past weekend marked the 33rd anniversary of Willow Creek Community Church, and how one kid reminded him that Jesus lived for 33 years and "then they killed him." The laughs showed Hybel's strength - his amazing ability to connect with an audience.
"Most people go to conferences to get their current way of ministry reinforced," he said. But he promised that the REVEAL conference would screw with our heads and cause disequilibrium.
His focus came from Hebrews 13:17 and the reality that church leaders must give an account to God for their people's souls. Hybels confessed that this verse has haunted him throughout his leadership at Willow.
He asked the pastors, "What is good enough? Seats full enough, offerings big enough, people happy enough?" He said too many of us are unwilling to go after radical change. We may tweak our style, but we don't seriously reconsider our fundamental approach to ministry. Bill choked up when he described his unwillingness to upset the apple cart at times in order to keep the peace. "I'm not proud of that kind of leadership," he said.
But Bill Hybels is very proud of "the REVEAL era" at Willow Creek. "We've challenged things that have gone unchallenged around here for a long, long time."
When the initial study was done in 2003, Hybels says he expected results to be "benign." And it did show some good things. Willow proved to have a sizable number of seekers, a strong evangelistic orientation, and a good number of strong Christ-centered people.
However, Bill also confessed that "Some findings in the survey bothered me at a level so deeply that I wanted to strangle the messengers." He continued, "It was hard for me to admit that I'd poured 30 years of my life in to this thing, and part of the findings showed that we'd fallen short in some ways."
Bill said as he and those around him wrestled with the findings, they had to keep encouraging one another with a mantra: "Facts are your friends. Facts are your friends?" [More laughter.]
Hybels went on to discuss some of the findings relating to the four identified groupings in the REVEAL study: Those Exploring Christ (the seekers), Growing in Christ (beginning believers), Close to Christ, and Christ-Centered. These basic findings shouldn't be new to regular readers of Out of Ur. Let me highlight something that was new. Bill Hybels said the leaders of Willow began to discuss which jump was hardest to make. A "jump" means moving from one of the four segments to the next. For example, is moving from "Exploring Christ" to "Growing in Christ" more or less difficult than moving from "Growing in Christ" to "Close to Christ"?
With palpable passion and intensity, Hybels said that by far the largest, toughest chasm is between those who are "Close to Christ" and those who are "Christ-Centered." He described people who are exploring, growing, or close to Christ as still fundamentally self-centered. They believe, "God is for me, and my plans, and my agenda in this world." Those who are truly Christ-centered, however, are fully surrendered. They've given up their dreams, desires, and agenda and exchanged them for Christ's. Hybel's said, "A big honkin' thing has to happen for a Christian to move from self-centered to Christ-centered."
This movement is essential for every pastor and every church to focus on, says Hybels, because you're not going to change the world with seekers, or immature Christians. It's the Christ-Centered, fully-devoted disciples who are going to change the world.
After this morning's session, Marshall Shelley and I had the opportunity to interview Hybels in his office to talk in more depth. So, you can expect to hear more about Bill Hybel's perspective on REVEAL in a future issue of Leadership.
Skye Jethani is the managing editor of Leadership and a teaching pastor at Blanchard Alliance Church in Wheaton, Illinois.
Posted by UrL Scaramanga on October 14, 2008
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Comments
Sounds like Willow is really committed to this. I understand other churches will also be presenting at this conference. Please let us know how they've adapted REVEAL for these other church situations.
Posted by: Jarrod at October 14, 2008
Willow is transitioning to a third way faith community known in some circles as Emergent. As long as Hybels treats seekers as customers they will remain consumers (consumed w/ self).
Posted by: Parker at October 14, 2008
"Hybels said that by far the largest, toughest chasm is between those who are “Close to Christ” and those who are “Christ-Centered.” He described people who are exploring, growing, or close to Christ as still fundamentally self-centered. They believe, “God is for me, and my plans, and my agenda in this world.”"
I'm quoting this with the bolds and the italics to indicate key statements that are essential truths, and that this accurately describes the American church in toto.
And quite possibly explains why the American church is in the state it's currently in today.
Good for Mr. Hybels to articulate this spiritual canyon so accurately.
Posted by: sheerahkahn at October 14, 2008
As leaders we must change our focus or those we lead will follow us into mediocrity. I believe we must make the leap of seeing success from the eyes of Christ instead of attendence numbers, budget, or lack of conflict.
Jesus was willing to lose casual followers in order to get the true message of the Gospel across. He let the crowds go rather than compromise His message. He never settled for selfish followers.
Are we?
To see the selfish crowds melt away can panic the most determined pastor, but it did not shake our Lord. He understood his mission was not to please his followers, but to lead them. To compromise Christ's message means a generation will grow up with a faith that gives guilt with no power, and their faith will become religious mediocrity that will satisfy no one. What will they pass on?
My thanks to Willow for having courage to face and share truth. May God give me the courage to follow my Lord and settle for nothing less for myself and those that follow..
Posted by: David Paschal at October 14, 2008
It is amazing to me that they could have a ministry there for this long and are only now realizing that it is only Christ-Centered Believers that will be able to help reach the world with the gospel. Certainly you must have those "seekers" and "growing in Christ" and "close to Christ", but if we are not helping people to become Christ-Centered there is a very serious problem and that church is not a mature church. May God help us to get our focus right.
Posted by: Paul Spink at October 14, 2008
I still wonder if the results of REVEAL are what they are because the survey respondents are self-selected (they are Willow Creek Association members). If the churches who already ascribe to a particular ministry model all exhibit the same success/failings, wouldn't that point to the success/failings of that model, and not necesarily the individual churches?
Posted by: Chris Blackstone at October 14, 2008
Chris,
I'm afraid you are mistaken. The REVEAL survey has now been taken by thousands of churches inside AND OUTSIDE the WCA. REVEAL is not a look simply at Willow-esque seeker church, but a broad cross section of the American evangelical landscape.
Skye
Posted by: Skye Jethani at October 14, 2008
Skye, thank you very much for that clarification! I didn't realize that.
Posted by: Sovann at October 14, 2008
I'm also here at the REVEAL conference, and I echo Skye's comments - especially about Bill's announcement about the chasm between Close to Christ and Christ-centered.
Lest people smirk at Bill's announcement, what he outlines as a definition for that category is not shallow. And I think the one question that quickly emerges for those that take the issues seriously: am I Christ-centered? It would seem to me that some honest self-reflection will affirm Bill's observation about the chasm and how hard it is to cross - and not go back.
Posted by: Tim Hallman at October 14, 2008
We know it's a biiig chasm. But is Bill any closer to crossing it yet? I worry that WCA will advocate providing better goods and services to change the people. But that's still feeding a fundamentally a consumerist mentality, which lies at the root of the gap.
I volunteer in an incarnation of church which we call a "faith-based community development network." A mouthful, but accurate. It's fundamental orientation is to develop the neighborhood (in Christlike ways.) The mission is not like Greg Hawkins' wording, which still sounds like its all about developing the consumer. But if you join Cheers (our group) its simply not all-about-you - its to transform the world we're a part of. That fundamental orientation has to shift at WCA.
Posted by: geoff westlake at October 14, 2008
While I too would agree with Bill Hybels assesment, I wonder how he - and others- define being 'Close to Christ' and 'Christ-centered'. In Christianity today many words seem to mean something entirely different than what they meant a generation or two ago. It's kind of like the popular phrase "coming to faith". What does that mean? Faith in what? As culture (and particularly the culture of the church) does a deep shift before our eyes we need to be very specific about the meaning of our terminology.
Posted by: Melody at October 15, 2008
How far are you willing to go? When Joshua addresses God's people (Joshua 24 "As for me and my house we will serve the Lord" chapter), he challenges the people to commit to serve God only if they are willing to worship God and not the gods of Egypt (slavery) or the gods of the the land (culture).
It seems to me that the reason many "culturally relevant" churches aren't strengthening in spiritual authenticity is because they keep moving from one cultural trend to the next. So, from my perspective I'd like to see these churches let go of serving cultural gods and commit to serving our Lord Jesus Christ and God our creator.
One way to show you are serious is to invite your seniors back. You have nicely asked them to go away by ensuring there is no memory of the last 50 years. If you forfeit their wisdom, your congregation is missing out. But don't insist that they act cool. They deserve respect. They may look older but their spirit is constantly renewed. 2 Cor. 4:16. We need them!
As leaders, you are right when you say you are responsible for your church- Whom you will serve, that is. I find the Bible speaks strongly on this issue of cultural relevance. Most people believe that when they worship at your church, they can trust you are leading them in the right direction. To go against the grain and truly serve our Lord and not the culture gods is not going to be popular but it will achieve your goal of Christ centerness.
Posted by: E at October 15, 2008
I'm confused here. An earlier post had a comment about the American church being in the shape it is. So, is everything about American Christianity bad? Granted, the evangelical movement can be crass and commercial, and there are liberal and conservative churches teaching some strange stuff, but - there is always a "but" - there are churches that are doing really well: churches that are true to Christ's message (and not just pandering to angry men) and looking out for the poor.
Posted by: P. at October 16, 2008
Hybel's approach seems effective enough for his ministry and church. REVEAL has clearly had success; therefore it is worth trying. It is not a matter of just being like someone else. Success breads success.
Posted by: Johnny Johnson at October 16, 2008
Good for Bill and others who are asking good questions. "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be filled." Does Bill and the other WC team see themselves as "Filled with the Spirit?" Do they think they can lead the church to Mt. Everest if they have not been there themselves?
(I am not saying they have not been there.)
Posted by: Gary Sweeten at October 18, 2008