Disciple That!!!

 

 I know for many of you this is old school news. Sorry for hitting 1000 year old headlines. Anyway, I really don’t want to stand in a long line of criticism, it it is easy to attack and critic the big players from a distance. And the reality is that Willow Creek has done a lot of great things for the kingdom. They seemed to have the “urban modern” reaping tool down to a science, however we all realize that nothing is perfect. On the flip side we need to realize small doesn’t mean we’re disciplining any better.

Hybels confesses:

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.

In other words, spiritual growth doesn’t happen best by becoming dependent on elaborate church programs but through the age old spiritual practices of prayer, bible reading, and relationships. And, ironically, these basic disciplines do not require multi-million dollar facilities and hundreds of staff to manage.

What I do like is that I think this will get a lot of church leaders off the prowl for the magic button (however I heard it’s at Staples if you are looking for it). And I hope reevaluate and get back to the basics. As Hirsh points out there is good reason why we see similarities of exponential growth in the early church and China. So focusing our attention from Willow Creek to Bragg Creek (by the way our creek kicks creek butt) It makes me realize we aren’t doing it either. Sure about a year ago we have focused our “Discovery” values toward 1. learning the disciplines and 2. building a hunger for God, however I don’t think offering a class in order to learn them has been the right option.  I just don’t think we are going to be able to do the Greek thing with this one at all. It’s going to be one to one. As well it might include some initial education, but it will be practice focussed rather than Theory . I’m still attracted to the BELLS thing of Frost’s community. Its simple (well understandable) and it is a starting point of doing. I think we will be talking more about that later.