one of my all time favorite movies is american history x. not sure why, probably because it ends so badly and that seems more real to me than most movies out there. or it could be the happy thoughts of the complete transformation of soul, ideology & passion of a man. that's pretty cool. the movie has nothing to do with this post except to reference that towards the end of the movie the younger brother is writing an essay, he says his older brother (the two being the central figures) always said "always finish with a quote, someone else has said it better than you" or something to that effect. it just came to mind...
so in my adolescent response to willow creeks recent repenting. i'm going to quote diana butler bass, who i feel actually finds words to the source of some of my shallow thinking.
"We made a mistake," says Hybels: "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."
Notice what Hybels says is missing: intentionality, practice, and vitality. Or, as the Leadership blog put it, "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. These basic disciplines do not require multi-million dollar facilities and hundreds of staff to manage."
To point this out is not "I told you so." Rather, this is a profound development in North American congregational life. When one of the nation's leading programmatic churches says that programs do not work and that their vision of spiritual maturity was "wrong," we best all sit up and take notice.
For more than a decade, a quiet renewal has been spreading across American religion and is changing the way faith is experienced and practiced. Willow Creek's self-doubt is indication of that change.
