Seeker-Sensitive Model "a Bust"

I subscribe to HB London's "The Pastor's Weekly Briefing." He is a staffer with Focus on the Family, a pastor to pastors. I've been thinking of unsubscribing for a while, as most of it is stats on the George Barna - Willow Creek model.

But then this showed up.

I couldn't believe my eyes.

I hadn't seen any news on this myself, heard a rumbling somewhere, but London nails it:



"Well, it seems everyone is talking about Pastor Bill Hybels' statements concerning the ministry of Willow Creek over the past 30 years. At least, I have seen his words in print on a lot of Web sites and from the pages of a new book, REVEAL.

The report from the book "reveals" that 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.... "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."

It would appear that Hybels and others are just growing weary of programs, promotion and platform presence. Of the 11,000 people who responded to the REVEAL survey, 26 percent of them said they were either "stalled" or "dissatisfied" with their spiritual growth. I would think most of us would be happy to see 75 percent of our congregation enjoying spiritual growth — but I believe what it is saying is that the mature believers are not seeing progress in their own journies. That is serious.

As I read various reports, I could not help but think of the thousands of pastors who did not buy into the "seeker sensitive" strategy who lost members and even their own ministry because they were out of touch. Teaching the fundamentals of faith was not enough.

Or — the thousands who bought hundreds of dollars worth of "Willow" material, now to see it in question. Or — the pastors who restructured their total operation to fit the Willow model only to see it collapse around them. But there are thousands of others of our colleagues who, with God's help, made it work. What was the finished product? I guess we will see.

Pastor Hybels' conclusion is, "We should have gotten people, taught people how to read their Bible between services, how to do the spiritual practices much more aggressively on their own." What a concept. I think I can see a new paradigm on the horizon."