Goodbye to FBC

Hey Executive Pastor,

I have a question for you. There were two men: an old man, and a young man, both Christians, both loved their families, although sadly the old man had two adult sons who grew up to be non-believers. The first son took an interest in spiritual things on occasion but largely just lived out what he thought was the good life, while the second was as hardened as one of those “new atheists”, and often spoke out often against the evils of orthodox Christianity. The young man had one son, still a boy, who was soon to hit the teenage years.

One day, out of concern that his son would grow up to be a godly man who loved the lord, he went to the older Christian whom he looked up to and began plying him with questions. Out of his own experience the older man told the younger what he had done to raise his two boys. Eventually they made this a regular part of their routines, and the younger man began putting the advice into practice.  He began to tell his son how the Bible was full of old useless beliefs that tended to make people into rigid fundamentalists if followed, and how real happiness lay in having a close knit family and community, and living missionally. Soon the boy started to imbibe the instruction of his father and started to show signs that he would turn out like the older man’s unfaithful children. He quit caring about reading the Bible in his private time, got into more fights, made unwise decisions, ditched Sunday school and threatened to quit church altogether.

What advice, if any, would you now give to the younger man at this point?

Because you are the younger man. Willow Creek is old enough that their legacy has become evident to all by this point. And it’s a bad one. No scratch that, it’s a disaster. The older son is Rick Warren^[1] who has been working with Catholics come home while the younger is the Emergent Church^[2] which has turned its back on Christ altogether. We’ve seen the fruits of Willow Creek and its bad. But this isn’t really surprising, I mean just consider the church growth plan of Willow Creek itself. First all the bloody words, the ones that hung too close to the cross are eliminated. Words like justification, penal substitution, and atonement. Then the rest are modified to mean something else, words like community and grace. Then, over time, with those fundamental doctrines and their old meanings gone the preaching of the gospel itself gets forgotten in favor of practical matters such as parenting and social justice. To a Willow Creek church Christianity is about how to turn bad relationships into great ones; but Paul reminds us, “The gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you… [is] that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.”

And most importantly of all: none of the churches which have adopted the Willow Creek model have survived beyond the first generation. Part of that is because Jesus promised to take away lamp-stands from unfaithful churches, and part of it is because the willow creek plan is a futile chasing after the wind. In order to become relevant and appeal to people they gave up faithful exegetical preaching and threw out the doctrines that caused offense. But as the culture has waned and become more decadent they responded by jettisoning everything which offends with increasing speed to match pace. They are so desperate not to offend the culture that they have become the culture, and in this they are no different than the PCUSA, the United Methodists, the Crystal Cathedral, or the hour of Power. They are little more than a business enterprise, and the churches like them that have not fallen with a crash yet are merely sitting on the sand waiting for the storm.

And right now this is the plan for FBC. You hired the David Harris for the summer, a man who is much more of an Emergent new age guru than he is a historic Baptist. You’ve given up the ESV we used to use in favor of the abridged TNIV Bible, “The Story” because it’s more accessible and administratively streamlined. The Bible classes are being changed to a uniformity of small group instruction. The result of these decisions has been that serious believers have quietly left and the attitude of “Who cares? They’re not our target market” hangs in the air. What’s going to happen is that eventually, over time, your programs will grow stale, the new people will stop coming in, the youth will leave, and that will be it. Scott will not help this^[3] since he’s in full agreement with your goals and methods, and that’s why you’ve been excited to get him on board. Oh sure, he might possibly extend the reach of the model down a generation, but eventually the problem will catch up to him too. Ultimately he can’t succeed because the whole thing is too deeply flawed.

Does that offend you? I’m sorry to. I know I’m coming off as one of those crusty obnoxious old school Baptists who stroke their long white beard and shake their canes in grumpy admonitions at “change” and “kids these days.” I’ll admit to that. But that doesn’t mean I don’t deeply care for the people at FBC whom I love very much. I expect at this point to be dismissed completely as blind, hidebound, or stiff-necked, but please heed my words, for I came from the Churches of Christ.

Did I ever tell you about my people? My old denomination? I love them still, much more than they love themselves, but they are in the middle of a very deep hole and won’t listen to those of us who tell them to stop digging. They meet faithfully every week to dialogue passionately about cultural events, hold classes about popular worldviews, and sing out of date songs about feelings. They gnash their teeth that our culture is devolving and their churches are shrinking but are powerless to stop it or even know why it’s doing that. They want to be trendy and relevant, so they preach about topics found in the Bible, just not from it, and don’t grasp why that doesn’t work. They were once good, like King Jehoshaphat, but they gave their son in marriage to Athaliah of the family of Ahab their grandchildren were slaughtered at the feet of Baal. Like Lot they walked by faith with Abraham but began compromising until they ended up alone in a cave with sons who were also grandsons. In another generation the denomination will cease to exist. And why? Because like Esau they sold their birthright of timelessness for a bowl of relevant porridge. They were practical with the Scriptures rather than faithful to it.

 

I know you are excited and have been celebrating how great FBC is, but in closing I hope you hear the words of Jesus afresh, “You say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see. Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent.”

Yours in Christ,
Philip

 

[1] I’ll just give one quote from Warren, “God won’t ask about your religious background or doctrinal views. The only thing that will matter is, did you accept what Jesus did for you and did you learn to love and trust him?” because with that, Warren has opened the door on everything from Modalism or Mormonism being okay.

 

[2] Here is Brian McLauren on the supremacy of Christ, “And during his lifetime, Abraham—like Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad—had an encounter with God that distinguished him from his contemporaries and propelled him into a mission, introducing a new way of life that changed the world...How appropriate that the three Abrahamic religions begin with a journey into the unknown.”

 

[3] To his credit Scott has not fully embraced the Willow Creek methods. However, he said in third service during his try-out sermon, “This is salvation: God votes for you, Satan votes against, and you cast the deciding vote” and when asked during the Friday night Q&A about how he planned to reach the youth he said, “with technology.” That is an answer that demonstrates someone doesn't have a firm grasp of the sufficiency of Scripture.