By Mary Fairchild
“Jesus used to say every once in awhile you have to change the wineskins.” Bill Hybels, Vision Night 2003
Completion of the 7,200-seat, $73 million, auditorium keeps Willow Creek in the ‘top ten’ largest church auditoriums in the country. The lobby includes a water wall, escalators, 12 kiosks connecting the church’s website, and an indoor coffeehouse with fireplace.
Willow Creek pastor Mark Ashton commented on site of the completion, “This is really about creating a space for transformation to happen in people’s lives.” Ashton has led “TruthQuest Coffeehouse” and “The Biggies” where he and co-leader Richard Angle announced, not unlike universalist Robert Schuller, that “Christianity does not have a corner on all the truth” and that “we can find truth in all corners of the universe.”
The 1995 membership book for Willow Creek, on p. 41, claimed that Willow Creek is “interdenominational.” They had claimed to be nondenominaional up to that point. Nondenominational churches reject all man-made doctrines and strive to follow only what the Bible teaches. Interdenominational churches, on the other hand, accept all beliefs.
“Our values are our rock sold convictions–who we are at Willow: we are going to try to understand the culture. Jesus used to say every once in awhile you have to change the wineskins. When new wine is being made you have to put it in new containers. The old message needs to be re-packaged. It needs to be continually re-packaged so we can make sense to people living in the culture. That is a core value here. We will never change the message, but we will understand the culture and bring that unchanging message in undiluted uncompromising to the culture in a culturally sensitive way. It is a value of our church to be authentic with each other and to stop playing games. You can’t get anywhere when people are playing games. The footing is soft. You can’t trust what people are saying to each other. Freedom comes when you don’t have to pretend anymore. It’s what Jesus meant when he said you can be free indeed. Cuz you can anticipate radically accepting love from each other–the freedom to no longer have to pretend. We hold that vey highly here. If teachers come in and they try to be better than we know they really are we don’t let them teach anymore. If vocalists get up and they start singing songs that they don’t live out in their lives… we go… you know what, it ain’t going to work. If it leads to truth telling and confrontation, and sometimes having to do cleanup and reconciliation it’s a lot better to go through the mess of that than to go on with masks on and all the pretending. Don’t you agree?” –Bill Hybels; Vision Night 2003
Wagner writes, “Every time Jesus began building His Church in a new way throughout history, He provided new wineskins.” He references Matthew 9:17 and adds, “The growth of the Church through the ages is, in part, a story of new wineskins… these new wineskins appear to be at least as radical as those of the Protestant Reformation almost 500 years ago.
“The New Apostolic Churches” believe that they are the last push to fulfill the Great Commission” according to C. Peter Wagner in his book, “A Radical New Way of Doing Church.” He is joined by 18 apostolic church leaders, including Bill Hybels, who share their stories of inspiration as they shape their churches into “new models” for the twenty-first century. Charismatics, like Wagner, promote the signs, wonders and healing. They believe that the Holy Spirit poured out upon “all flesh” at the day of Pentecost and they believe God continues to speak today through visions, dreams, or words of prophecy. It is through these experiences that the charismatic church has been able to bridge the gap in ecumenical alliances with liberal Protestants and Roman Catholics.
In his book, “The Coming of the Cosmic Christ: The Healing of Mother Earth and the Birth of a Global Renaissance,” Matthew Fox, while still under the mantle of an ordained Dominican priest, prior to his being silenced by Cardinal Ratzinger, the Catholic Church’s current Pope, in 1992, made the call for depth-psychology and theology to join hands in an effort to make the Churches more truly ecumenical. He calls for the participation in a global transformation to get the message out that it is time for the world’s religions to become unified.
In the “prologue” Fox speaks of the coming of the Cosmic Christ as a “new birth that will cut through all cultures and all religions and will draw from the wisdom common to all vital mystical traditions in a global and religious awakening he calls “deep ecumenism.” The coming together of the historical Jesus with the Cosmic Christ is seen as a healing and will finally make Christianity whole. The ecumenism is broad enough to connect Christ to much more then a Church movement, but to the Cosmos that all religions of the earth celebrate. It transgresses the bounds of theology; it touches taproot in the shamanic archetype, which is at the foundation of Shivaism, Judaism, Sufism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, and Christianity–making it more than ecumenical.
Fox believes Christianity is undergoing a transformation with the shaman at the center now where Christ stood at the beginning of our colonization. The shaman is invading the sacred space formerly occupied by Christ so that a marriage between these two symbols of the Self; Christ and the Shaman, as symbols of the self. Fox looks to the Christ story for the deep roots of all religions, and the big metaphor he finds in his Christ archetype is big enough to create a revolution in Christian theology and advance towards a new Reformation through the Council of the world’s churches. The whole movement within Christianity will be forced to bow its head toward a more democratic way of viewing its dispensation of Love.
The New Apostolic Reformation began roughly in 2001. In the beginning, Wagner considered naming the new movement “postdenominationalism,” but many of the apostolic churches were remaining within their denominations. The churches, according to Wagner, that are to be effective will be giving up their declaration of independence. They will be interdenominational. This change is the “new apostolic reformation movement.” It is not a reformation of faith, but a reformation of practice, he says, and he describes Willow Creek Association, an alliance spawned by Willow Creek, “as an example” as Willow Creek now provides spiritual association and direction for thousands of churches worldwide.(Willow Creek Post; Nancy Ortberg)
“In a survey you have said that you, and a lot of your friends, think that maybe all world religions are essentially the same. They are just overlays and ll their doctrines are quite similar, and they all point the same directions. So what’s the big deal? Why is it important to choose the right one if they are all basically the same? Instead of me preaching about it we thought we’d bring experts from some of the major world religions and we would let them describe their beliefs and then we would let you, intelligent people, come to your own conclusions. If you saw a variety, a lot of differences in these religions, you need to know the law of non-contradiction says, “Positions that are different from one another can not be equally true. You’ve gotta figure out which you believe. On where you are going to drive that stake in the ground and say, on the evidence, on the search that I’ve done, this is what I believe… this is what I will stake my life and my eternity on. We live in a very diverse world and we have to learn to get along with and respect and show deference and kindness to people who represent different religions and we have had a wonderful time with these brothers and sisters (panel of world faiths) who came to help us. I hope that as we leave that you will leave with the words of Jesus on your mind who said tht the greatest of these, the highest kingdom law, or value, is the law of love. And while we may disagree about where it is where we drive our stake of conviction and belief we are called to be compassionate and understanding and respectful of those who believe differently. Do you agree with that statement? (I Have a Friend Who Thinks All Religions Are the Same.” Bill Hybels and Guests pt. 2, 2003; tape # 0318.)
On Willow Creek’s “Vision Night 2005”, after Gene Apple read from Acts, “As the apostle Peter preached and 3,000 people were added to their number,” Bill Hybels pointed out that they now have plenty of empty seats.” Highlighting the evening, Hybels shared that the dream of his adult life has been to be in a church where every single person knew that they were a priest and that they would be an unstoppable force in out community, city, state, country, and world. He believes it can happen. In the lobby, tables were set up with Bill Hybels’ new book “The Volunteer Revolution” for everybody in the Willow family “at no charge.”
Vision Night continued with Bill Hybels announcing that his congregation needed to “accept their mantle of priesthood” and he felt that everyone in the church was supposed to know exactly what their spiritual gift was. He relayed how cool it felt when he had won a boat race with the right team work. Then he ridiculed those who were afraid of the “strange happenings” that can go on in relation to spiritual gifts. He spoke about conversions saying, “We think of the conversion point, the crossing the line of faith, but I’ve watched believers grow up in faith a lot of years and I’ve come to believe that after the first major conversion (that salvation moment) a lot of Christ followers seem to have several mini versions along their faith journey as they grow up in Christ. They come to various forks in the road–various decision points about how committed to Christ they are really going to be, how conformed to his image are they going to allow the Spirit of God to make them. Will I acknowledge in the new covenant, in the new arrangement that God has for his people (those of us who are in Christ are priests), will I accept the privileges and the responsibilities that are attributed to priests? I think you come to a point in time where it is explained to you and then you know. He concluded by describing his relationship with Dr. Bilizekian who was responsible for changing his life and vocation.
Contrary to these ideas however , historical, biblical Christianity holds that “new revelation” has ceased with the completion of the cannon. God has given us all of the Truth and He is no longer doing that (Ephesians 2:20). The apostles and the prophets laid the foundation for the Church in their ministry and these letters that are in the New Testament are part of that foundation, part of their ministry. Today we are “warned not to add anything to the cannon” (Revelation 22:18).
We are not to experience the apostles teaching; not teach the apostles’ experience. Human experience (mysticism) leads you to idols (1 Corinthians 12: 1,2). In John 16:12, 13, Jesus says, “I have many more things to say to you but you cannot bear them right now. But when He, the Spirit of Truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth. For He will not speak of His own initiative, but whatever He hears He will speak and He will disclose to you what is to come. Jesus said he had more things to tell us when the Spirit comes he will guide you into all truth. It is the body of truth that He would deliver to all of the saints. Paul says that He’s done it “once and for all.” So the Spirit of God came at Pentecost and He began to fill the apostles and use them in their ministry and they began to supply all the body with truth that Jesus Christ wanted yet to convey to them. The Spirit of God has communicated to us what we need and the cannon has been closed for this time period. There is no need for the gift of prophecy, tongues, knowledge, or wisdom because those gifts were bringing forth new revelation and that need has ceased. Today we are warned not to add anything to the cannon (Revelation 22:18).
REFERENCES/RELATED
- Nancy Ortberg Speaks at Willow Creek: Deep Ecumenism
- Willow Creek Community Church 2013: Cool Global Engagement Strategy May 7, 2013
- Bill Hybel’s Willow Creek: The Volunteer Revolution (Soul Care, Mysics)
- Globalism and Willow Creek Church (Bono avoids taxes, Gergen, Carter, Blair)
- Willow Creek Community Church: Manipulating the Church to Globalism (Dr. Robert Klenck)
- Protestant No More: Willow Creek is Infiltrated by a Mystic Quaker Movement Called Renovare
- The Theosophical Society (C. Peter Wagner’s Apostolic Churches; Willow Creek Community)
- The Human Potential Movement (Manly P. Hall, Vincent Peale, Robert Schuller, Bill Hybels…)