Honey From The Rock

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Honey From The Rock
Psalm 81:16

"Sweet Stuff From God's Word"

A daily Bible study with Victor Knowles
Copyright 2007

A CONFESSION AT WILLOW CREEK

This entry was posted on 10-26-2007 and is filed under Devotional.

A few days ago a friend forwarded me an interesting item from the website of Christianity Today. It was titled "Willow Creek Repents?" Willow Creek may be the largest evangelical church in America and many other churches take their lead from them today. But recently the leadership did a multi-year self-study and what they discovered has caused them to do an about face and "repent."

Here's what Bill Hybels, founder of Willow Creek, had to say. We made a mistake. What we should have done when people crossed the line of faith and became 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 Bibles between services, how to do the spiritual practices much more aggressively on their own.

I am amazed, not at this frank admission, but at the eternal relevance of God's Holy Word. Long ago new Christians were admonished thusly: For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of God's revelation. You need milk, not solid food. Now everyone who lives on milk is inexperienced with the message about righteousness, because he is an infant. But solid food is for the mature - for those whose senses have been trained to distinguish between good and evil (Hebrews 5:11-14 CS

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All the multi-million dollar programs and elaborate church services cannot replace personal Bible study and the disciplines of prayer and Christian living.