The December 1 issue of World Magazine runs a short article, “Seeking but not finding: The mother church of the seeker movement has a mid-life crisis,” about Willow Creek Church. I’ve read about the “confession” made by Bill Hybels, but had not read the statement quoted in this article.

“We made a mistake,” Hybels said at Willow Creek’s annual Leadership Summit, where the results of the survey were presented. “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 Bibles between services, how to do the spiritual practices much more aggressively on their own.”

The article also quotes Callie Parkinson, who leads Willow Creek’s Reveal ministry as saying the Willow Creek remains not just “seeker-focused. We are seeker-obsessed.”

I find it stunning that it didn’t occur to Hybels and the massive pastoral staff that they should teach people (about whom they are obsessed–but what does that actually mean? Might it be a clue as to why they do what they do?) to read the Bible between services. Further, to refer to their omission as a “mistake” seems more like a shrug rather than bearing the awful weight of serious error. Have they considered what it might mean to stand before God as men responsible for shepherding their flock?

Michael Horton, a professor at Westminster Seminary California had the last quote of the article: “The state of the church in America today is poor, and it’s a condition that you can’t blame on Willow Creek alone. It is increasingly difficult to swim against the tide of materialism, consumerism, and narcissism in the culture.”

Yesterday morning, my husband and I were talking about the state of the church. I had not yet read this article, nor had he. A statement he made was just so accurate that it stuck with me: “Spirituality-lite allows us to love our sinful selves.” His experience of counseling and teaching for 28 years has given him a front row seat to what is going on in the church, and what people are being taught on a national and international basis, and how their lives reflect what they’re being taught. It isn’t good. The tickling-ear ’syndrome’ is alive and well in evangelicalism. Some pastors are only too happy to oblige. Others who recognize the problem continue to preach the Word fearfully rather than fearlessly, scared they’ll lose their job, or at the very least, get lots of flack from their elders and congregation. Half my husband’s clients are pastors and missionaries, so this information is firsthand.

From our vantage point of hearing the details of the lives of so many people, the tide of materialism, consumerism and narcissism that Michael Horton referred to is not only in secular culture, it is embedded, even nourished in the church as well. Our preoccupation with ‘godly’ self-esteem and success is astonishing. The “cheap grace” that Bonhoeffer wrote about abounds, rationalizing all manner of ongoing, impure living. We’re relieved to hear that our hearts aren’t wicked, they’re wild. Husbands and wives believe they can have a wonderful relationship with God, yet ignore, dislike, harbor unforgiveness, or hate their spouse. If we’re not confronted by the preaching and teaching and reading of the Word of God, we will undoubtedly go on our presumptuous way of self-centered living, even self-centered worship. Our wayward hearts are very prone to wander from the God we love. The ’sugar of sin,’ as a Puritan referred to it, is mighty tasty to our natural tongues and tummies. How we need the Holy Spirit’s application of the Word to our hearts to transform what appeals to us so that we lose our taste for anything other than God alone! A spirituality-lite skim, a token nod to scripture doesn’t cut it. A Sword isn’t meant to be handled lightly or limply, but wielded with accuracy and intent by a man who loves it, lives by it, and is led by the Spirit in his teaching.

How are we going to live in such a way that the watching world will be convinced of the truth of the gospel if we’re not immersing ourselves in the Word of God and responding in obedience to it? How are we to know the excellence and beauty of Christ unless we open our hearts and minds to His Word and worth? It’s impossible! This morning I read a sentence from Spurgeon that caught me dead on: “God’s smile and a dungeon are enough for a true heart.” Am I a true heart? Are you? How about the person sitting next to us in the church pew? How about our neighbor? How about our family? I can’t get away from the fact that this is what our lives are to be about, and it challenges me deeply. It’s time to weep and pray and gird ourselves with the full armor of God so that we can stand against the wiles of the devil in our hearts and in the hearts of those around us.