I know some of you are going to find this totally incredible but the granddaddy of the seeker movement, Bill Hybels, has come out and said that the seeker churches made a mistake, it does not work.

“Perhaps the most shocking thing of all in this revelation coming out of Willow Creek is in a summary statement by Greg Hawkins:

Our dream is that we fundamentally change the way we do church. That we take out a clean sheet of paper and we rethink all of our old assumptions. Replace it with new insights. Insights that are informed by research and rooted in Scripture. Our dream is really to discover what God is doing and how he’s asking us to transform this planet.

Isn’t that what we were told when this whole seeker-sensitive thing started? The church growth gurus again want to throw away their old assumptions and “take out a clean sheet of paper” and, presumably, come up with a new paradigm for ministry.
Should this be encouraging?”

Here we are again back to rethinking. Is there any tie in with the paradigm, any tie in with Robert Schuller’s rethinking conference? Is this rethinking movement now going to replace the seeker movement with something even worse. Is that their paradigm shift? Stay tuned.

Seeker Friendly Church Leader Admits They Have Done It All Wrong : “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.

In a shocking confession, Hybels states: We made a mistake. What we should have done 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 bible between services, how to do the spiritual practices much more aggressively on their own. Incredibly, the guru of church growth now tells us that people need to be reading their bibles and taking responsibility for their spiritual growth. “