Willow Creek Community Church in the News

Last night on the local Fox news they ran a story on Bill Hybels and Willow Creek. The most surprising part of the broadcast was Mark Suppelsa's bizarre comparison of Bill Hybels to Kanye West - he even included the clip of Kanye West's stiffly delivered announcement that "George Bush hates black people." I guess that's what happens when the media encounters an evangelical pastor who doesn't see "mouth piece for the Republican party" as part of his job description.

For the entire transcript click here.

Here's an interesting portion:

Suppelsa: "You're a helluva recruiter and marketer. Right?"
Hybels: "We don't market Jesus Christ."

As Hybels tells it, he wanted to make religion relevant. He wanted a church he could bring his friends to. Willow creek has no stained glass windows. No crucifix. In fact, the song and dance routines seem more Broadway than Bible Belt.

Hybels: "In God's house, I think there should be excellent music, excellent drama. We want people to listen with attentiveness. But it's so that they will come into a relationship with God, through Christ, at some point up the road. So yeah, we make no apologies for putting a lot of effort into our facilities, into our organization, into what we do on the stage."

Suppelsa: "How do you convince people that you're the real deal? That you're not Jim Bakker?"
Hybels: "What I've tried to do at Willow and what we've tried to train pastors around the country and around the world to do is be open. Completely open. With the books, with your schedule, with your salaries. With everything."

Hybels: "I go to Africa at least once or twice a year and I see a continent ravaged by AIDS. Our defense spending, our space spending, a lot of what we're spending our money on, I think, would be better invested in human lives. I'm not trying to be critical of an administration, I'm just saying that Jesus taught 'Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.' What you care about, you fund."