Bill Hybels: "God Uses A Re-Crafted Schedule To Transform Lives"

This one minute video clip is from the Willow Creek YouTube channel:

Pastor Hybels says: "I've never seen a tool that God uses more predictably in transforming human lives than a re-crafted schedule." This short clip is the conclusion of a 45 minute sermon (that feels like three hours) called "The Power of Your Schedule" which can be heard in a very thorough, funny and scathing sermon review by Chris Rosebrough (the sermon review starts at 1 hour 12 minutes into the program):

Is Hybels teaching from the "Book of Statistics" or something?? If God uses a re-crafted schedule more predictably than any other thing, why did He fail to mention it in His Word?

“Wow. Now I can see that I wasted a lot of my time on earth... I should have been teaching people to ‘re-craft their schedules’ instead of all that other stuff I did.”

— Said Jesus Never

Closing thoughts: Seriously, there's nothing wrong with being productive and efficient with our time, and setting goals and using some sort of planner is a good idea-just remember that God is not captive to our plans. Most importantly, Bill Hybels is supposed to be a pastor, not a life coach or business advisor. Although he mentions in this "sermon" that people in his church should, perhaps, get it on their schedule to study the Bible (duh!), he's setting a terrible example by not preaching from God's Word for this entire "sermon." 

“Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage-with great patience and careful instruction.”

— 2 Timothy 4: 2

“For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.”

— 1 Corinthians 1:22-25

“Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit’-yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.’ As it is, you boast in your ignorance. All such boasting is evil.”

— James 4:13-16

Follow Up to Sleazy Silent Night

From the Hillsong Silent Night video

Michael Brown recently wrote this article for Charisma News:

Hillsong, Silent Night and the Danger of Judging by Outward Appearance 

Dr. Brown is one of the most respected members of the Christian Charismatic world; he's a brilliant debater, an actual Biblical scholar and someone who has been warning (to some extent) about false teachers in the Church. In this article he says that he, too, was appalled by the worldly and obnoxious Silent Night video that has gotten so much attention, but he refrained from making a judgment about it until he could get more information. But after he saw a Twitter comment from a pastor at Hillsong he could understand why they did the song the way they did.

There are a couple of really interesting things to note from this article: First of all, Brown makes a pretty amazing statement about how he couldn't talk to anyone from Hillsong, because he didn't have an "open door to interact directly with Hillsongs leaders (despite my attempts to do so in the past)." Please take note, everyone who says something like this: "You shouldn't say anything bad about pastor so and so until you talk to him face to face! Have you met with him and heard his side of the story?? Well then stop judging him!!" 

Even Dr. Michael Brown can't talk to the "powers that be" at Hillsong. Hmmm.

Another amazing thing about this article is how he has "differed with some of Hillsong's methods and message over the years…" but he still needed to get the true story from a reliable source before he could make a judgment. How have you differed with Hillsong, Dr. Brown? Have you spoken out against the blatant Word of Faith heresy that Brian Houston continually puts forth as Christianity? That's kinda important… but it gets side-stepped in his article. 

Here's the really disappointing part of this article: Brown believes he is able to make a correct judgment about this whole thing because he sees a Twitter comment made by a Hillsong pastor in Australia, and he accepts everything this guy says with no further inquiry:

Here's the big fat lie (intentional or not) in that Twitter comment: "This video was not released by Hillsong, nor would this number ever be an item on it's own." Except that the video was released by Hillsong... as an item of it's own… on Hillsong's own YouTube channel!

After Chris Rosebrough shared the video on Facebook and it started getting thousands of views (and negative comments) Hillsong quickly pulled it off their channel with no explanation, but we had made a copy for Vimeo (knowing that Hillsong would probably do the very thing they did). So now when everyone sees the Vimeo copy, Hillsong can claim that "somebody posted it out of context!" That's correct Hillsong, somebody did post it out of context-you did.

So, we now have a "sort of" official explanation as to why they made this "Sleazy Silent Night" and it does make more sense than before. This situation is still pretty irritating and here's why:

It seems Michael Brown (and lots of others) will let the heresy at Hillsong continue. That word, heresy, is not too harsh-it's an accurate statement made after a thorough evaluation of the teaching at Hillsong. Here are a bunch of programs where Chris Rosebrough has played Brian Houston's sermons and compared them to the Bible. Houston twists, distorts and mis-handles God's Word all the time! Here's an article that documents the history of covering up abuse by Brian Houston and his friends: Church Watch Central. And here's a very disturbing Australian TV Investigative News Show called Inside Hillsong. 

And almost nobody cares-because Hillsong is famous! Brian Houston is famous! Everybody loves Hillsong's praise music! Tens of thousands of people love and attend Hillsong! So we showed their ridiculous Silent Night video to draw attention to the problem… but now we are the bad guys because we didn't understand the correct context for the video (that Hillsong published without explanation and then silently removed). Fine.

We are sorry to have not made such a fuss over that video.

Now can we talk about the false-teaching, Bible-twisting, power-grabbing, money-loving, pedophilia-ignoring cesspool of corruption that is brewing at Hillsong??!

Along these same lines, here's an important article from our friend J. D. Hall at Pulpit and Pen:

An Open Letter to Dr. Michael Brown

Pastor Tells People to Say "F-You" to Each Other

In this ridiculous and desperate attention-getting stunt, "pastor" A. R. Vernon tries to be clever and funny, but he ends up being offensive and counter-productive...

“Abstain from all appearance of evil.”

— 1 Thessalonians 5:22

“If anyone considers himself religious and does yet not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless. ”

— James 1:26

What Would Jesus Brew? Serve Beer to Attract Young People!

Because some people need a good, solid reason to attend church...

This is an article from NPR about churches that are serving beer to attract people to church. This topic is similar to the previous Museum of Idolatry post, (the "tattoo church"): sometimes it looks pretty desperate when churches try so hard to be "relevant."  

Photo credit: Corey Grunewald Facebook.com/coreygrunewaldphotography

This is not a post against the responsible consumption of alcohol; we have the freedom in Christ to drink (but not to engage in drunkenness). This is about the worship service becoming much, much less than a worship service. When a church adds beer (or anything else) to attract new people, it's really hard for the central focus of our faith to remain so. But there are some notable efforts being made to use the craft-brew phenomena as a way to start a dialogue with non-believers. For example, here's a very interesting group called "The Bible and Beer Consortium" that holds meetings apart from the worship service to discuss the Christian faith. Here's another group called "What Would Jesus Brew?" And here's a good, short article addressing these "beer/church" issues and the NPR article; and here's one more.

There's a difference between a gathering to exchange ideas, listen to speakers and socialize, and an actual worship service. When churches remove all of the sacred elements from the worship service in the name of attracting new people, they end up hurting the very people they are called to serve.

Ultimately, it isn't a good idea to depend on beer (or any other worldly, cultural thing) to bring people closer to God-we've been given Word and Sacrament by God Himself. Praise be to God!

“Therefore, putting aside all malice and all guile and hypocrisy and envy and all slander, like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the Word, that by it you may grow in respect to salvation, if you have tasted the kindness of the Lord. And coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected by men, but choice and precious in the sight of God, as you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. ”

— 1 Peter 2:1-5

Get A Tattoo Onstage During The Sermon!!

Because nobody can listen to a regular sermon anymore...

So, let's think about this for a minute:

The God who created the entire universe from nothing, who was born to a virgin, lived an amazing life full of miracles, teachings and healings, then willingly gave His life on the cross to pay for the sins of all the world, then rose victoriously from the dead... all of that is not good enough to get people's attention? 

But if someone get's a tattoo onstage during the sermon-that's gonna make the Gospel message a lot better? If only we would have known this before! 

“I didn’t want to repent of my sins, but now that some lady got a tattoo during a sermon, I believe. Plus, it’s easier to pay attention to a sermon while being completely distracted. ”

— Said Nobody Ever

Closing thoughts: If pastors continue this downward spiral, where will it end up? If we say that "people are different nowadays" and "we need a gimmick to get people to church these days" aren't we just setting ourselves up for even more ridiculous and embarrassing stunts? And if a person comes to church only because they were attracted to the spectacle that made it "new" and "relevant," what kind of person are we attracting, and why are they really showing up? 

Hillsong's 2015 Rose-tinted-Glasses "Vision"?

You just can't make this stuff up. This is the gimmick Hillsong pulled for their 2015 Vision Sunday:

"Oooooo! Vision!"

Who are responsible for the roses tinted glasses vision outbreak? Why Brian Houston and Bobbie Houston of course! This is an image of both fuhrer's promoting "The Cause" which is on Bobbie Houston's Instagram:

"I often tell our church that we have one vision... No doubt you have heard of an “us-and-them” spirit. It is one I do not let fester in our church. I ask our leaders, “On which side of ‘us and them’ do you find yourself?” Loyalty always positions itself as one of “them”. You can build the church, a marriage, and friendship on that kind of loyalty." - Brian Houston

The prophetic "Vision" of Hillsong has also invaded the animal Kingdom.

"He's counting down the days. #vision" - Brian Houston

Resistance is futile. Who will be assimilated next into the Hillsong Vision?