Church Poll

Now we have heard everything: a church based on a market study! That’s the way things are with the Willow Creek Church in a Chicago suburb and its minister, Bill Hybels (Part A, Dec. 11).

There’s no denying the dismal truth in some of the things their door-to-door survey underscored as people were asked what they didn’t like about churchgoing: dullness, boredom, no color or excitement, irrelevance. But the response to all of that by a minister and a people who, reportedly, take the Bible in utter seriousness, is preposterous and incredible. How comfortable it must be to know that in worshiping God you’ll not be disturbed by things you’d rather not hear about!

I wonder if Mr. Hybels has ever preached a sermon on Isaiah 55:8, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, says the Lord.”

It poses some interesting speculation about Jesus’ ministry. Presumably, he would have had greater success and not ended up on a cross had he conducted his own marketing study and shaped his message on what people told him they’d like to hear.

The good people of the Willow Creek Church are, I am sure, quite happy and contented, as well as their enterprising minister. What concerns me is the improbability of their lives ever being probed in any depth.

For without the word of God cutting cross the grain of their lives, like a two-edged sword, they can know very little about the awesome mystery of God’s grace.

OLIVER POWELL

Claremont