How Willow Creek exposed our sins – Religion News Service

This is an amazing read from a Willow Creek insider.  Everyone in all of evangelicalism and fundamentalism should read it. (KSchaal)

The fundamental ailment of the evangelical church today is toxic power. Toxic power is anchored in prideful autonomy and manifested in forms of competition, coercion, domination and abuse. It is power in strength for the sake of control. It is not the way of the cross, but rather the way of the world, the flesh and the devil.Toxic power can show up in a youth group of 40 students just as much as it can in a church of 10,000 people. It is not merely a problem for pastors and leaders, let alone “celebrity” pastors and leaders. It is a problem for the church.Toxic power shows up in the deep belief that the power of a church is measured by the degree to which it makes us feel special and significant. It shows up in our targeted evangelism strategies, pointed toward the powerful, influential, prosperous and put together, as opposed to the weak, marginalized, poor and broken.We see it in our insatiable appetite for sermons that tell us the good news is that we can do better and feel better if we try harder.We see it in our obsession with identifying our “spiritual gifts,” for the very purpose of operating in our strengths so that we can avoid our weakness at all cost. We see it in the way biblical qualifications for elders are replaced by notions of business success and social status.We see it in our mode of worship determined to generate a felt experience of transcendence, regardless of whether God is involved or not.We see it in our primary markers of good leaders — charisma, oratory skill, management prowess and entrepreneurial vision. Needless to say, toxic power has so infected the church today that it has burrowed its way into the very depths of our identity.Along the way, that toxic power has replaced the kingdom power the Bible calls us to. Kingdom power is power shaped by the cross — known in weakness and aimed at love.When we make our pastors the functional cornerstones of the church, look for gurus to rally around, or use church resources to manipulate The New York Times best-seller list, then we are abandoning the way of Jesus.When we ignore the cries of women who have been harmed and abused and preference those in authority, then we are embracing evil. The church has been co-opted by the powers and principalities of darkness. The devil has sold us the lie that we can use worldly means to achieve kingdom ends. He has duped us into believing we are not prone toward dangerous and controlling forms of power in our own lives.

Source: How Willow Creek exposed our sins – Religion News Service