Tim Keller defends Willow Creek type churches?

[billiefan2000]

I wonder if certain pastors in my town that talk about Keller so much on their blogs as being great


will comment on this article

--------------------------------------------------------------------


http://www.rcpc.com/blog/view.jsp?Blog_param=44

09/30/2009, by Tim Keller

This summer I spoke at the Willow Creek Leadership Summit. It was an honor to be invited. No one pulls off a conference like Willow Creek. Who else could bring their content to 120,000 people? And the three other talks or sessions that I saw were extremely high quality.





The time at Willow led me to reflect on how much criticism this church has taken over the years.

On the one hand, my own 'camp' -- the non-mainline Reformed world -- has been critical of its pragmatism, its lack of emphasis on sound doctrine.


On the other hand, the emerging and post-modern ministries and leaders have disdained Willow's individualism, its program-centered, 'corporate' ethos.


These critiques, I think, are partly right, but when you are actually there you realize many of the most negative evaluations are caricatures.






John Frame's 'tri-perspectivalism' helps me understand Willow.

The Willow Creek style churches have a 'kingly' emphasis on leadership, strategic thinking, and wise administration.



The danger there is that the mechanical obscures how organic and spontaneous church life can be.


The Reformed churches have a 'prophetic' emphasis on preaching, teaching, and doctrine. The danger there is that we can have a naïve and unBiblical view that,

if we just expound the Word faithfully, everything else in the church -- leader development, community building, stewardship of resources, unified vision -- will just happen by themselves.


The emerging churches have a 'priestly' emphasis on community, liturgy and sacraments, service and justice.


The danger there is to view 'community' as the magic bullet in the same way Reformed people view preaching.








By thinking in this way, it makes it possible for me to love and appreciate the best representatives of each of these contemporary evangelical 'traditions.'


Nobody provides more practical help for organizing and leading ministry than Willow Creek.


I also am humbled that Redeemer is well-regarded in each of these 'streams' of evangelicalism, though we have our feet firmly set in our own Reformed tradition.

That is quite unusual, and it makes it possible for us to both teach and learn across the spectrum of church life today.

[billiefan2000]

Tim Keller by defending Willow Creek and the WCA he is saying


that this is okay for seeker-madness and false teaching to be promoting or do:


---------------------------------------------------------------


Willow Creek and it's member churches (some, not all) promotes the Shack book and also Contemplative prayer



(see post ) http://rr-bb.com/showthread.php?t=109692




Ray Yungen on what really Contemplative Prayer is and who promotes it











Ray Yungen on Emerging Church & Intersprituality





=======================================

BTW:



Willow Creek Association 's 2 biggest member churches outside Willow Creek are



Lakewood Church aka Joel Osteen 's church

and

Granger Church in Indiana




Lakewood Church of Houston Texas (aka Joel Osteen's church)



http://www.willowcreek.com/wca_info/...20%20%20%20512



















you can find plenty of other info on Osteen here on the apostasy section of the MB here



================================================== ==========



Granger church in Indiana (aka Tim Stevens and Mark Beeson 's "church"


(see posts

http://rr-bb.com/showthread.php?t=100933 Granger Church on Harvest TV: Talking about Less Clutter. Less Noise.

http://rr-bb.com/showthread.php?t=94752 Granger Community Church dances to Single ladies by Beyonce?


http://www.alittleleaven.com/2009/06...tcentered.html Granger Church and others Redefining the Terms "Worship" & "Christ-Centered"



and:






among other youtube videos and posts that talk about Granger "church"




and there are so many other examples of bad WCA churches but for Keller to dfending the WC model is wrong

the Willow Creek type churches are a huge reason the churches in this country are spirtually muddy and screwed up

[billiefan2000]

Rick Phillips On Tim Keller Calling Willow Creek an Example of “Kingly” Ministry, Emergent Churches as “Priestly” Ministry, and Reformed Churches as “Prophetic” Ministry


Published October 5th, 2009 by Stephen Macasil in "New Calvinism", Emerging Church, Reformed, Tim Keller, Willow Creek



Rick Phillips of Reformation 21 asks “a serious question: Did one of the founders of the Gospel Coalition [Tim Keller] really just suggest that gospel clarity is non-essential to a church?“

Full post at biblicalthought.com

http://christianresearchnetwork.com/?p=13560