A Caution for Leaders and Listeners

Recently I was reading a post from Al Mohler’s weblog, as I have become a fan of his writing. It seems that he is one of the most articulate evangelical Christians alive today concerning the relation of Christians to culture. In his blog entry he made a passing negative comment concerning Willow Creek Community Church in the Chicago area. What struck me about Al’s comment was not so much that he made it, but it caused me to reflect upon the implications of it.

In my early 20’s I was exposed to a great deal of the ministry of Willow Creek church through attending their conferences and services. My time there served to open my eyes to many significant issues in ministry that I take to heart to this day. They do many things very very well as a church and as a global ministry. As I have grown older I have come to see that their style of ministry may have some weaknesses that should be addressed and have been addressed over the last twenty years.

Amazingly gifted leaders, speakers, pastors and authors like Al have a huge audience of influence. Many of these people will listen very uncritically to every word that he says and then promote what they think he is saying, which may or may not be what he really believes. Thus, with the Willow Creek comment, if it is made in passing, the danger is that there is a whole community of people promoting an overly simplistic negative view of the ministry of Willow Creek Church. How does Al really feel about the ministry of Willow Creek? It is probably easy to say that he would not be a big fan, just based upon theological differences alone, but he was not explict in his critique and thus I believe there is a potential danger in this. Now, does Al need to qualtify every negative comment with a four page essay on why he believes what he believes? Certainly not, but I believe that leaders of his magnitude need to carefully consider the implications of their words (as I’m sure he does) upon those who follow them.

Listeners and followers on the other hand, need to really know for sure they have their information straight before they speak for Al or any other leader they are influenced by. It makes Al look very bad if they are wrong, and as Christians I believe that God calls us to do the work of rigorous thought as opposed to just being a “second-hander” when it comes to communicating ideas.

When I was in college there was a huge response in our Christian community to the writing of John Piper. This had many amazing effects and I credit much of it to personal growth that has carried on to this very day. The downside was that there were many people (myself included) who wanted to communicate the intensely heavy theological ideas promoted by Pastor Piper without a deep and thorough understanding of what he was saying. I would have to say that much of this served to cause people who would have otherwise been attracted to John’s ministry, to reject it due to the way that his “followers” attempted to communicate the things that he was saying in his books and sermons, etc. As followers we need to remember that the way in which we communicate is at times just as, if not more, important than the content of that which we are trying to communicate.

All this seems to reflect a reoccurring theme in my blog about listening and understanding before speaking and passing judgments. Listening communicates humility and humility is what God is after in all of his people. No Christian can stand before the cross and not be humbled.

To view Al Mohler's weblog, click here.