Hybels

I will be taking a graduate class this fall. The class I will be taking is Spiritual Formation. The professor has assigned three textbooks that must be read in preparation for the class. The first one is Too Busy Not to Pray by Bill Hybels, super-megaback-seeker-preacher extraordinaire. The second is Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster. The third is The Great Omission by Dallas Willard.

I have to do some writing on these books as part of the course requirements and I will be sharing that work here on this page. I will begin with Hybels’ book since that is the one I must read first.

By way of a disclaimer, I’d like to say something about my view of what has taken place in the world of Willow Creek, the church Hybels founded in Barrington, Ill. First, my thoughts about this book are not an opinion I am rendering about Willow Creek. I have written elsewhere about Willow Creek and the particular brand of theology that is taught there by the atheists they invite to speak from their pulpits.

Second, I’m not necessarily commenting on Hybels as a person. Fact is, anyone who writes a book opens themselves up to review and criticism because books, like blogs, are a reflection of a person’s personal belief system. So, while, on the one hand, I’m not necessarily writing about Hybels, I am, on the other hand, and in fact, writing about Hybels.

Third, I want to make clear that I am writing as a theologian examining a purported theological work, written by an author whose influence and opinion holds considerable sway over the Evangelical Church in America and around the world. I don’t suppose, then, that everyone who reads this will be particularly inclined to agree with all the conclusions I come to and all the comments I make. That’s fine. I’m not writing for consensus. This is an investigation into the theology that undergirds Hybels book and the conclusions he draws that are necessarily based on that theological assumption.

Finally, I am also concerned to make an investigation into Hybels’ use of Scripture to make his theological and practical points. The questions that matter are: 1) Does Hybels use Scripture in a way that is supported by the theological plotline of the Scripture? 2) Does Hybels’ interpretations of Scripture ‘fit’ with a certain, particular Evangelical orthodoxy? 3) Are his conclusions supportted by the wider, more complex, teaching of Scripture? 4) Are any of his conclusions simply unsupported by either a) the Scriptures he uses to support them or b) the overall plotline of the Scripture?

I will be updating this page periodically as my own writing progresses and as the due date for my first paper nears. Thanks.

jerry

Friends,

My first paper is due tomorrow and I just put the finishing touches on the editing. I have not had to write a paper for a grade for about 12.5 years. The paper ended up being 10 pages long and deals with 6 areas of Hybels’ book that I found to be personally helpful. I will be posting more on this book, but this is a start for now.–jerry

In the introduction to his book A Call to Spiritual Reformation: Priorities from Paul and His Prayers, author D.A. Carson writes:

Do you not sense, with me, the severity of the problem? Granted that most of us know some individuals who are remarkable prayer warriors, is it not nevertheless true that by and large we are better at organizing than agonizing? Better at administering than interceding? Better at fellowship than fasting? Better at entertainment than worship? Better at theological articulation than spiritual adoration? Better—God help us!—at preaching than at praying? (1)

In writing as much, Carson is admitting to the ‘problem’ that most of us face when it comes to prayer: It is work, hard work that is often overlooked or cheapened because ‘we have more important things to do with our time.’ After all, who really has time to pray when there are so many books to read, blogs to manage, sermons to write or preach, calls to answer, emails to answer, voice-mails to listen to, meetings to attend—in short, so much ministry to do! How can a preacher, or any church staff member for that matter, or any Christian for that matter, justify taking 30, 60, 90 or more minutes a day and devote them entirely to uninterrupted, devotional, confessional, battle-charged prayer, Holy Spirit empowered prayer? And yet, is this not the very thing the Apostles said should be the priority? “Brothers and sisters, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them 4 and will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word” (Acts 6:3-4, NIV).

Prayer involves, at a tremendously deep level, a particular commitment to pray. Without such a deep commitment, the prayers offered by Christians are not likely to be characterized by the sort of power or display the sort peculiar of intensity that prayers of the King should. The prayers will, instead, be characterized by brevity, superficiality, and a serious lack of reverence for the One being prayed to. But we are not the sort of people in the American church that are particularly fond of much that requires an especially deep commitment to anything or an especially deep anything. We are rather fond of the quick, the easy, the shallow, the puerile, the now. Prayer, however, is a work and work requires strength, stamina, and an understanding of the work being done. In other words, we should know what to pray as well as how to pray. The Apostle taught us as much when he wrote, “I urge you, brothers, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to join me in my struggle by praying to God for me” (Romans 15:30). And also, when he wrote that our ‘struggle is not against flesh and blood’:

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 13Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. 14Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. 18And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints” (Ephesians 6:12-18, NIV).

So Paul describes the nature of the struggle Christians are engaged in, and prescribes the only logical course of action to take in such a struggle: To pray in the Spirit, with all kinds of prayers and requests, all the time, for all the saints. In the apostle’s mind there is, evidently, no way possible to face the daily, constant struggle that Christians face apart from the posture of prayer. It is here Christians fight the battle. It is here that Christians make their headfirst charge into the gates of hell; a full frontal assault. And so it was for Jesus as well: “During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. 8Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered 9and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him 10and was designated by God to be high priest in the order of Melchizedek” (Hebrews 5:7-10, NIV).

Prayer is no easy work. It involves commitment, work, tears, cries, and a willingness to go into battle. In short, prayer involves struggle, but also involves us in the struggle. It puts us right into the heart of the battle and if the battle is taking place ‘not against flesh and blood’ then how can this battle be won by fighting it in any other way but through prayer?

Bill Hybels’ book Too Busy Not To Pray addresses some of these issues and not a few others, but I read the book with these conditions serving as a foundation and backdrop to his thoughts. In many ways, I found the book to be rather shallow and self-centered and the sort prayers advocated as merely utilitarian or ‘what do the prayers do for me?’ If it is a struggle to pray, it is no less of a struggle to read a book about praying when the main focus seems to nearly always be the self. Nevertheless, from a purely practical perspective, Hybels has some significant thoughts that I will briefly address. I shall begin with what is, in my estimation, the most significant of his thoughts in the book: The need to slow down and make time to pray (page 124, but also scattered in various ways throughout the book).

His premise is that it is during our prayer time that ‘authentic Christianity’ is developed. Thus, “Christians who make that commitment know that time is required. Something good is going to have to give way. Some practical vehicle will have to be employed to get the rpms down from ten thousand to five thousand to five hundred, where they can be at peace with God and be in a condition to hear what the Lord is saying….Nobody ever said the Christian walk is easy. But is anything in this world of greater or more lasting importance?” (2)

And he’s right. The only point I would make is that praying is not necessarily about getting us to slow down. We need to slow down in order to make time to pray. We cannot effectively conduct ourselves and stand up to the pressures of the world culture and the demands of submissive Christianity if we are dependent only upon ourselves. Slowing down is a significant chore when there is so much to accomplish and only 70 or 80 years to do it. Slowing down means the Christian must prioritize and establish habits and patterns of behavior. It means that some habits and practices may have to be cut-off. The Christian must decide what is of lasting significance and work at it by making time to rest in the Lord, in quiet communion with His Spirit.

A second significant insight that Hybels makes is this: It is imperative that the Christian invite the Lord God to be a part of our existence each day (page 15). “It boils down to this: if you are willing to invite God to involve himself in your daily challenges, you will experience his prevailing power—in your home, in your relationships, in the marketplace, in the schools, in the church, wherever it is most needed.” (3)

I don’t know how far I will take this because it makes prayer sound almost utilitarian, but perhaps if the statement were tweaked just a bit to say: If you are willing to invite God to involve himself in your daily challenges, perhaps praying, ‘may your will be done, not mine,’ then God’s power will prevail in all situations. Nevertheless, it is important, I think, that we ‘ask, seek, and knock’ each moment of the day, always inviting the Lord’s presence into wherever we find ourselves, whatever we happen to be doing. This is a sign of trust and a sign of dependence. It seems to me that it is much better to pray from a position of dependence than desperation. Thus prayer is not only, or even always, something done hunkered down in the closet sweating drops of blood, but, rather, something done in the marketplace, in the schools, in the church, in the midst of the trials and challenges of every day life.

Third, on pages 49-50, Hybels speaks of the necessity of regularly ‘scheduled’ prayer times: “If we want to live in God’s presence, we need to shut the world out and tune into God once a day, every day, without fail. We need to lay aside our other concerns and focus on God, look at him, talk with him, listen to him, sit quietly before him.” (4) If we are a culture that thrives on schedules, are controlled by schedules, then scheduling prayer times seems to be quite relevant and imperative. (However, there is something to be said about prayer becoming a ‘chore’ or simply ‘another thing to check off on our list of things to do’. I don’t think Hybels means that, but the Christian must be wary that it degenerate to that.)

I think this, in part, affirms the words of the Scripture: “Pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17). The world can be overwhelming at times and there are times when our minds and hearts need to be entirely focused on worshiping the Lord undistracted. Hybels is surely right that we must do this on a continual and regular basis and as justification he directs the readers’ attention to Jesus who, evidently, made it a habit of rising early in the morning for solitude and regular prayer: “Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed” (Mark 1:35). And also, sometimes, he prayed through the night:

“One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God. 13When morning came, he called his disciples to him and chose twelve of them, whom he also designated apostles: 14Simon (whom he named Peter), his brother Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, 15Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Simon who was called the Zealot, 16Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor” (Luke 6:12-16, NIV).

There’s also the details of Jesus’ prayer life recorded in Luke 22: “Jesus went out as usual to the Mount of Olives, and his disciples followed him” (Luke 22:39, NIV) and there he prayed. Regular prayer keeps the Christian grounded, humble, and dependent. It says to God, “My time is not my own. I will trust you for the things I could not get done because I have given this time to you.” It says, we trust God more with our time than we do ourselves.

Fourth, Hybels writes that it is important to ‘listen’ in prayer. “It’s ironic, though, that most of the time we think of prayer as talking to God, rarely stopping to wonder whether God might want to talk to us.” (5) The trick here, I think, is in figuring out just exactly how God speaks to us. Does God speak to us in words? Feelings? ‘Nudgings’? Holy Spirit ‘goadings’? Through other people? Hybels is correct to note that “[a] lot of Christians, however, don’t expect God to speak to them.” (6) I think many are skittish for the very reason I outlined above: How do we know when God will speak to us and how will He do so? I suppose there are very few satisfying answers and for many, the experience varies. Furthermore, we don’t dare tell others that God ‘spoke’ to us for fear they will think we are slightly off-base. To be sure, the best suggestion Hybels offers is this: “How does God speak to us? One way is through his Word.” (7) Hybels also confirms this later when he writes, “The surest way to test the source of a leading is to check it against Scripture.” ( I appreciate very much his candor in this regard as it is most important for Christians to be in the Word of God at all times.

Fifth, there is the solitude of prayer. Hybels writes, “No one can become an authentic Christian on a steady diet of activity. Power comes out of stillness; strength comes out of solitude. Decisions that change the entire course of your life come out of the holy of holies, your times of stillness before God.” (9) It is certainly no easy task to quiet ourselves before the Lord. There is so much noise all around us everywhere. If finding time is difficult, finding quiet time is even more so. Where can a person go to find the solitude required? We are not Superman: We have no magic fortress where we can shield ourselves from the outside world. We carry all of our burdens, all the time, and we are, I suspect, reluctant to let them go for fear that we might not have anything to cling to when we do. As Christians, we need this solitude. How else will we hear the voice of God, even from Scripture, when all we do is surround ourselves with noise, clamor, and convulsions of this world?

We are in the tradition of Elijah, and worship the same God who came to Elijah not in the noise and mayhem of storms, but in the stillness of a breeze. I have an idea here that what the author is saying is this: We have to make the effort to hear the voice of God because he is not always going to raise His voice and yell loudly. It is incumbent upon us to surround ourselves with silence so that we will not miss what the Lord is saying.

Sixth, and finally, we must develop a ‘sensitivity to the Spirit.’ Hybels writes, “It is possible to develop a similar sensitivity to the Spirit’s still small voice. It is possible to be aware throughout the day, even while going about your daily work, of God’s gentle promptings.” (10) This is a combination of all aspects of what I have written in the above paragraphs. If we are willing to slow down, if we are willing to invite the Lord’s presence into each moment of the day, if we do so with consistent regularity, if we learn to listen, if we are willing to quiet ourselves (and of course if we are spending significant time in the Word of God), we will develop a sensitivity to the Spirit’s voice. That is, we will know what to listen for because we will know the sorts of things the Spirit says; we will know how the Spirit leads. “The watchman opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice” (John 10:4-5, NIV).

Christians will learn to discern between the voice of the Shepherd and the voice of the thief or robber who has no intentions whatsoever of taking care of the sheep but only, rather, to “steal, kill, and destroy” (John 10:10a). But this sensitivity can only be developed through a careful training of the ears, the mind, and the heart. Such sensitivity comes from the habit of hearing the voice of the Shepherd and knowing what his voice sounds like. It means that when we pray we not only talk, but, and perhaps more importantly, we listen.

P.T. Forsyth wrote, in his small book, The Soul of Prayer, the following:

Prayer is often represented as the great means of the Christian life. But it is no mere means, it is the great end of that life. It is, of course, not untrue to call it a means. It is so, especially at first. But at last it is truer to say that we live the Christian life in order to pray than that we pray in order to live the Christian life. It is at least as true. Our prayer prepares for our work and sacrifice but all our work and sacrifice still more prepare for prayer. And we are, perhaps, more often wrong in our work, or even our sacrifice, that we are in our prayer—and that for want of its guidance. But to reach this height, to make of prayer our great end, and to order life always in view of such a solemnity, in this sense to pray without ceasing and without pedantry—it is a slow matter. We cannot move fast to such a fine product of piety and feeling. It is a growth of grace. (11)

And so it is. Like all things that are worthy of our devotion, and like all things that God means to shape us for, and like all things that we are called to do (‘When you pray’), prayer is a work that requires time, patience, perseverance, and not a little grace. The only way to effectively learn how to pray is to pray. The will must be broken in these areas outlined above. We must resist the urge to always be talking and never listening, always going and never stopping, always being surrounded and never being alone, always going alone and never being dependent, always putting prayer off and not being regularly devoted to it, and listening to everyone and everything and having lost all sensitivity for the Voice of the Spirit. The practice of prayer is developed in the furnace of life. The language of prayer is developed in the Word of God. The motivation for prayer is determined by our devotion to Jesus Christ. I suspect that the more we desire to please Him in all things, emulate him in all things, follow closely in his footsteps in all things, the more we will devote ourselves to unceasing prayer.

1 D.A. Carson, A Call to Spiritual Reformation: Priorities from Paul and His Prayers, (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 1992), 17
2. Bill Hybels, Too Busy Not To Pray, 2nd ed. (Downers Grove: IVP, 1998), 127
3. Hybels, 15
4. Hybels, 49-50
5. Hybels, 133
6. Hybels, 134
7. Hybels, 133
8. Hybels, 160
9. Hybels, 147
10. Hybels, 152
11. P.T Forsyth, The Soul of Prayer