Q&A with Bill Hybels

We also had an opportunity to be involved in a question and answer session with Bill Hybels. There was one thing that he talked about that I resonated with so much. In fact, it tied directly into an ongoing discussion we've been having  on Granger's senior management team.

Willow did an exhaustive survey. What they found was the most satisfied church members were those who were new believers or early in their faith--and the least satisfied were those who were more "mature" in their faith.

Bill said they had really missed teaching their growing believers to not be dependent on the church for their spiritual growth. The goal, Bill says (and I agree), is to slowly make believers independent. We (as a church) should focus our attention on introducing people to Christ, and then helping them grow to a certain point. After that--they should feed themselves and focus on helping the church introduce more people to Christ.

To do that, Bill continued, we need to help people "right-size" what they should expect from the church. The reason that the seasoned believers are more dissatisfied is because they still expect the church to be feeding them. They haven't been taught to feed themselves.

This is great stuff for every church leader to wrestle with!