{"id":3712,"date":"2014-02-13T14:58:55","date_gmt":"2014-02-13T20:58:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scottcochrane.com\/?p=3712"},"modified":"2014-02-13T14:58:55","modified_gmt":"2014-02-13T20:58:55","slug":"how-bill-hybels-advises-church-leaders-to-approach-the-weekend-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/2014\/02\/13\/how-bill-hybels-advises-church-leaders-to-approach-the-weekend-service\/","title":{"rendered":"How Bill Hybels Advises Church Leaders to Approach the Weekend Service"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cImagine if I could give you a newsflash, that the person you\u2019ve been trying to invite to church for the last 3 years is coming this Sunday.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

With those opening words, Willow Creek Community Church senior pastor Bill Hybels grabbed the attention of the 1000 leaders gathered at the Church Leadership Conference in Riga, Latvia.<\/strong><\/p>\n

But Bill would then ask, and answer, a question that every church leader must come to terms with:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cWhat are you hoping will happen to that woman or that man during that one hour church service?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s how he answered that question.<\/p>\n

“I think all of us would hope and pray that at some point during that church service, that your friend would in some way be supernaturally touched by God\u2026That heaven would breakthrough and somehow touch the heart of that person you invited. If they\u2019re totally non-Christian that a seed of faith would be planted in their heart that day.<\/p>\n

If they came with a heavy heart, that maybe that day a burden would be lifted.<\/p>\n

If they came with a broken heart, that maybe that day some mending would occur.<\/p>\n

If they came as a cynic, that maybe that day a little bit of faith would be instilled.<\/p>\n

If they came discouraged, that maybe that day God would give them a little hope.<\/p>\n

But wouldn\u2019t you want to be able, after church, to sit down at a restaurant and have that person say to you, \u201cI don\u2019t know how to explain it, I don\u2019t have language for it, excuse me if I\u2019m not using the right words, but something happened in there. It felt like something, or someone, touched my life during that church service.”<\/p>\n

I think that\u2019s what all of us would hope and pray for.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what gives us that sense of nervous anticipation when a friend comes to church with us for the first time.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey might just be touched by God.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many church services flounder because they haven\u2019t figured out what they hope will happen in the life of a person who actually attends the service.<\/p>\n

So take time with your leadership team and wrestle with Bill\u2019s question.<\/p>\n

How you answer it will have a huge impact on what happens next weekend.<\/p>\n

How would you answer that question today?<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cImagine if I could give you a newsflash, that the person you\u2019ve been trying to invite to church for the last 3 years is coming this Sunday.” With those opening words, Willow Creek Community Church senior pastor Bill Hybels grabbed the attention of the 1000 leaders gathered at the Church Leadership Conference in Riga, Latvia.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,769,738,478,7,579,807],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-church","category-culture-2","category-effectiveness-2","category-featured","category-leadership","category-ministry-2","category-spiritual-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3712"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3712\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3719,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3712\/revisions\/3719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}