Talk:Bill Hybels

Untitled
I take issue with this statement: "There are no known controversies surrounding Hybels personally, as is often the case with well-known religious figures.". This statement is an opinion and gives readers the assumption that most well known Christians are controversial. (J. D. Hunt 04:27, 31 October 2005 (UTC))

I may have written the original statement, and my intention was to indicate that Hybels personally has avoided the problems surrounding other popular Christian leaders such as Benny Hinn and Paul Crouch. I see how the statement could be misinterpreted, and have made changes to the statement to clarify my intent. - (original writer not J.D. Hunt)

Problems with the POV in this article
The problems with this article being very POV start right at the beginning (POV Noted in bold):
 * Bill Hybels is the founding and Senior Pastor of Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois. Willow Creek's innovative ministries have made it one of the most attended churches in North America. He is also an author of several Christian books, especially on the subject of Christian leadership. His charismatic personality, coupled with his sincere style, has made Hybels one of the most popular faces of the modern evangelical movement.

There is simply no way to qualify these statements (in bold). For example, regarding the attendence, who audits the attendence numbers, etc.? This reads like PR/Fan fiction. Stu 15:44, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

In Australia, nearly all churches record their attendances, and AFAIK these figures are accurate. The Australian National Church Life Survey regularly publishes figures on general attendance, and again I believe they are accurate. What makes you think that the Willow Creek figures are not? Andrewa 12:56, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

This article needs to be broken into 2 or 3. The first needs to be a straightforward biography of Bill Hybels. The second needs to be a discussion of his church movement/strategy. The third should be a discussion of the criticism of that movement. Otherwise, it reads like a hatchet-job on Hybels. --Conrad Alexander 05:37, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Conrad Alexander's comments. The content and tone of this article is overwhelmingly negative and critical, and contains very little actual biographical information.

--Ron Stock 09:17, 14 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Agreed. About 85% of the article is critical. That is hardly NPOV. I added the POV tag. Also, a photo or two would really brighten up the page. --Colin MacLaurin 03:45, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree with the negative tone on this. This is a pretty poorly researched and biased article.

This is an absolutely awful article, the overwhelmingly critical content is almost as boring as it is bias.--Kbomb 03:06, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

There are many critics of Hybels, but his leadership in the Christian community has touched many lives. How about some articles that affirm this? (How does one view web authors who constantly bash others ministries?)

Biographic Information
Is there any source of biographical information that can be added to this article? I know that he is from Kalamazoo and went to Kalamazoo Christian High School and was born around 1950, but that's about it.69.208.175.130 18:16, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

He is a Dutch-American.

I'm pretty sure Bill never went to Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He DID go to (then) Trinity College, though. Now called Trinity International University. KateM —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.250.197.206 (talk) 19:27, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

I believe he attended the seminary but did not graduate. Check to see if it says on Willow Creek's website. -manutdglory —Preceding unsigned comment added by Manutdglory (talk • contribs) 05:28, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

He never attended the Sem School. He was given an honorary degree from the Sem School, however. Scotti — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.245.157.223 (talk) 04:22, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Criticism Section
The criticism section has been removed and added here until it can come up with sources that meet WP:V standards for Biographies of Living Persons ref. WP:BLP

"One of the most well-known criticisms of Bill Hybels was his invitation of then President (and personal friend) Bill Clinton to his Leadership Summit in 2000. In front of leaders from all over the country, Hybels questioned the President about a variety of topics. In light of his recent sexual affair and lies under oath, many evangelicals highly disapproved of Clinton's appearance at the church and Hybels was heavily criticized. Hybels' rumored liberal political views have also put him at odds with fellow evangelicals, the vast majority of which are politically conservative."

"Hybels is also a firm egalitarian or 'evangelical feminist,' which has brought him into further criticism from many. In particular his statement (which can be seen on the Willow Creek website) that Willow Creek believes that women can be in leadership roles over men. This is also seen in the use of the controversial 'Today's New International Version' Bible as the Bible available to congregants during services."

I also removed a WP:Coatrack linkage to criticism of Rick Warren. This is not Warren't biography.--Lyonscc (talk) 20:11, 19 December 2007 (UTC)


 * The NY Times published an article in January 2000 regarding the Clinton's appearance at the church, which also mentioned the criticism of the appearance. I think that paragraph can be re-written to be NPOV along with this cite. Best regards. Jogurney (talk) 17:01, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Church Report's list of 50 most etc.
Copied, pasted, and slightly modified from what I said at Talk:Erwin McManus, since it also applies here:

The lead mentioned the The Church Report's list of "50 Most Influential Churches". It isn't a reliable source at all. This came up at Joel Osteen, and we eventually dug up this article from Christianity Today which raises serious questions about if the list is part of some sort of fraud. There's no reason to think anyone listed had anything to do with that, but regardless, it's completely unusable as a source. The magazine's domain has since been replaced with an unrelated blog. The Church Report article is also unrelated. Grayfell (talk) 03:16, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 4 one external links on Bill Hybels. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20070407215641/http://www.ascg.org:80/journal/11Spg00/Reid.html to http://www.ascg.org/journal/11Spg00/Reid.html
 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20070926225617/http://www.willowcreek.org/news/retrospective/default.asp to http://www.willowcreek.org/news/retrospective/default.asp
 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20070227162320/http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org:80/pages/2382.html to http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/2382.html
 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20080708184802/http://www.lynnehybels.com/bio.asp to http://lynnehybels.com/bio.asp

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at ).

Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 00:22, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

Assessment comment
Substituted at 09:38, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 external links on Bill Hybels. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Corrected formatting/usage for https://www.prairie.edu/servant/InnerviewBillHybels.pdf
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20150703112034/http://blogs.pioneerlocal.com/religion/2010/07/bill_and_baracks_immigration_a.html to http://blogs.pioneerlocal.com/religion/2010/07/bill_and_baracks_immigration_a.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 07:08, 20 July 2017 (UTC)