Tag: Bill Hybels

What’s your Popeye moment?

Posted this question on Twitter and Facebook today. Interested to see what responses I get. I’ll try and post them here. Or you can visit search.twitter.com to see the Twitter responses.



question for today :: what’s your Popeye moment? what makes you say, “Thats all I can stands and I cants stand no more?” tweet with #popeye

Bill Hybels talks about this Popeye moment in his book Holy Discontent. He refers to the Popeye moment (see roughly 5:45 into this video) as an analogy for our Holy Discontent, or Passion Groove. It’s that moment when we see things going on around us and we simply can’t not do anything. We have to act. We have to take a stand for what we know is right.

Here are some thoughts I had on the idea from August of last year ::

  • What is it that motivates people to work where they work, volunteer their time to the groups they serve, and donate money to the causes they support? Simply put, why do people do what they do?”
  • That’s all I can stands, and I can’t stands no more!” – Popeye.. What happens when we reach the point where we can’t “stands no more?” What is is that you “can’t stands no more?”
  • The trouble with contentedness is that, when lived out in isolation, it can be lethal! If you’re not careful, you will become lulled into a state of satisfaction, safety and serenity, and you’ll altogether neglect needs in the world that should elicit deep discontent when you see them going unmet.
  • “I refuse to accept the idea that the “is-ness” of man’s present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal “ought-ness” that forever confronts him.” (- Martin Luther King, Jr) Friends, this is what it looks like to live from a place of holy discontent – where ought-ness simply overtakes is-ness.
  • On MLK: “The holy discontent that had taken up residence inside him simply wouldn’t allow him to give anything less than his entire life.”
  • Have you ever wondered why, when you turn your life over to God, you don’t get express-freighted right to heaven? Or, to put it a little more crassly, if you’re so heaven-bound, then why are you still sucking air down here? I love that question. It really makes you question why we’re here. What is it that God has placed us here for?
  • Eph. 2:10 says that “we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
  • If you’re alive and kicking today, then there is a specific work that you are expected to do. There is a set of tasks with your name on it that God has given you to accomplish.
  • The goal is to cultivate your soul’s soil so that this doing-of-good-works process can unfold in your life.
  • “None of your tears or anguish will be wasted; I (God) plan to use every ounce of what you’ve been through for good in this specific area.” Can I make that first part any bigger? Go back and read that one again. Think on it. Trust in it. Believe in it. That’s one of God’s greatest promises to me and one that I hold to day in an day out.
  • How will you know when your one thing shows up? It will be the pesky preoccupation that vies for your undivided attention during the day and keeps you wide-eyed at night as is captures your heart and ignites your imagination. It will be the thing to force you to the floor, heaving sorrowful tears the whole way down. It will be the thing kicking and screaming inside of you, squawking for all it’s worth to be addressed.
  • My applecart got completely overturned by the thought of seekers going to hell simply because Christians refused to break out of their holy huddles long enough to embrace them… Seekers matter! And people far from God deserve better local church options that the ones available to them today!
  • When you find your holy discontent, feed it! Don’t run from it. Move toward it. If poverty is your holy discontent, don’t move to the suburbs to avoid it – move to the inner city where you can see everyday and night how it affects people until your blood simply boils over.
  • The pastor described how gut-wrenching an experience it had been to be told blatantly who mattered and who didn’t at church — and then to realize that his family was part of the “who didn’t” category — racism in churches is not acceptable.

So what is your Popeye moment?

From Facebook ::

Dave writes ::
“Oh man! How about the entire of city of Waco who continues a downward spiral of poverty. Worst of all the people equiped to help would rather help zoo animals and kennel Dogs! Ahhhhhggghhhg!”

Willow Creek says it was wrong

Interesting article about all the many programs Willow Creek offers… and the results of one of their latest studies…

Few would disagree that Willow Creek Community Church has been one of the most influential churches in America over the last thirty years. Willow, through its association, has promoted a vision of church that is big, programmatic, and comprehensive. This vision has been heavily influenced by the methods of secular business. James Twitchell, in his new book Shopping for God, reports that outside Bill Hybel’s office hangs a poster that says: “What is our business? Who is our customer? What does the customer consider value?” Directly or indirectly, this philosophy of ministry, that “church should be a big box with programs for people at every level of spiritual maturity to consume and engage” has impacted every evangelical church in the country.

So what happens when leaders of Willow Creek stand up and say, “We made a mistake”?…

“Some of the stuff that we have put millions of dollars into thinking it would really help our people grow and develop spiritually, when the data actually came back it wasn’t helping people that much. Other things that we didn’t put that much money into and didn’t put much staff against is stuff our people are crying out for,” Pastor Bill Hybels said.