The Power of a Whisper (Zondervan, 2010) is not only a book about learning to hear the “communicating God” direct your life, it’s also as close as Bill Hybels may come to memoir in what he calls his “50-year whisper-fueled odyssey.”
He said he’s waited 35 years to write this book because of the controversial nature of anyone, especially a pastor, saying he has heard a word from God. Hybels’ book stands out, however, as a model for how a pastor can hear and teach others to hear the “Wind Words” of the Holy Spirit that come sometimes as whispers. The problem is not God’s silence. God speaks, but we must learn to have ears like Samuel. When a boyhood teacher taught the story of Samuel, young Hybels wondered aloud to Miss Van Solen if God still speaks to little boys.
Willow Creek and its Association exist today because at low points in Hybels’ life, God “graciously whispered to me.” In true Hybels fashion, he gives clear, strong principles on how to listen and how to filter sources and content of whispers, but no goal is more critical than a pliable heart, he says.
Hybels credits God’s voice speaking through others for key themes that have directed ministries at Willow Creek: from a college professor Dr. Gilbert Bilezikian, “servanthood matters”; from colleague Nancy Beach, “arts matter”; from his wife Lynne, “People suffering through extreme poverty matter.”
At one crucial point in ministry Hybels asked, “God, I am not getting up from here until there is resolution in my heart. I can’t lead this church one more day until you tell me what I’m supposed to do.” Thus the operative prayer is, “If you have anything to tell me, I’m very eager to hear it.” Hybels weaves personal stories, biblical principles, and global stories in another game-changing book for church leaders.
Greg Taylor is minister at Garnett Church of Christ in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Copyright © 2010 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
