Why is it that every time the subject of “seeker-sensitive” comes up we get all out of sorts? (not everyone, but some) Call it “prechristian sensitive” or “unsaved sensitive” or anything else for that matter.

I agree with the fact that no one seeks after God on his own - you have to agree, it’s in the Bible! But there are those who begin to search to fill that longing that only God can fill with his salvation. At that point we want to do everything in our power to share the gospel in a way that is not blatantly offensive.

(I know what you are going to say - the gospel is offensive. But let’s not let our method of sharing it be offensive.)

Paul became all things to all men in order that he might save some. That’s clearly in the Bible - so you will have to adjust. : )

CS and others,

I have to be fair I part with some here. 

“Now without faith it is impossible to please God, for whoever comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who diligently search for him”

I’m not going to get too theoligical here but people are seeking God.  For example Kirk Cameron’s testimony is that he first believed there is a God then his salvation followed.  You can come to faith in Christ through a logical process that we are accountable to our Creator.  Through faith in Chirst we are made righteous before Him.  I do think this can be done as a “seeker”.  I part with Willowcreek because they have made “Seeker sensitivity” a scientific method that they manipulate to attract the masses.  People are different and there is no one formula that is good for all.

JOB:

“I’m not going to get too theoligical here but people are seeking God.  For example Kirk Cameron’s testimony is that he first believed there is a God then his salvation followed. “

You’re right.  The only condition under which people will seek after God is if He draws them to Himself (John 6:44).  Aside from that, there are none that seek after God, as said in Romans 3:11.  This is clearly what happened in Cameron’s case.

So, here’s a question: Assuming that the people who are “seeking” and going into churches are truly being drawn of God, why does there need to be a complete changing of the way that church is done to a “seeker-sensitive” model?  Why not just keep church services the same as any other service?  From what I understood of Cameron, while he met with people privately for discussions of faith, to talk about those questions a novice may ask, he still went to regular services. 

What I see is when the target of worship services is for unsaved people, and the methods by which they are drawn in are kitschy, ranging from motorcycles jumping over pastors to lessons on having a great sex life, this defeats the intent and target of for whom worship is intended--believers focused on Jesus Christ alone.  The draw card and hook to bring people in border on worldly means and topics, promising things like happiness, financial stability, and a great marriage, none of which are guaranteed in the Bible.

So, let’s have classes, discussions, and forums for introductions to Christianity, but not change the worship to follow Desperate Housewives in a goal of attracting more “seekers”.

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CS

CS,

I guess you don’t see how we who are in “seeker churches” understand the Bible’s clear instructions to be excellent at what we do in worship (think Asaph or the expert craftsmen who were picked to construct the ornaments of the temple), and to extend that into our making disciples as we go, as instructed by Jesus. I’m sorry for that. There is not one scripture I can point to to convince you that what we do (even if it looks like a big show to you) is what we are convinced Christ has called us to, because we believe the whole of the Bible instructs us to do this!

Again, I’m really sorry that you and others here can’t see this.

Todd, thanks for letting us “veer off point” again.

It would seem we are back here again.  CS, you must take Romans 3 in context of Romans 1-3, all of Romans 3 and the whole of the book of Romans.  To cite one verse again and again as an argument is, as you would say, the reason we need better hermeneutics. 

Romans 1-3 builds a case against mankind or even more accurately builds a case for “Grace (crediting of righteousness) through faith” as modeled in the OT and explained in the NT.  Paul is not saying that no person can ever do good, no person can ever have a thought about God, he is saying that apart from the work of Christ, no thought or act of goodness matters.  A key phrase is “under sin” because “under sin” none of the works I do, none of the acts or gestures I make, not one of my “spiritual” journeys matter.  Under sin I am lost and without hope. 

He then goes on to say that the answer was not the law but rather the law brought a consciousness of sin.  Another way to say this CS is that God’s Truth is one way people not only get convicted but are also drawn to Christ.  From there Paul lays out in chapter 3 the Gospel amazingly clear, builds the “Grace By Faith” in chapter 4 and then goes on to describe the work of Justification and Sanctification in chapter 5-7.  In chapter 8 Paul lays for us a foundation of the work of God the Holy Spirit in our Sanctification. 

For you to site one verse again and again as an argument shows a huge lack of understanding the context of Romans. 

I add this, there are many who are “seeking” something but not knowing who will truly satisfy the calamity caused by their own sinfulness.  They seek band aids when surgery is necessary.  They do this because they are blind, because they do not understand, because they cannot muster within themselves anything that answers the emptiness within a heart not surrendered to Christ.  They are not usually great at self diagnostics because of the skewed perspective sin has given them.  This makes the church so important in helping a “seeker” recognize God’s grace (crediting of righteousness) offered to them in exchange for their faith. 

I am sorry you missed out on knowing God for a long time.  I am sorry you did not hear a message that would have altered your eternity.  Maybe you were filled with pride and could not hear.  Maybe you were so smitten by the girl you attended church for you could not hear.  Maybe you were so insecure and immature that you would have done everything asked.  Maybe someone failed to properly explain your propensity to sin.  Maybe it was not your time.  But if you had died and gone to hell, it would have been your fault.  Not God’s, Not the churches, not your momma’s, not Rick Warrens, Not Joel Ostine’s, Not bill Hybles… Just yours.  You would have to give an account for you.

Peter,
That is a pretty sloppy exegesis of Matthew 7:7-8. It is quite the leap to get to support the position that men seek after God. There is an important distinction to make. Are men truly seeking after God or are they seeking the fruits of being saved. Many people are looking for the qualities they see in Christians such as peace, joy, etc. but they do not seek after God.  Ephesians 2 states that we are dead in sin before conversion. Dead men do not seek God. In John 3 we see that Jesus is telling Nicodemus that one must be born again of the spirit in order to enter into heaven. Regeneration is of God through the Holy Spirit through hearing of the Gospel. I would challenge the notion of man “seeking” after God pre-regeneration.

Peter, the same way you do not know authoratively who is a true convert. AND WC has admitted that they fell down in the discipleship area. The average congregant is woefully biblically illiterate because pastors feel like they have to dumb down biblical terms such as justification, propitation, and sanctification. Ask the average congregant in the “seeker” churches today to define those terms.

AND small groups are good at many things such as fellowship and pastoral care for the members but often fail in discipleship because you have unqualified teachers leading the small groups. Too often times these groups are doing felt need studies like the “love languages” or such and not engaged in any deep, meaningful strictly bible study. It turns into a scene where they go around the group in a circle asking “what does this verse mean to you”.

Peter:

“I guess you don’t see how we who are in “seeker churches” understand the Bible’s clear instructions to be excellent at what we do in worship (think Asaph or the expert craftsmen who were picked to construct the ornaments of the temple), and to extend that into our making disciples as we go, as instructed by Jesus. I’m sorry for that.”

Actually, I believe in excellency in worship, too.  I’ve seen great sermons and worship going on with huge stages, amazing sound systems, great multimedia, and excellent preaching, teaching, and music. 

The two things I don’t believe in are (1) letting the methods take control of the worship or drawing the attention away from God, and (2) the incorporation of and conformity to worldly things in a goal of drawing people into churches.  This is in light of the “seeker-sensitive” conversation we are having, and not in general.

Back on subject now…

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CS

Peter, yes, we as the universal church are commanded by the great commission to evangelize. In that we totally agree. But where we disagree is that you have yet provide scriptural support that says that when we come together as brothers in sisters in Christ to worship, that time should be primarily designed around attracting the lost and/or the felt needs of the lost. The primary church worship service was not intended to be an evangelical tool where we marketed it to the lost.

So, when congregants are self feeding as you say they do in your church and come across words such as justification, sanctification, and propitation, you are saying that 21st century Americans do not need to know these terms? How sad is it for you to say that propitation should mean nothing to 21st century American. Packer summed up the NT by saying something to the effect: “adoption through the propitation of Jesus”. I woudl subject that if these terms mean nothing to 21st century American “Christians” then they are not truly saved.  Again, you denying that congregants have become more and more biblically illiterate throughout time is along the same blindess that led WC to realize they were doing a poor job of discipling.

Sam,

Those people understand what those terms mean, even if they aren’t reading a translation of the Bible that has those specific words. Nobody needs to know the word “propitiation” to be saved, although they should probably learn it if they are in seminary. No, they need only trust Christ who is our Savior and follow Him. I will say it again. Christianity is NOT a list of doctrinal distinctives, it is a life of following Jesus as a regenerated creature. You write [I woudl subject that if these terms mean nothing to 21st century American “Christians” then they are not truly saved. (sic)] It says nowhere in scripture that I need to understand the meanings of certain English words in order to be saved. It says that I must trust and follow Jesus, God’s only Son, who died and rose so that I might live in Him!

I don’t create a worship service in order to attract seekers, btw. I create a worship service that utilizes heartfelt, contemporary, and often rather boisterous artforms, mainly music but also video, drama, visual arts, and whatever else my creative people can do, that just happens to appeal to a lot of seekers just as much as it appeals to me. But it’s real worship. We have preaching that instructs people how to live as Christ-followers, and we invite those who aren’t yet along for the ride. Often, they accept! I’ve been to Willow, it’s a lot like they do!

Your issue boils down to style, I think. I don’t have to defend the practice of coming together as you describe it in a service “primarily designed around attracting the lost and/or the felt needs of the lost” because that is NOT WHAT WE DO! I think you’re not getting it. You are misunderstanding and misinterpreting, and I suspect that no amount of my communication to you will convince you otherwise.

I used to work at CTI (fmr Internet Operations manager and fmr Online Media managing editor) and know the leadership there quite well. I don’t think there’s a rub between CTI and Willow - they actually do a lot of work together and have some publishing partnerships. I think CTI tries to report the news as it sees it and maybe Willow hasn’t done a great job of positioning and explaining what the news is they’re generating.

For the most part, though, I think Hybels is being overly sensitive. I think what they’re doing, in terms of this study, is a great service to the Body and I hope to see it continue.

FWIW, here’s my take on the Reveal study:

What Willow Creek’s ‘Reveal’ study really tells us...

Regards,

Rich
BlogRodent

JOB,

You’re right. The NT, and specifically Acts, does indeed give us a great picture of how to behave as the church, adjusting their teachings even (under God’s guidance) to “accommodate” the Gentiles, cautioning us to guard against anyone who adds anything to God’s word and teachings and makes new and unnecessary rules (as in Galatians), teaching us what God’s grace means.

Even further back in the Old Testament we get the idea that Worship was to be a pretty visceral affair, with David dancing his heart out before the Ark of the Covenant and the Psalms exhorting us to give our all in Worship. Psalm 150 comes to mind, a picture of a real loud celebration to me, not unlike the one that we have every weekend in our church. Some of it is pretty undignified, and some of it is pretty loud. How many times does the Psalms exhort us to SHOUT for joy.

You see, I still think that at the heart of it, your issue with churches like mine is stylistic. You say it’s theological, but I’m not convinced it is. That’s why I think our conversation here about this is running out of steam.

I’ve had a busy day since I first posted, and it’s been busy on this thread too. 

You hyper-Calvinists are exhausting.  CS, you say:

[Assuming that the people who are “seeking” and going into churches are truly being drawn of God, why does there need to be a complete changing of the way that church is done to a “seeker-sensitive” model?]

To follow your thinking to its logical end, why do we need to do anything with regard to lost people?  The great commission really means that we should go and look for only those who are already found and then disciple those, because we have no part in evangelism.  Those drawn by the HS will eventually be found, regardless of what we do or fail to do.  We are irrelevant in the process.

Leonard explains it perfectly:

[I add this, there are many who are “seeking” something but not knowing who will truly satisfy the calamity caused by their own sinfulness.  They seek band aids when surgery is necessary.  They do this because they are blind, because they do not understand, because they cannot muster within themselves anything that answers the emptiness within a heart not surrendered to Christ.]

Some will make decisions and then later fall away . . . in every one of our churches (even though you refuse to admit this could possibly happen in your perfect churches). 

What on earth is the purpose of us trying to establish definitively whether the lost person is seeking Jesus . . . or seeking something to heal their pain . . . or not seeking anything but still woefully lost.  Jesus’ heart broke for these (whom we were all among at one time), and ours must break too.  What drives me crazy about this discussion is that you guys who rail against anything “seeker sensitive” don’t sound one bit broken up about the lost (perhaps seeking) people in your communities.  In fact, your words have a real tone of distain for the very people outside the walls of your church for whom Jesus died.

I read MMI because the content Todd gives us comes from leaders who [obviously] lay awake at night asking God to help them reach lost people.  These are the folks I want to learn from, since this is what kept Jesus awake at night.  It takes only a cursory glance at SOL or the other watchdog sites to realize that the content isn’t intended to help readers reach lost people.  So why bother?  And so I wonder, why do you guys bother to show up here.  You know what you’ll find and how we’ll respond.  What’s your purpose?

Wendi

Wendi,
I do not see anyone here espousing a hyper-calvinistic viewpoint. I am a calvinist as was Spurgeon, as was William Carey(father of modern missions), as was Jonathon Edwards to name a few. I fully support and engage in evangelism out into the world. I am commanded to share the Gospel. The rest is up to the Holy Spirit.

Much of what you see today in modern evangelism has its roots in Charles Finney who claimed many converts through “gimmicks” such as the anxious seat and such. He later lamented in his older years that he failed and the “converts” that he claimed where actually false converts and the area in which he evanglized in the Northeast was called the burned over district.

The main problems I have with the seeker sensitive model are:
1. The church worship service is designed around the lost. You hear this when churches implicitly state that they are a church for the unchurched or lost. This is not biblical. You have yet to see biblical support for this in this thread. Yes, we are to be aware that the lost may come to our worship services but we shouldnt “dumb down” or water down the message to make them feel more comfortable. If we truly care about the lost, then they should feel uncomfortable when they hear the gospel because the weight of their sin and hopefully the Holy Spirit will regenerate their hearts. That is my prayer. But too often many “seeker sensitive” churches just make the lost feel comfortable in their carnality.
2. The church today has produced biblically illiterate Christians that are woefully inept in areas of apologetics. Doctrine is seen as divisive and unnecessary, But yet we are told in 1 Peter 3:15 to be ready to give defense to anyone who ask of us what is the reason for the hope within us. You talk about evangelism but one can not evangelize what one does not know.
3. Gimmicks in the church. God doesnt need man’s gimmicks to call sinners to repentance. He doesnt need a pastor to be carried to the stage in a coffin. It doesnt honor God to play “Friends in Low Places” during a worship service. We think that God needs our cleverness and innovation to reach sinners. He doesnt. Preach the full counsel of the Gospel. Pragmatism is the order of the day and it doesnt honor God in the end.