Though it may be tough for some to read, it is spot on as to its evaluation of the seeker friendly movement. As some icing on the cake to verify this article refer to my blog article on Bill Hybels whose church, Willow Creek has been a leader in the seeker-friendly initiative. In a blog article I posted sometime ago, Bill Hybels says this model in essence has not worked and it was the biggest wake up call of his adult life.
1.) It assumes that unsaved people are a good judge of their own Spiritual needs. We have twice examined the marketing questionnaires used by church growth pundits, and they are clearly a promise to give the "unchurched customer" what he wants. The result is that the world begins to influence (and even dictate) to the church how to operate in regards to worship, preaching, and evangelism. What the "unchurched" person needs is not a church that makes him feel comfortable, convenient, or fulfilled. What he needs is to be born again, and that information cannot be obtained by marketing research.
"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?" (Jeremiah 17:9)
2.) It assumes that the unsaved are seeking God. It overinflates human nature and treats the unchurched like “customers” as opposed to Satan’s slaves. Therefore, if we just use the right method, or appeal to the sinner in just the right fashion, we can get them to our church. We even promise them "a better life" or some sort of temporal fulfillment in order to get them to come. What is the problem?
"And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil." (John 3:19)
"The LORD looks down from heaven on the children of man, to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God. They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one." (Psalms 14:2-3)
"as it is written: "None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God." (Romans 3:10-11)
Depite protests to the contrary, these scriptures are very clear. No one seeks God. The unbeliever may be seeking a god. He may be seeking some cosmic force or spiritual guide to help him through the difficulties of life, but he does not desire the true God, because his deeds are evil.
This flies right in the face of the popular teaching of our day, which suggests that each person has a "God shaped void" in their souls, and that the reason they sin is because they are trying to fill this void with the wrong things, like drugs and sex. I recently had a Christian lady, speaking of a lost person bound in iniquity, suggest that "this person is crying for help but doesn't know it". With all due respect, this is pure psychobabble. It doesn't even make any sense. What the sinner needs isn't "help" to fill some mystical "God shaped void", but rather new life. Only God can give this, and he has ordained the foolishness of preaching to bring this about.
"Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God." (John 3:3)
3.) It mistakes "decisions for Christ" for true conversion and "church involvement" with discipleship. Simply making a superficial "decision for Christ" does nothing of eternal value. Christ will never taste sweet to an unbeliever until he has been exposed to the bitterness of his sin and the terror of God's wrath. While the raisings of hands and the racings to altars may spark jubilance among the church growth crowd, Charles Spurgeon's message regarding such is right on the money.
"If the professed convert distinctly and deliberately declares that he knows the Lord's will but does not mean to attend to it, you are not to pamper his presumption, but it is your duty to assure him that he is not saved. Do you imagine that the Gospel is magnified or God glorified by going to the worldlings and telling them that they may be saved at this moment by simply accepting Christ as their Saviour, while they are wedded to their idols and their hearts are still in love with sin? If I do so, I tell them a lie, pervert the Gospel, insult Christ, and turn the grace of God into lasciviousness."
4.) It holds that sabbath Worship is for the purpose of reaching the lost, as opposed to worshipping God. As I stated in the title of the post that sparked this discussion, Worship is for Christians Only. Worship in and of itself is not an evangelism tool that should be reshaped and catered to the desires of the unchurched. Worship is an act of God's people giving thanks and glory to Him alone. God may indeed use Biblical worship to convert the lost, but that is not it's primary purpose. Furthermore, repentance and confession of sin are preconditions to worship, and should always be included in the worship service.
"Bring no more vain offerings; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations-- I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly." (Isaiah 1:13)
5.) It confuses "contextualizing" the gospel with changing it, the former being an attempt to make it understandable in a given culture, and the latter being an attempt to satisfy itching ears. The real problem isn't the fact that Christians are engaging non-Christians or having dialogue with them. It is what is being discussed that is the problem. Marketing can only work if the seller has a product that the comsumer wants. Therefore, the truth of the gospel (which is an offense) must be altered. This is particularly true of our self-absorbed, postmodern culture. The majority of church ads today focus on the fact that the messages are "positive and uplifting". Thus the difficult parts of Christianity are either sugar-coated (ie. Hell means you won't be with God), or totally ignored. The words "Sin", "Hell" and "Repent" are slowly being removed from the church lexicon and are being replaced by phrases such as "sinful habits", "felt needs", and "purpose". Thus Jesus Christ is rarely presented as a Savior who can redeem from sins and God's wrath, but rather as a therapist who can meet your "felt needs" and help you fulfill your purpose. Despite objections to the contrary, the message has clearly changed.
6.) It equates numeric growth with church health and vitality. (In fact, more often then not, the reverse is true.) I was castigated in a recent post by suggesting that the masses being reached by the church growth movement are the results of superficial evangelism, while very little true conversion is taking place. In contrast, the church marketing proponents are pushing the fact that these crowds are evidence of "bearing fruit", but are they really? (We've already seen evidence to the contrary above.)
The hands-down champion of this methodology is Bill Bright. CBN.com reports that "...139 million people around the globe know Jesus Christ as their Savior because of his ministry, Campus Crusade for Christ International". Still, he has much work to do, as he has set his goal at 1 Billion. (With just 6 Bill Bright's we can finish up the Great Commission in a very short time.) A distant second is the singer Carman, who has "seen well over one million concert salvations". Similar reports are coming in from all over, but with much more modest numbers. "LivePrayer.com ... finished up its 64th month online at the end of 2004 with 100,000 reported decisions for Christ." The military is also being turned upside down as "Chaplains affiliated with the Assemblies of God led a record number of people to salvation in Jesus Christ last year: 38,992. The total significantly exceeds the 27,498 salvations of 2003." In another event, "More Than 59,000 Make Decisions For Christ During Louisiana Campaign".
Does anyone really believe these incredible numbers? If only a small portion of these were true converts, the culture would look much different than it does.
7.) It focuses almost entirely on evangelism, while ignoring the more important duties of the church such as worshipping God, feeding the sheep, holding fast to sound doctrine, and church discipline.
This is my own example from Pilgrim in a Foreign Land that will support this point.
These, particularly the last one, are almost totally ignored. Instead, we feed goat food to goats in the hope that they will magically become sheep. Meanwhile the sheep are starving. Bible illiteracy is at an all time high, and as we can see by the Barna Research above, many of our "Born Again Christians" don't know enough about what they believe to be Christians. Those who reject the Doctrine of Hell, for example, have no business being named among the redeemed. This is due to the fact that just about everything in the "church growth" church is focused on the "unchurched", with one goal, to make sure that more people attend next week's service than last week's.
The church growth movement defends it's marketing methodology because it seems to be "bearing fruit", but is it really doing so? Are we really bringing people into the kingdom with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, or are we merely bringing them into the church pew with entertainment and therapy? That is a question that must be asked, though it is sure to invoke the ire of those in the church marketing crowd. Maybe they know they won't like the answer.
