The Downward Spiral of Seeker Sensitivity
Posted on 23. Feb, 2010 by Les Lanphere in The Church
What happens when the importance of numbers outweighs the importance of truth?
More money? More power? Becoming famous? Whatever the reason, some Church leaders decide to pull the punches and turn their Church into a comfortable atmosphere for unbelievers. This is a dangerously slippery slope. I will attempt to make the case that once you begin down the road of growth for the sake of growth, there is no turning back.
The Scenario
Your average, well meaning Church gains some popularity. The leadership might start looking for patterns for what works and doesn’t. What makes people come and what doesn’t. They might even start reading leadership books or studying marketing strategies. No doubt, in the beginning it feels innocent. When confronted with questions of their motives they are likely to answer, “We just want to reach this community for Christ. Let’s reach as many of the lost as possible.”
Soon, the call to make disciples through the body preaching the gospel, is replaced with a call from the pulpit to bring your unbelieving friends to Church. The focus begins to shift from feeding the flock to luring in new people. The purpose of the Church gathering gets redefined somewhere along the way. It is no longer a gathering of believers, but a repository for the lost to get saved. It may seem subtle, but the organization is no longer concerned with building up existing believers, but all the focus is on making new ones.
Either through trial and error, or through deliberate marketing, the language of the sermons begins to change. Talk of blood, sin, death, wrath, and repentance begins to fade away. The messages take on a flavor of advice. How to be a better husband, mother, employee or citizen are the topics that face the culture, and decidedly the issues the organization takes on. Some of the responsibilities of those serving begin to look like the tasks of a marketing team in a corporation. The original faithful flock begins to look around and notice something. The people that are filling the seats in are not Christians by any measure besides possibly claiming the name.
From pulpit to pews to outside Bible studies, doctrine and deep study are frowned upon. Jokes about going deep and talk of ‘dangerous doctrines’ begin to abound. The shallow teaching of the pulpit becomes the expected norm, anything outside it is labeled divisive. The organization takes a stand of neutrality on most topics to keep the numbers as high as possible, and to keep from offending the target market: unbelievers.
Before too long the subtle changes turn to blatant shifts. The management begins asking for money for future needs as they look forward to bigger buildings and bigger staff. In reality, they have no choice. The people who understand what it means to give money to the Kingdom are leaving. The growing audience of unbelievers doesn’t know what sacrificial giving means, so they must be convinced to donate. Promises of prosperity, through twisted Scripture, are the obvious next step. The poor donations of the ‘new converts’ and unbelievers just compounds the need for an even bigger audience to ask for contributions from.
The management and employees become committed to the growth, like stock holders in a corporation. The mentality becomes, ‘If the Church isn’t growing, it isn’t successful.’. At this point, there is no turning back.
Even if the higher ups planned to temporarily stave off the deep teaching until they had a large congregation, they’ll never be able to now. The true gospel hasn’t been preached in months or years, so the whole audience is unsaved and Biblical truth is alien to them. If the Pastor begins preaching the foolishness of Christ crucified at this point, the unsaved masses will turn away. They are trapped, unable to do the very thing that the unbelievers loved them for leaving out. The organization is big BECAUSE it wasn’t preaching the offense of the gospel, and now it never can.
Eventually the organization as a whole is entirely bankrupt of any meaningful truth about God. The audience has full bellies of entertainment and a sentimental God, and the sheep are starving to death. As uncompromising believers leave, they’re mocked on the way out. The mentality becomes unashamedly ‘us against them’.
The future of this “church” is inevitable. The purpose and direction will continue to conform to the unbelieving majority, because any real truth will push the audience away. The organization got what it wanted: numbers -a huge mass of nominal Christians.
Some leadership in churches like this may very well desire to turn things around, but against the overbearing stream, their concerns fall on deaf ears. (Note: If anyone thinks that ‘teaching through the Bible’ somehow intrinsically avoids this trend, don’t be fooled. Like anyone else, an expository teacher can teach whatever he wants. Biblical truths can be avoided, twisted, and mocked verse-by-verse, just as easily as by never opening the Bible at all.)
What Do We Do?
If you are in a Church like this, or you know of one that is falling into this hopeless pattern, pray to God for restoration. He is the only hope. The flesh will never repent of this greed, only through the Spirit can God wake this kind of Church up.
Let’s love our brothers who may have made mistakes. Let’s sympathize with their good intentions. Let’s point out their error in love, and call them to repentance in gentleness. With man it is impossible, but with God all things are possible.
Jay Miklovic @yfmumc
Feb 23rd, 2010
very well put… very very well put… even very small church pastors would do well to read this.
Size is not the problem… means of growth is the issue.
Good job.
K. Tanner
Feb 23rd, 2010
It’s obviously not the large church that’s the problem. Its the gathering of a large group of people who are called a church, claiming or thinking they are Christians not being taught Christ crucified therefore not knowing Christ crucified.
Solid words brother.
Les Lanphere
Feb 23rd, 2010
Jay and Tanner… Exactly.
Marsha
Feb 23rd, 2010
Been there done that left the church to find one that didn’t.
blendahtom
Feb 23rd, 2010
The bigger problem is “American Christendom” promotes this type of ministry as “The Model” .. which is really scary!
Andrew
Feb 23rd, 2010
Very well put. Its interesting to study the NT church shown in the Bible. The church is the fellowship of believers, not a building, nor a haven for unsaved persons with guilty consciences. According to Acts 1:14 and 2:42-46, the believers (NOTE: not the world, not the unrepentant) were together in fellowship, eating, praying, communion, and studying the apostles doctrine. They came together to encourage each other. At times, they even had a common purse and helped to meet each other’s needs (2:45). They hung out with each other at each other’s homes and truly had a “spiritual family”… for some this replaced their physical family as they were rejected and cast out for their beliefs… for others this was a spiritual extension of their physical families. But in all cases, the gathering of the churches was a gathering of like-minded BELIEVERS there to study the Word, seek God, and support and encourage each other. It was in this environment that the Holy Spirit came upon them. And it was from this environment that they went OUT to the unsaved world. There is no record of them inviting unbelievers IN to their fellowships for “what fellowship has light with darkness”. Rather they left the fellowship of the believers to go out into the world of the unbelievers and tell people about Christ. As some of these people received salvation, they joined their fellowships and “the Lord added to the church daily those who were saved” (Acts 2:47).
The Biblical example is a HUGE contrast to the many churches around us that you describe… those that seek to fill the pews with the unsaved. Its a very sad statistic that the divorce rate in the world is the same as in “the church”. But is it any wonder when we consider that the church has ceased to be a body of believers and has become a place where the unsaved can hang out with “good people” in a vain attempt to assuage their consciences? There comes a time when a church needs to realize they’ve become nothing but an organization and they need to heed the call of Rev 2:5 and “… repent and do thy first works”.
Andrew
Feb 23rd, 2010
Another thought… even a few well-meaning churches are guilty of this at the holidays. I know more than one church that aren’t seeker-friendly at all, but every year at Easter and Christmas they don’t just expect the “holiday Christians” to come, they add extra services to accommodate them and they encourage their congregation to invite them, sometimes going so far as to print fliers, etc. (I’ve always wondered… why not just disciple your congregation and train them to be witnesses and disciples, then just encourage them to witness to their friends and co-workers regardless of the time of the year?) Then they put on holiday “productions” to entertain them. And sadly, many of these churches that are trying to take advantage of the guilty consciences that are drawing people at the holidays will end up giving them a fairly watered down message. If you’re going to entice them with fliers and “productions” and add services and have people invite them, at least tell them the truth, boldly, about the problem of sin and the cure through the shed blood of Jesus Christ on the Cross.
Kirate
Feb 23rd, 2010
I wonder if and when the modern seeker sensitive church became enslaved to mammon, or was there heart corrupt from the mere fact that they were never regenerated, and fell privy to there own false belief. It terrifies me when I speak to attendees of these churches, (dare I say new believers)and attempt to talk to them about the glory of God and in response they look at me as a radical lunatic. It is as if I have offended them by over-crossing their comfort zone. It is even more horrifying when these uneducated, clueless (New converts? attenders? goats?) are not being taught Christianity 101, or that even in their own hungry regenerated self asking for these teachings. That is where the real concern lies, because now you have deceived these people to think that they are safe by signing the card, and yet clearly they could care less about Gods word. People that are born again (regenerated) hunger for Gods word. They do not settle for a Tony Roberts motivational forum with some bible text thrown in. I am so saddened, because in the town I live in this is happening right now. People that are attending this church that does not raise up disciples, does not teach doctrine(they say doctrine is divisive), they are planting a another site and trying to fill up the pews. Also they are making new believers and unsaved people take financial courses, and have removed all of the biblical studies and ministries, so that they could learn how to give to this monster that has been created. Poor deceived poeple.. They do not even know the Lord and they are being thrown into this chaotic whirlwind.. Lord I pray that you will call the offenders of the decieved and of your babies to a full blown repentance, and remove their fear and pride from them.
Lynn
Feb 23rd, 2010
This article and comments are so on point. It is heartbreaking to say the least that our Western form of Christianty has morphed itself into something so far from what the biblical account in Acts tells us it should be, as Andrew said. We need to pray for the pastors and leaders of these “churches” that they see their errors and repent and began preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ, which is the only thing that can save men’s souls. We need to pray for revival in the lives of the Christians that sit in these churches that they will no longer sit and allow their consciences to be compromised but demand that the pastors get back on the bibical page.
K. Tanner
Feb 23rd, 2010
We need a new reformation day/
It’s a sign of the times/
The truth is being trampled in a new age paradigm/
Won’t you lift up your voice/
Are you tired of playing religion it’s time to make some noise/
POUNDING ON WITTENBERG’S DOOR!
Krav Kid
Feb 23rd, 2010
Wow brother! Well done! I am going to print it out and nail it to their doors in hopes of restoration.
SJ Camp
Feb 24th, 2010
Les:
Excellent article. People forget that “what you win them with is what you win them to.” If it’s a watered-down gospel you “win them with” then it will be a watered-down gospel you “win them to.”
Charles Spurgeon, during the Downgrade Controversy of the late 19th Century, faced this same theological syncretism in London. Important to note, that the shift didn’t come as a theological mooring, but a methodological change; adopting worldly methods to attract nonbelievers to worship. But once the methodological system was adopted, then they had to develop a theological grid to justify it.
That is what has happened again in our day: pragmatism trumps precept.
The good news: Spurgeon was vindicated. Almost every mainline denomination in America and England fell prey to abject liberalism over the next 100 years through the end of the 20th Century.
Only heaven sent revival and reformation can correct the church back to doctrinal purity and gospel fidelity. May it be in our day!
Keep on my brother. I appreciate you work for the glory of Christ and His Truth.
The Cross is a Radical Thing,
Pastor Steve Camp
The Cross Church
2 Cor. 4:5-7
Les Lanphere
Feb 25th, 2010
Great comments. Thanks everyone. Thank God that He’s in control!
Pete
Mar 9th, 2010
The late Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones had a very balanced view of the pulpit that included both a ministry to believers and unbelievers. In the book “Preaching and Preachers” (a transcribed series of sermons he preached at Westminster chapel), he very persuasively makes the case that every church ought to have at least one evangelistic service each week. He covers his reasons for this in chapter 8, “The Character of the Message”. I strongly urge any who read this to read that book in it’s entirety, but with regards to this post, especially that chapter. These evangelistic services are services that are not “seeker-friendly”, but that declare the Good News of Jesus Christ with an awareness that some in the mixed multitude have not come into a saving relationship with Him, and are lost in their sin. Far from being for unbelievers only, Lloyd-Jones writes, “If a man can listen to such a sermon without being touched or moved I take leave to query whether he is a christian at all. It is inconceivable to me that a man who is a true believer can listen to a presentation of the exceeding sinfulness of sin and the glory of the Gospel, without being moved in two ways. One is to feel for a while, in view of what he knows about the plague of his own heart, tha perhaps he is not a Christian at all; and, then, to rejoice in the glorious Gospel remedy which gives him deliverance.”
Lloyd-Jones believed that the church visible, that is local assemblies, were just that, people assembled together. Obviously, he recognized that there is One, True, Invisible Church that is the body of Christ. But practically, within assemblies there is a mix. Lloyd-Jones was saying that the gospel needed to preached uncompromisingly once a week for the benefit of both believers and for unbelievers (He did this at a Sunday evening service each week, and specifically and often told the congregation that this was the purpose of this service, exhorting all to come). The rest of the week was primarily for building up the saints through expository preaching of the Word.
Another quick note. It is true that even in “expository” preaching things can be twisted. True expository preaching, however, does balance things out. The keys are a commitment to truth (exegesis), faithfulness to continue to go verse-by-verse (and not to frequently go off topic), and making sure to keep the big picture in mind (teaching the Bible, not just teaching from the Bible). Much love in Christ.
Tanner
Mar 11th, 2010
Pete,
I believe you are a little off base here. This article does not pose the argument of evangelistic services vs non evangelistic services. One should preach as if believers and unbelievers are present in the congregation. If you preach as if they are there they will be there.
If you read carefully Les is not associating ‘the good news’ with seeker friendly. He is condemning churches that exalt growth in attendance over Christ crucified.
We must remember that the gospel offends, no one preaches the gospel in order to be more popular. We preach the gospel in order that MEN WOULD BE SAVED. When expounding Christ in EVERY TEXT of the bible gets put on the back burner for the things that are marketeting savy, thats when a church is in a downward spiral.
We must remember that Christ has called us to make disciples, not converts.
A body of people meeting at a Church and not being saved and sanctified by the Gospel is nothing more than a motivational conference.