The Downward Spiral of Seeker Sensitivity
Posted on 23. Feb, 2010 by Les 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 what doesn’t. They start noting makes people come and what turns others away. 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.
Scott Diekmann
Feb 23rd, 2010
You nailed it Les!
Joshua
Feb 24th, 2010
This is amazingly accurate, and I’ve been to a church where this has sadly happened. The pastor actually yelled at people for not bringing people to the church and said, in effect, “it’s good to spend time with God for X amount of hours, but if you don’t share it with anyone it’s worthless,” which is true to a point. The last I heard, the pastors were asking for funds to do some kind of church reality show. It’s a somewhat dubious claim, but judging from the church’s current state it wouldn’t surprise me. My only disagreement here is in saying a seeker-sensitive church is “no longer a gathering of believers, but a repository for the lost to get saved.” I don’t believe it’s an “either/or” situation, but that the church should be a place for feeding the sheep and recovering the one lost sheep described by Jesus in His parables. It is a dual-obligation.
Lubee
Mar 1st, 2010
“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’.” …………..Dang Les. Such strong usage of reality against itself. This church methodology is self destructive. I agree with Josh too. And you. Praise God for truth and that it breaks falsehood.
molloaggie
Mar 18th, 2010
Just finished listening to your interview on Issues, etc. Your article is very insiteful.
Christina Ketchum
Mar 19th, 2010
You got me thinking here Les. BTW, your web design is super cool! I am glad to see your writing is just as remarkable.
Bruce
May 19th, 2010
This is amazingly accurate, and I’ve been to a church where this has sadly happened. The pastor actually yelled at people for not bringing people to the church and said, in effect, “it’s good to spend time with God for X amount of hours, but if you don’t share it with anyone it’s worthless,” which is true to a point. The last I heard, the pastors were asking for funds to do some kind of church reality show. It’s a somewhat dubious claim, but judging from the church’s current state it wouldn’t surprise me. My only disagreement here is in saying a seeker-sensitive church is “no longer a gathering of believers, but a repository for the lost to get saved.” I don’t believe it’s an “either/or” situation, but that the church should be a place for feeding the sheep and recovering the one lost sheep described by Jesus in His parables. It is a dual-obligation.
Cory D. Jones
Jun 25th, 2010
I have written on this subject before… Actually, I once wrote a nine page paper on the Christian character of a man who runs one of the biggest seeker-sensitive churches in America. I will let you guess who I’m writing about (it’s pretty easy). Here are some clips… We’ll call him Zach.
- I stand in awe at the amount of power Zach wields, hiding behind his pulpit that stands upon false premises, preaching a doctrine that says, “God has not spoken definitively, telling us exactly what to believe. In fact, God does not care what we believe. God does not care about His own glory; He merely wants us to be happy in our sin.”
- Zach may be a great motivational speaker, but in my opinion, as a leader of a church of God, he miserably fails the “above reproach as God’s steward” test. His marketing-driven, motivational speaking tickles the ears of the not-really-convicted-of-sin, drawing the self-serving seekers into his ‘church’, and sending them home with nothing more than pseudo-salvation.
- “Sell everything you have… and follow me,” Jesus told the rich young ruler. What would Zach do in that situation? Would he give up his 47,000+ congregation, book deals, fame and fortune, and follow Jesus? Or would he autograph a book, smile, and give it to Jesus saying, “This will make you a better person.”
Sound familiar? I end by comparing this particular preacher to 2 Timothy 4:3,4… It’s downright CREEPY how they match up!!
Les, I’d love to have you read it. I’d love to send it to you if you have an e-mail addy.
Great post!
Evan
Jul 18th, 2010
Les. Love it. I have finally found a small church that began from sheep congregating in search of the Truth; sheep that had gone to churches like the ones you mention in this post. If you click on my name, you’ll find a post I wrote after pretty much calling it quits almost a year ago. Be blessed, brutha!
Britni Jaynes
Aug 13th, 2010
loved this blog!