Replies

Maybe you need to find a church who's only gimmick is the preaching of God's word.
= = =

What a straw dog.

EVERY church I've ever been in of all varieties has had a method, feature, emphasis--whatever one wants to call it along those lines--that made them distinctive or attempted to make them distinctive from the unwashed worse congregations outside THEIR walls.

Often times the dictinctions were brazen and loudly proclaimed. Sometimes they were subtle but ruthlessly rigid and exclusionary, cliquish.

And probably 70-90% of those churches would claim to

ONLY BE TEACHING GOD'S WORD pure and unadulterated.

Hogwash.

All preachers are human. All put their spin on it. ALL THEIR SPIN IS NOT PURE. In 60 years, I've NEVER seen a 100% pure preacher put 100% Holy Spirit spin on plain teaching of Scripture.

Some are worse than others. But all are human.

I find the assertion a huge straw dog to the point of absurdity and a phoney declaration.

EVERY church I've ever been in of all varieties has had a method, feature, emphasis...

We have some dear friends who started their own church. These friends are very vocal about their dislike for anything seeker sensitive or purpose driven. Our dear friends pride themselves on teaching meat to their local body and refuse to offer anything watered down, seeker sensitive or purpose driven.

We recently visited their church and enjoyed visiting with our friends. Then they asked us some very interesting questions. They asked us what our church does to attract new members. Unfortunately their church isn't growing but they really want to attract new members. We mentioned some of the outreach our church does, we talked about the music, the messages and pointed them to our church website where they can hear previous Sunday messages.

As it turns out, our dear friends who are very vocal about their dislike for all things seeker sensitive and purpose driven, are now seeking gimmicks, techniques, methods, features, emphasis, etc. to attract new members to grow their local body of believers.

They now want unbelievers at their Sunday morning worship services and are looking for additional ways to attract the unchurched. We think that's great and encourage them all the more.