I agree with your post. I have served in different churches for over 15 years and the church that I found most effective in bringing people into the kingdom is a seeker targeted church (the church where I have served for the past 8 years).
I see how my church uses different elements (drama’s, secular music, video clips and worship music) to spark an emotion in the congregation therefore opening the door for the pastor message about hope and salvation. I am the executive producer for my church and have heard many stories how moving our services where and how they give hope to the broken.
People come to our church because it is a safe place to hear a dangerous message, a message about salvation.
Yes we use a lot of elements that a lot of churches don’t use but our church has grown from 30 people eight years ago to over 500 today.
In my humble and faithful opinion — God is powerful enough to use anything to build his kingdom.
Brother, if those numbers represent, not just more buns in the pews, but more souls in the Kingdom, then I'd say you've just given a great example of a "good tree" demonstrating it's goodness by bearing "good fruit".
I expressed to a friend via email, today, my amazement that, in the wake of God's manifest desire to replace the Law and legalism with His love and grace, vis a vis sending His only Son, Jesus, to pay the price for the sin of the universe, so many Christians are STILL completely bound up in the very legalistic attitudes that Jesus dies to free them from.
It's almost as if Jesus death was, for them, of only minor effect. Yeah, they've been brought from eternal death to eternal life, but they've retained all of the judgmentalism and legalism of those who are still living under the Law. What; was the cross nothing more than "fire insurance"??
It really blows my mind, and it grieves the heart of God to see His redeemed ones making so little of the salvation for which He made The Supreme, and Most Holy sacrifice.