The Seeker-Friendly Way of Doing Church

The “seeker-friendly,” or “seeker-sensitive,” movement currently taking a host of evangelical churches by storm is an approach to evangelizing through application of the latest marketing techniques. Typically, it begins with a survey of the lost (referred to by a leading church in this trend as the “unchurched,” or “unchurched Harry and Mary”). This survey questions the unchurched about the things their nearby place of worship might offer that would motivate them to attend. Results of the questionnaire indicate areas of potential changes in the church’s operations and services that would be effective in order to attract the unchurched, keep them attending, and win them to Christ. Those who have developed this marketing approach guarantee the growth of the churches that conscientiously follow their proven methods. Practically speaking, it works!

Two churches are seen as models for this movement: Willow Creek Community Church (near Chicago), pastored by Bill Hybels, and Saddleback Valley Community Church (south of Los Angeles), pastored by Rick Warren. Their influence is stunning. Willow Creek has formed its own association of churches, with 9,500 members. Last year, 100,000 church leaders attended at least one Willow Creek leadership conference. More than 250,000 pastors and church leaders from over 125 countries have attended Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven Church seminars. More than 60,000 pastors subscribe to his weekly email newsletter.

We visited Willow Creek Community Church not too long ago, and it seems to have spared no expense in its mission to attract the masses. Looking past the swans gliding across a mirror lake, one sees what could be mistaken for a corporate headquarters or a very upscale shopping mall. Just off the sanctuary is a large bookstore and an extensive eating area supplied by a food court with five different vendors. A jumbotron screen allows an overflow crowd or those enjoying a meal to view the proceedings in the main sanctuary. The sanctuary itself is spacious and high tech, complete with three large screens and state-of-the-art sound and lighting systems for multimedia, drama, and musical presentations.

While impressive, Willow Creek is not unique among mega-churches with a reach-the-lost-through-whatever-turns-them-on mindset. Mega-churches across the country have added bowling alleys, NBA regulation basketball courts with bleachers, exercise gyms and spas, locker rooms, auditoriums for concerts and dramatic productions, and Starbucks and McDonald’s franchises—all for the furtherance of the gospel. Or so it is claimed. Although it’s true that such churches are packing them in, that’s not the whole story in evaluating the success of this latest trend in “doing church.”

The stated goal of seeker-friendly churches is reaching the lost. Though biblical and praiseworthy, the same cannot be said for the methods used in attempting to achieve that goal. Let’s begin with marketing as a tactic for reaching the lost. Fundamentally, marketing has to do with profiling consumers, ascertaining what their “felt needs” are, and then fashioning one’s product (or its image) to appeal to the targeted customer’s desires. The hoped-for result is that the consumer buys or “buys into” the product. George Barna, whom Christianity Today calls “the church’s guru of growth,” claims that such an approach is essential for the church in our market-driven society. Evangelical church-growth leaders are adamant that the marketing approach can be applied–and they have employed it–without compromising the gospel. Really?

First of all, the gospel and, more significantly, the person of Jesus Christ do not fit into any marketing strategy. They are not “products” to be “sold.” They cannot be refashioned or image-adjusted to appeal to the felt needs of our consumer-happy culture. Any attempt to do so compromises to some degree the truth of who Christ is and what He has done for us. For example, if the lost are considered consumers and a basic marketing “commandment” says that the customer must reign supreme, then whatever may be offensive to the lost must be discarded, revamped, or downplayed. Scripture tells us clearly that the message of the Cross is “foolishness to them that are perishing” and that Christ himself is a “rock of offense” (1 Cor:1:18 ; 1 Pt 2:8). Some seeker-friendly churches, therefore, seek to avoid this “negative aspect” by making the temporal benefits of becoming a Christian their chief selling point. Although that appeals to our gratification-oriented generation, it is neither the gospel nor the goal of a believer’s life in Christ.

Secondly, if you want to attract the lost on the basis of what might interest them, for the most part you will be appealing to and accommodating their flesh. Wittingly or unwittingly, that seems to be the standard operating procedure of seeker-friendly churches. They mimic what’s popular in our culture: top-forty and performance-style music, theatrical productions, stimulating multi-media presentations, and thirty-minutes-or-less positive messages. The latter, more often than not, are topical, therapeutic, and centered in self-fulfillment–how the Lord can meet one’s needs and help solve one’s problems.

Those concerns may be lost on increasing numbers of evangelical pastors but, ironically, not on some secular observers. In his perceptive book This Little Church Went to Market, Pastor Gary Gilley notes that the professional marketing journal American Demographics recognizes that people are

There’s another item that many pastors seem to be missing in their excitement over “growing your church through attracting the lost.” Although numbers seem to rule in this seeker-friendly mania (an amazing 841 churches in this country have reached the “mega” category, with 2,000 to 25,000 weekend attendees), few have realized that the sizeable increase in church attendance is not due to the influx of the unchurched. During the last 70 years, the percentage of this country’s population attending church has been relatively constant at about 43 percent. A spike of 49 percent in 1991 (years prior to today’s initial seeker-sensitive enthusiasm) gradually declined, returning to 42 percent in 2002 (www.barna.org). From where, then, do those mega-churches, which have outfitted themselves to accommodate the unchurched, get their members? Mostly from smaller churches that aren’t interested in or that can’t afford the fleshly attractions. And what of the supposed horde of unchurched Harrys and Marys who have been assembled? They constitute a very small part of mega-church congregations. During his year of researching Willow Creek, G. A. Pritchard, in his book Willow Creek Seeker Services (Baker Book House, 1996), estimated that the targeted unchurched made up only between 10 and 15 percent of the 16,000 or so who attended weekend services!

If this percentage is typical among seeker-friendly churches, which likely is the case, a rather disturbing situation has developed. Thousands of churches here and abroad have completely restructured themselves as outreach centers for the unchurched. This, by the way, is not biblical. The church is for the maturing and equipping of the saints, who then go out to reach the lost. Nevertheless, seeker-sensitive churches have turned to entertainment and conveniences in order to attract Harry and Mary and make them feel comfortable in their new church environment. In order to keep them coming back, they have avoided the thorough teaching of Scripture in favor of positive, uplifting messages designed to make them feel good about themselves. As unchurched Harry and Mary continue to attend, they get only a vague hint of biblical truth that might bring conviction of sin and true repentance. Worse yet, they get a psychologized view of themselves that undermines that truth. However, as grievous as that situation is, it doesn’t end there.

The vast majority of those who attend seeker-friendly fellowships profess to be believers. Yet most were drawn to those churches by the same worldly allurements that were meant to entice the unchurched, and they continue to attend, being fed the same biblically anemic diet created for the wooing of unbelievers. At best, they receive the skimmed milk of the Word; at worst, pablum contaminated with “profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called” (1 Tim:6:20). Certainly a church can grow numerically on that basis, but not spiritually. Furthermore, there is no opportunity for believers to mature in the faith in such an environment. In defense of seeker-sensitive churches, some have argued that mid-week services are set apart for discipleship and getting into the meat of Scriptures. If that indeed is the case, it’s a rare exception rather than the rule.

As we’ve noted, most seeker-friendly churches focus much of their time, energy, and resources on accommodating unchurched Harry and Mary. Consequently, week after week, the entire congregation is subjected to a diluted and leavened message. Then, on Wednesday evening, when a fellowship is usually reduced to quarter or a third of its normal size, would it be reasonable to assume that this remnant is served a nourishing meal featuring the meat of the Word, expositional teaching, and an emphasis on sound doctrine and discipleship? Hardly. We’ve yet to find a seeker-friendly church where that takes place. The spiritual meals offered at mid-week services are usually support group meetings and classes for discerning one’s spiritual gifts or going through the latest psycho-babble-ized “Christian” bestseller such as Wild at Heart rather than the study of the Scriptures.

Perhaps the most insidious aspect of the seeker-friendly approach to doing church is an attempt to impress the unchurched by looking to and quoting those regarded as the experts in solving all their mental, emotional, and behavioral problems: psychiatrists and psychologists. Nothing in the history of the church has undermined the truth of the sufficiency of God’s Word for “all things that pertain unto life and godliness” (2 Pt 1:3) more than the introduction of the pseudo-science of psychotherapy. Its thousands of concepts and hundreds of methodologies are unproven, contradictory, unscientific, and thoroughly unbiblical, as we’ve documented in our books and in previous articles. Pritchard observed that at Willow Creek “Hybels not only teaches psychological principles, but often uses the psychological principles as interpretive guides for his exegesis of Scripture....King David had an identity crisis, the apostle Paul encouraged Timothy to do self-analysis, and Peter had a problem with boundary issues. The point is, psychological principles are regularly built into Hybels’ teaching” (p. 156).

During my own visit to Willow Creek, Pastor Hybels gave a message that began with Scripture and addressed the problems that result when people lie. However, he mustered his chief support regarding the harmful consequences of lying from psychiatrist M. Scott Peck, the author of The Road Less Traveled (Simon & Schuster, 1978), who declared in that book (pp. 269-70), “God wants us to become Himself (or Herself or Itself)”!

Saddleback Community Church like-wise is entrenched in the psychotherapeutic. Although claiming to be Christ-centered rather than psychological, it has one of the largest conglomerations of Alcoholics Anonymous-based 12-Step recovery programs in the country. The church sponsors more than a dozen support groups, such as Adult Children of Chemically Addicted, Codependency, Co-Addicted Women in a Relationship with Sexually Addicted Men, Eating Disorders, and so forth. Each group is normally led by someone “in recovery” from the “addiction,” and the resource materials for understanding the “disorder” include books mostly authored by psychiatrists and psychologists (www.celebraterecovery.com). Although “in denial” about his use of “pop psychology,” much of it permeates Rick Warren’s work, including his seven-million bestseller, The Purpose Driven Life, which is largely about self-fulfillment, promotes Celebrate Recovery, and is sprinkled with psych references such as “Samson was co-dependent” (p. 233).

The overriding message from psychologically driven Willow Creek and Saddleback is that the Word of God and the power of the Holy Spirit are insufficient for delivering a person from a habitual sin and for transforming his or her life into one that is fruitful and pleasing to God. Again, what these churches say and do is exported to hundreds of thousands of church leaders around the world. TBC

When I think of “seeker friendly” as a label for a movement, I see one thing. And it’s a thing I’m not really a fan of.

When I see the words as simply their definition, I see it as a very good thing. Jesus was friendly to all seekers. He even healed quite a few. As were the apostles. But they didn’t put up with nonsense.

I see those that are really against the whole concept of “seeker friendly” sometimes as seeing it almost as a “even if it’s a miserable experience, if you are not going to church, your salvation is in question” type of attitude.

Having been in a southern gospel band in rural Kentucky for a couple of years, I’ve come across a LOT of small churches that, for me, present a miserable church experience. In fact, I commented to someone in the band about the message from a pastor that was not even prepared. He just rambled. Their response, and I kid you not, is that when a pastor prepares his sermon, it is from him, but when he just shows up and lets the spirit lead him, it is from God.

Just wow. And the latter resulted in an insult and utter lack of respect for the time of the people sitting in the pews. I honestly sometimes wondered if they were their “putting in their time” just in case that hell thing is real and they’re just “hedging their bets” on eternity.

It was a very sad situation in a lot of these churches. At least that was my perception.

But he was not accommodating to all seekers. He never conformed to the world to obtain its allegiance.

Yep. That’s why I said they, and he, didn’t put up with nonsense.

Thing is, we shouldn’t conform to the world but, at the same time, should not expect the world to listen to a single word we say when we have nothing to offer but a miserable church experience that is completely out of touch with their culture. Jesus and the apostles worked within the culture of the day, as long as it didn’t violate God’s and our holiness (separateness).

Of all the non-denominational seeker-oriented churches, large and small, that my wife and I tried back home in Texas and here in Florida, all of them were too "clique-ish". There was always an inside group that made everyone outside feel like, well, outsiders.

Also, I felt they were a little too light in the gospel. The preacher told feel good stories to uplift you, but did not get much into the Biblical references they used to anchor their sermons.

My wife now attends a "small" mega-church in Ocala and volunteers as a greeter. I prefer to stay home and study the Bible on my own.

YMMV...

Jesus called a pagan woman beseeching His help for her demon-possessed daughter a “dog.” He wasn’t very accommodating to the rich young ruler who wanted to follow. He culled his followers regularly with hard teaching.

What “friendliness” would you be referring to?

Had a pastor years ago make this statement regarding reaching the “unchurched”:

“What you win them with is what you win them to.”

We are a small church that has struggled to maintain our membership. But we faithfully serve the community by aiding the needy, running a knapsack program through a local elementary school to give families food for their children to eat over the weekends during school, operating an after-school program on Wednesday afternoon where they are fed and fellowship, and finally, just preaching the Gospel message . . . as Paul put it, preaching Christ crucified . . . done so in a rational, dignified way. We also provide meaningful support fpr a mission effort of 6 ministers and churches in Haiti.

We don’t have praise bands, but we sing meaning-rich, quality music. We don’t have bowling alleys, but we do have outdoor volleyball and basketball courts and a small fenced playground for younger kids.

We do all that with an active membership of just over 100. If that approach does not result in a healthy congregation and growth that sustains our church, so be it. We just try to be faithful real mission of the church. Right now our church is solid and very healthy financially, but it is aging quickly. I do not expect a strong congregation ten years from now.

Excellent article.

“For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first-born among many brethren; and whom He predestined, these He also called; and whom He called, these he also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.”

Romans 8:29-30

[Past tense in God’s mind—this has been done.]

True believers in the Lord Jesus Christ,
we have so much to be grateful for!

A key statement in the article is one I've been making for years, which completely contravenes the "seeker sensitive" narrative:

"Thousands of churches here and abroad have completely restructured themselves as outreach centers for the unchurched. This, by the way, is not biblical. The church is for the maturing and equipping of the saints, who then go out to reach the lost."

The church body is the incubator for new Christians and a training camp for more mature believers for the battle which is to be fought OUTSIDE its walls. If we allow all manner of unbelievers in to dictate what they want the Church to be, for them, a recipe of disaster is brewing.

This might take a gargantuan task of rethinking what church is all over from scratch. But that's what's needed.

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