May 30, 2004

• Written last night:

  
  

  Ok, so today I was at an “alternative service.” It’s my youth pastor trying his hand at the emerging church thing, and I must say, he definitely did his homework. While the music remained similar to my churches norm, he had the candle thing, and the post-modern “whatever you feel will express you best” type things: writing on paper on the walls, a sort for prayer journal at the front for anyone to write in, and a sit, stand, or lie down type of  setting. He used a lot of media and technology, and did the sort of things you would expect in this type of service. Overall I think it was a good worship setting. My problem: it was an outreach.

  
  

  I suppose I hadn’t realised it since I have been away from my church, but it is very ‘seeker sensitive’. In retrospect I can see that it’s moving away from that, but I think it still always has it as a sort of mindset. The message at this service was an overtly evangelical one. It was about ‘new life’, and how our culture was searching for it, and how it can only be found in Christ. Now, don’t get me wrong: that’s all true and good, and I’m not against evangelism. It’s using the worship service as a means of that that I dislike. I suppose I should explain why.

  
  

  We have all heard of the ‘seeker sensitive’ mega-churches. These churches that are filled with a thousands of members, and are growing rapidly. The focus of these churches is wholly evangelism, and they do it well. The problem is this: they may have a sea of believers, but it’s only an inch deep. Someone who hears the same evangelical message over and over will know it well, and I’m sure they surround it with lots of singing, but when you ask them why, they have little to say. Ok, I know I’m over generalizing here, but this type of thing does exist. Honestly I think this type of church is the reason someone like James Dobson can shut down the post office in Washington with a few words.

  
  

  Thinking upon this kind of church has led me to think of many things: what is the best way to properly do evangelism, what is not, how important is evangelism, at what cost should we pursue it, how was it done in the Bible? I think the answers to these questions are exemplified in the convention of the Sunday service.

  
  

  It has become the staple of basically every church in existence. Some might change the time, some might alter the format, but I think it’s fair to say every church has it. I ask then: what is it for? The obvious answer is a meeting of believers to worship God and learn for those who would teach. At this goal, it for the most part succeeds. Most churches will have praise songs, and a sermon; worship, and teaching. Now, under this the Sunday service is designed for believers. What if non-believers came? After all, if every church has one of these, a non-believer who would like to try out church will show up for this, and not some other program the church might run. If their are going to be non-believers there, we ought to try and convince them of Christianity: for they may not stick around long. How could we do that? Well, the sermon is perfect. They expect it to happen, so they won’t get scarred away by it, and it’s about the right size to say something of impact. So, we preach the gospel message, and maybe someone will be saved.

  
  

  “It certainly can’t hurt,” says a man I respect when I mentioned my doubts about the service. But it seems to me something has been lost. Our original service was about worship and teaching, a sort of emotion-intellect mixture where God can speak to us, but we’ve lost the teaching. We end up with emotion only, and though that certainly has it’s place, it leaves the service lacking. It also leaves the congregation lacking. After all, no teaching means no learning, no learning: no growing. But what about those poor non-believers who may have wandered in, or been invited by someone? Shall we just ignore them?

  
  

  Is personal growth among a congregation a price worth paying for more effective evangelism? Should we let people remain mostly ignorant in the hope of  filling heaven with these ignorant people? Is there a better way? I say yes, yes there is. God would not have us be shallow, nor would he have us not evangelising: he commended both. I propose that having deep Christians, and having those Christians go out into the non-believing world, will yield a better result then seeker sensitivity ever could.

  
  

  Case and point: the early church. How did the early church spread so well? They did far better then the biggest of mega-churches put together. Did the apostles just host come-hear-our-message meetings: telling every new convert to go out and get as many people as possible to come to the next one? Certainly not. Most of the new testament is comprised of the apostles teachings to Christians, and these were for everyone is these churches. The goal of the apostles was not simply evangelism, but the growth of believers. These growing believers in turn saw new converts, and those more. But it was the depth of the church that made the difference. The apostles didn’t do it by themselves, they trained others.

  
  

  It all comes back to tonight’s service. A room filled mostly with believers listening to an evangelistic message. However important that message is, they’ve all heard it before, and they can hardly respond to something you can only respond to once. Now I know they were people there who were not believers. This might have had something to do with this service being advertised as an ‘outreach service’, but whatever the reason, I’m sure the message must have had an impact. I wonder though: what were they doing when we were singing praises to a God they don‘t know? Not only that, but I think more non-believers would have come out to hear this message were the rest of the service dropped, and replaced with something entertaining and fun. And not only that, but I think a message with more substance would have opened up more opportunity for God to teach us, and speak to us.

  
  

  In conclusion: a seeker sensitive worship service is counter productive. It’s a matter of short term gain, and long term suck. Now, somebody go out and change the thinking of modern popular Christianity for me.

  • 6:14 pm
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