I wish I could say that I’ve seen the seeker-sensitive thing for what it is from its very beginnings. But that wouldn’t be true. We were members of a first baptist type church when Rick Warren’s methodologies became really popular on this side of the country. There were “church @”s springing up all over the place. Our church made a valiant attempt at a Friday night seeker service. We found out that there weren’t any seekers, just young church members from other churches who preferred “contemporary praise and worship.” Several other churches youth and college ministries in our area made our Friday night worship their weekly activity. Clearly, we weren’t fulfilling our purpose for reaching the seekers.
So, a small group of us decided to that we would plant a church. It’s a very long story…I’m serving the short version today. We found a young pastor, a young guitar player who could mumble silly platitudes about worship between verses, and a warehouse for meetings. It was perfect. We did our baseball diamond homework and watched the Saddleback videos. We wrote and rewrote values and purposes until I was ready to puke. Rick Warren would have been proud.
To kick off our venture in “church”, we hosted a block party in which kids could get their faces painted, jump in inflated castles, eat free food, play games, and meet firemen. At another “outreach”, we handed out bottles of water and information about our “church” in order to “show God’s love in a practical way.” [The most exciting thing that happened that day was meeting Shawn Alexander at the Winn-Dixie. Yes, I did. Even better than that…I recognized him before any of the male football fans in our group. “Hey! That’s Shawn Alexander!” “No it’s not.” “Yes! That IS Shawn Alexander! Give me one of those church flyers! I’m gettin‘ an autograph!” Y’all, he was so nice. Karl was giddy. And I’ll bet that is the only flyer that wasn’t thrown away or blown away by the wind in the parking lot!]
Anyway, I share all of that to say this: as much as we thought we knew what we were doing, we were one of the least healthy churches ever. We did do some things right. Like when a family in our core group hit some major financial difficulty, we pulled together to help them. When I had a baby, we were fed and cared for by the other families in our core group. The two years we were together, we really grew on each other and loved each other. We did two neighborhood summer VBSes. We started a ministry for the single parents in the apartment complex adjacent to our warehouse. I say that because the parents would leave their kids with us for Bible study and then go out for dinner and drinks. They weren’t the least bit interested in coming to worship on Sundays no matter how contemporary we were. Everybody is interested in free babysitting, though. And that’s when it really hit home to me that no matter what, I can’t do anything to make people want Jesus. Seekers, in the popular, evangelical use of the term, do not exist.
A person becomes a seeker only after God has already sought him. Jesus says so himself in John 4. God is seeking worshipers, not the other way around. And His worshipers only begin to worship after He has sought them out. (Read some very interesting Greek study about John’s wording in his gospel here.) A man’s current actions are a result of God’s preceding action in his heart. You may disagree if you like, but I firmly believe that scripture supports this view of prevenient, irresistible grace.
The saddest part about this is that these “worshipers” who the Father has sought out and brought to worship at your church are in danger of not hearing a clear presentation of the gospel because you are so concerned with being seeker-sensitive! Read Irish Calvinist’s most recent account of a visit to Saddleback Church. I do not understand everyone’s love-affair with Warren. I’ve tried to read his books, but found them terribly boring. They didn’t upset me so much as make me go to sleep.
My friend Kim who writes Lifesong has been burdened by the seeker-sensitive movement as well. Take some time to read her thoughts here and here and here.
Another friend, also named Kim, who writes Mercy Days decided to add her $.02 here.
Updated to add another post. This one is from The Gospel Outpost, and titled “Redefining Church.”
More about my story later.
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Leslie Wiggins 
19 responses to “What makes a church healthy?”
Our church has been very deliberate in decisions regarding any “additives”. There was a conscience effort to steer clear of program-driven, number-driven, purpose-driven motives that were centered around man rather than God. Even with that I can say from your list:water bottles handed out at a village festival….checkjump house, face painting, cotton candy, all free in order to kick off AWANAs….checkThe motives seemed pure and focused on bringing others to the knowledge that *we* existed. *We* were small (still are) and felt like these were good ways to let people know about our church. Looking back, they were not effective if numbers were the measure for success. As a matter of fact, some of those decisions were made under pressure and did truly focus on man and his needs.AWANAs is something that I still struggle with. We are finishing up this year, but it has not been easy. Memorizing scripture without understanding the context just doesn’t make sense to me anymore. We study a completely different lesson than the scripture that each child is studying.I suppose I understand the defense mode that some Christians are taking in regard to the growth-movement, but I don’t believe that should absolve our responsibility in making the issues known. Without it being brought out into the light, I would have never come to the understanding that I have. Still, I always knew something wasn’t right. I could never equate the fact that the reason that people refused to serve was because those people (most likely) had not yet come to true conversion experience…their hearts had not been changed. You said, “a man’s current actions are a result of God’s preceding actions in his heart”. Yes! Yes! Yes!A man after God’s own heart is a man with a changed heart.
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Wow, Leslie. Well said. More, please?
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I read the Irish Calvin post, and it did grieve my heart. Thank you for posting this. I too don’t know what the facination is, and I wonder “why” do they go at all.
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Great post! “a man’s current actions are a result of God’s preceding actions in his heart”. I love that, very true!I look forward to reading more!
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I was visiting Cambridge this week and walked past a church that holds “Goth Eucharists” with “candles, incense, and contemporary music for goths”. Hmm, not sure what I think of that…
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Bravo, Leslie. We were part of a seeker church for a short time and saw firsthand how unscriptural it was, from the structure of officers to the worship service to its underlying philosophy of catering to the world. Thanks for shedding more light! Keep going!
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I don’t have anything to add, but my appreciation for your insight, your boldness and your well written words.
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Leslie,Great post, and I agree with the insights you shared about how faulty and unscriptural the whole “seeker” notion is.
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Excellent post! Thank you for sharing how you and Karl also struggled through this!It is kinda like going against the state when you say you are not on board with doing church this way. I know we lost quite a few friends over this. It is very sad. My heart still breaks….Kim
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Mercy Days–I don’t want to imply that I think the block party thing is an altogether bad idea. What we did was a wasted opportunity because the leaders intentionally left out witnessing. “We don’t want to bait and switch on people.” I don’t think we gave out tracts of any kind.
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Karl has just informed me that I misspelled Shaun Alexander. It’s with a “u” not “w”. My apologies.
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You know, one thing that I want to add is that if you think it’s difficult to get church members to do anything, try getting them to do anything in a “seeker sensitive” church. The self-centeredness of the people involved in our church plant (unfortunately, including us) was breathtaking at times. I don’t mean that they didn’t care about others, but with the emphasis on finding your shape and only serving in areas where you are already gifted, we discovered that no one really was “shaped” to clean up, change diapers, or teach kids.
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Oh girl. The babysitting. I totally hear you there. I sat through your post nodding alot. We are in a very similar boat right now and I have no idea how to get to shore.
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“And HE added to the church daily those who were being saved.”ActsI totally agree, great post.Meg
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This is the first post I’ve read of yours and it was worth the stop over here. Well put- thank you!
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GOOD post, Leslie! Thanks so much for posting on this! I totally agree with you – Jesus seeks our heart first, not us seeking him first!!! Before I knew the Lord, there was NO getting me to church!!! It didn’t matter what kind of “great” things they were offering – I didn’t want to go!!!! THEN, the Lord started pursuing my heart, and I was gradually more interested….BUT only in TRUTH….the “cool” things were NOT appealing to me….I was going after the LORD b/c He was drawing my heart, and I wanted to know who HE was(b/c of irresistable grace!)!!!! So, amen, amen, amen! : )
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Leslie, thank you for sharing your journey. I can’t wait to hear more. I’ve been pondering writing my own church search journey this past week too. Hmmm. Seems we are on similar paths right now. Thank you for the encouragement and all the links. Sean (my Sean) and I are reading every single one of them. Keep ’em coming!
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Wow, quite a topic! I’ll have to think more on this, as I don’t have much of an opinion. Thanks for your thoughts. I’ll check the links out later this weekend.
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“I wish I could say that I’ve seen the seeker-sensitive thing for what it is from its very beginnings.”Excellent post. I was initially taken in by a lot of the ideas in the Seeker Sensitive movement myself. It sounds so good initially, but like you said, it’s the Holy Spirit that draws people through the Scripture. We can hand out popcorn all day every day, but unless the Holy Spirit is working, no change will occur.
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