A seeker-sensitive case-study…

I received a letter from a couple who recently left their church because they perceived it had embraced a seeker-sensitive ecclesiology. I read their remarks with interest because I know something about that church. The situation presents a marvelous case study of how some contemporary church leaders supplant the historical culture of a local church with the recently formulated seeker-sensitive ecclesiology.

The couple that penned the letter tends toward the Calvinistic end of the theological spectrum, yet their theological proclivities are not so adamantine as to make it impossible for them to find a home in a genuinely reformed church. This particular church trumpets its reformed credentials and makes much of its denominational affiliation, which nationally (at least) embraces a Calvinistic view of redemption and a high view of Scripture. Yet the couple perceived an insidious difference between those proclamations and the message coming through the pulpit and recent church marketing. They interpreted the difference as indicating a substantive change of theological direction, and because of it, they decided to leave.

The church is in a season of change. Unlike many churches, which choose to remain blind to the future, the leadership of this church is seriously engaged in planning for its future. And to their credit, they recognize that the future will not be the 1940’s—let alone the 1840’s or 1600’s. Absent the Lord’s return, the Church is headed into the 2040’s, and there are few among us who have a clear vision for what that world will look like. One must applaud leaders who take the shifts in culture, demographics and traditions seriously and allot time to think through how their church(es) should respond. That said, their responses must be critically examined.

The leadership of this church sees their future requiring a new church facility equipped to dispense a panoply of services—from the weekly Christian worship ceremony and Christian school, to sporting fields, movie theatre, retirement village, meeting space, cafes and shops. Explanations of the vision range from the view of the church as evangelistic outreach center to the church as alternative community for Christians. The vision embraces the romantic conception of the church as the center of the community by exploding the separation of the church from the larger life of the community. It is a big vision.

However, the couple recognized that hidden within this change to the church’s physical plant was a larger change in the definition of church. When they combined that with what they were hearing from the pulpit and reading on the church’s website, they concluded that the church was being led away from its historic culture. Instead of remaining with its roots as a conservative, reformed evangelical church, the church was exhibiting a distinct tendency towards seeker-sensitivity.

The genius of the couple’s letter lies in its comparison of statements made on the church’s website with the doctrinal statements of both the national denomination and previous versions of the church website. The difference is palpable. The current leadership has obviously embraced the vocabulary of Hybel’s seeker-sensitive movement. There is the noticeable absence of traditional language, including words such as sin, forgiveness, righteousness, holiness and sanctification. In its place is the language of postmodern culture: meaning, community, wholeness, relevance and doing good. Some suggest that language is just a matter of style and not substance, yet this misses the point. For a church, language is its substance. Words are of immense significance in Christianity. It may seem unfathomable to the modern mind, but wars have been fought over some of our words. Christians, like our Jewish forefathers, are people of words. Faith and salvation come through hearing words (Rom 10:17; Acts 11:14). Although our traditional biblical vocabulary has been proven by numerous generations and has transcended countless cultures, proponents of seeker-sensitivity declare that it must be changed to address contemporary cultural norms. But in the process this dilutes doctrine and marginalizes Christian principles.

Almost as if to prove that claim, statements on the church’s website reveal a substantial departure from orthodox Christianity. The church is no longer described as a gathering place for the people of God; instead it is now seen as a fellowship for everyone—saved or not. There is silence on the critical issues of the authority and inspiration of the Bible. And apparently the church has adopted the liberal understanding of humanity; where the Bible characterizes all of humanity as under sin, liberals—and this church in particular—view humans as a “mixed bag” of good and evil. Each of these statements demonstrate that the leadership has embraced seeker-sensitive theology.

Meanwhile, the majority of the church—or at the least, those who are long-time attendees—remain conservative evangelicals, committed to the Word and the principles of the reformed faith. They maintain a traditional view of the church’s function as meeting the needs of the body of Christ. They believe that individual Christians—and not the church—do the work of the ministry (evangelism and compassion), and that the church must empower them for service. The people sense the changes in the church, but because they have little exposure to contemporary ecclesiology, they are unaware of the implication of those changes.

Thus we see a church exhibiting an ecclesiological schizophrenia—the leadership espouses one theology while the people hold to another. The couple perceived this disconnect between their understanding of the church and the leadership’s definition and decided to leave. Sadly, the majority of people remain silently confused, blaming themselves for their increasing sense of discomfort at church. And like the story of the frog in the coffeepot, by the time they recognize the change in their surroundings for what it is, they will be cooked!

This church will no doubt proceed with its new direction, and over time, more people will decide that they too must find a new church. It is sad to witness the destruction of an existing church, but change is inexorable. It remains to be seen what the future will bring to the church in North America, yet one wonders if the kind of wholesale change advocated by the proponents of the seeker-sensitive movement is truly wisdom. Nonetheless, it seems to be a season of change. Therefore it is a time to stay alert and on-guard. It is a time to discipline your mind with the Word and cultivate your awareness of the indwelling Holy Spirit, who will teach you and confirm truth to you. These may be days of change, but they are also days of deception. May God have mercy on us all!