Marketing the Church, God, and
the Gospel: Why the Church Must Stop Selling Jesus
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Table of Contents
Special note from Pastor Dumas. This article was not written by pastor Dumas. There may be passages of scripture from bibles other than the King James Version. We in NO WAY endorse the modern translations. However, we do agree with the writer 100 %. We MUST stop selling Jesus !!!
One of the biggest issues facing the Church today, particularly the evangelical Church, is the marketing of the Church, God and the Gospel. It will be argued here that the problem with a growing number of churches is that they have bowed to the gods of marketing and consumerism. Some churches view those in the pews as “consumers” to which they must market and sell their “product” which is the Gospel. This has resulted in a distorted view of God and of the Christian faith and life.
The problem for the Church now is one it has forever
struggled with: how is the Gospel to be preached and proclaimed to others? How
can the Church be in the world but not of the world? Obviously Churches should
proclaim the message of the good news in its entirety without compromise and
without shame. No doubt most, if not all churches would argue that they indeed
do this. Upon closer examination however, it will become clear that some
churches, whether knowingly or not, have in fact compromised the Gospel in some
ways. Regrettably, some churches and preachers can no longer say with the
apostle Paul,
For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto
salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.
Romans 1:16
It seems likely that if the apostle Paul were alive today, his message to the
modern Church would be the same message he wrote to the churches of Galatia: “I
am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the
grace of Christ and are turning to a different Gospel—which is really no Gospel
at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to
pervert the gospel of Christ” (Gal. 1:6-7). These are harsh words for sure, but
we dare not pass them off as too severe and inapplicable to the Church today
without carefully examining the state of the Church.
There are many different issues that need to be addressed with a topic such as this. The topic is very complex and controversial and much ink has been spilled debating it. Advocates for and against church growth and marketing strategies both have some wise things to say and make many valid points. There is no doubting the sincerity of those who seek to market the Church. The goal is certainly a noble one: to save lost people through Jesus Christ. The question then becomes, how can the timeless message of the Gospel be proclaimed in a constantly changing world? What should the preaching sound like? What should the church building itself look like inside and out? How should the Church of Jesus Christ market herself to the public? What should worship consist of in a church service? What needs which people have should the Church seek to meet? These questions have caused some divisions in churches and will constantly be in need of attention over the next several years.
According to Os Guinness, “The two most easily recognizable hallmarks of secularization are the exaltation of numbers and of technique. Both are prominent in the megachurch movement at a popular level. In its fascination with statistics and data at the expense of truth, this movement is characteristically modern.”[1] It is assumed that quantity automatically means quality in churches. The philosophy seems to be that the larger the church is, the healthier it is. According to Barna, numerical growth means success because growth is “an indication that something exciting and meaningful is happening.”[2] But as Kenneson and Street point out, “Growth is no guarantee that something exciting and meaningful is happening. If you are dubious, talk to someone who has had cancer.”[3] Perhaps the Church does have a sort of cancer. Maybe the Church is growing bigger and bigger but getting sicker and sicker. Perhaps the growth is only the fatal spreading of an awful, crippling disease. The Church may soon reach the point where unless the Great Physician intervenes in a supernatural way (as He often does) the Church will be so sick and crippled that it will not be able to stand on its own two feet. Indeed, it may get to the point where it is in a coma and it can no longer speak to the surrounding culture.
It is indeed true that, as pastor Rick Warren points out, “A church that has no interest at all in increasing its number of converts is, in essence, saying to the rest of the world, ‘You all can go to hell.’”[4] It is certainly wrong for the Church to ignore the world around it so as to keep things the way they have always been. Some churches resist change unquestionably as if to have something different would automatically mean the whole Gospel and the entire faith were in jeopardy. But at the same time, growth should be monitored carefully. “The Church should at least be circumspect when masses of people in the United States suddenly find the Church attractive. Certainly this could be the work of the Holy Spirit; but there is also the real possibility that the Church has diluted the Gospel in order to make it more palatable to the average consumer.”[5]
The main point to be aware of in this matter is that it is God who ultimately grows His true Church, not human beings. People cannot convert anyone with their own strength, technique or will. Jesus said, “I will build my church” (Mt. 16:18). A healthy church probably will be growing numerically, but as Os Guinness is quick to point out,
Unless critiqued theologically, that maxim can slide from a proper emphasison a healthy church presenting the Gospel to unbelievers to an improper emphasis on the health of a church being judged according to unbelievers’ response to the Gospel. Who, after all, is really giving the increase? Who is responsible for the response? Methodologically, the answers to these questions make little difference. A church grows either way. But theologically, they mean the difference between church growth as true faith and church growth as a form of streamlined humanistic engineering.[6]
As previously alluded to, there is also the belief that the right technique will guarantee success. This is a characteristically modern notion. The idea is that with the right planning, scripting, professionalism, and with the right technique, all things are possible. We need only believe in them; to trust and obey the principles that we are taught. The theory seems to be that
Anything goes as long as it is defended for the sake of evangelism or promotes church growth. The single most decisive support for new methods is popularity. If people are buying, the product must be good. Public opinion has become an arbiter of truth, dictating the terms of acceptability according to the marketplace. The sovereignty of the audience makes serious, prayerful thinking about the will of God unnecessary, because opinions are formed on the basis of taste and preferences rather than careful biblical conviction and thoughtful theological reflection.[7]
As one pastor of a seven-thousand-member church in Florida put it: “I must be doing right or things wouldn’t be going so well.”[8] But efficiency does not equal success or guarantee success. The quickest, easiest and most efficient method may not be God’s desired method. This is often true when dealing with God and the Gospel. As Kenneson and Street point out:
Efficiency demands producing desired results with the least expenditure of time, energy, money, and other resources. Yet is this kind of efficiency a fundamental operating principle of the kingdom of God? Is this what the Church has been called to bear witness to?…If God believed it was necessary for the children of Israel to wander forty years in the wilderness in order to learn to trust in God rather than in themselves, who are we to come along and say that this is a very insufficient way to get to the promised land? Such a judgment would have to assume that getting to the promised land was the only thing that mattered, though it seems clear from Scripture that who the people would be when they got there was enormously important to God.[9]
As mentioned earlier, it is God Himself who ultimately builds the Church. And, as D.G. Hart points out:
The Church does not need to be in a constant state of anxiety, thinking up new ways of reaching the lost. The right techniques of church growth are the means of grace that God established when our Lord commissioned the apostles to disciple the nations by Word and Sacrament. These techniques are not flashy. In fact, they are rather low key. But as the Bible reveals, God has a habit of saving his people through means that the world considers foolish. And that is because, as Paul told the Corinthians, God wants everyone to see “the transcendent power” of salvation belongs to him, “not to us” (2 Cor. 4:7).[10]
J. I. Packer also gives us some insightful advice on this topic. Speaking of God’s sovereign control over all, and in particular over salvation he says:
While we must always remember that it is our responsibility to proclaim salvation, we must never forget that it is God who saves. It is God who brings men and women under the sound of the Gospel, and it is God who brings them to faith in Christ. Our evangelistic work is the instrument that He uses for this purpose, but the power that saves is not in the instrument: it is in the hand of the One who uses the instrument. We must not at any stage forget that. For if we forget that it is God’s prerogative to give results when the Gospel is preached, we shall start to think that it is our responsibility to secure them. And if we forget that only God can give faith, we shall start to think that the making of converts depends, in the last analysis, not on God, but on us, and that the decisive factor is the way in which we evangelize. And this line of thought, consistently followed through, will lead us far astray.[11]
The bottom line here is that God’s ways must take precedence over human ways. Human wisdom is no match for the power and wisdom of God. We dare not second guess God and try to use strictly human means to accomplish Godly ends. Perhaps the Church should rely on the Word of God more and on the word of humans less. As will be discussed below, the Church seems to have lost faith in the message it is proclaiming. The Church doesn’t believe in the power of the Word and the God that brought the Church into existence when its pastors say that “the primary factor affecting the growth or decline of the church is the methods the church uses…Change the method, change the results.”[12] William Willimon sums up this topic well when he says, “Atheism is the conviction that the presence and power of God are unessential to the work of ministry, that we can find the right technique, the proper approach, and the appropriate attitude and therefore will not need God to validate our ministry.”[13]
The Church often bows to techniques and numbers to create and measure success because these methods are easier than the hard work of finding the real problems and dealing with them biblically. In his book God in the Wasteland David Wells points out that those who are most in tune with modernity will rush to quick and easy solutions. It is worth quoting him at length here as his comments sum up the point of this section.
The modern mind will be quick to conclude that evangelical faith is faltering because it is not efficient enough, for example, or because it is not appealing enough, because it has not adapted itself adequately to the inner needs of those in the modern world…modernity has successfully palmed off one of its great deceits on us, convincing us that God himself is secondary to organization and image, that the Church’s health lies in its flow charts, it convenience, and its offerings rather than in its inner life, its spiritual authenticity, the toughness of its moral intentions, its understanding of what it means to have God’s Word in this world…The fundamental problem in the evangelical world today is not inadequate technique, insufficient organization, or antiquated music, and those who want to squander the church’s resources bandaging these scratches will do nothing to stanch the flow of blood that is spilling from its true wounds. The fundamental problem in the evangelical world today is that God rests too inconsequentially upon the church. His truth is too distant, his grace is too ordinary, his judgment is too benign, his Gospel is too easy, and his Christ is too common.[14]
One of the main strategies that the church growth “experts” claim is key to growth is meeting the “felt needs” of the people one is trying to reach.[16] It is thought that the Church must meet people’s needs, whatever they may be, and then perhaps they will then lend a hearing to the message. This is another area that sparks major disagreement and the issue is certainly not black and white. What are legitimate needs the Church should meet, and what are not? How far does the Church have to go to meet the needs of its congregation? Should the Church distinguish between “felt” needs and “real” needs? If so, how is that distinction to be made?
To many church growth gurus, meeting “felt needs” is viewed as the surest way to grow a church. Meeting “felt needs” is thought to be vital and essential if people are going to be attracted to the Church. According to Kimon Sargeant’s Seeker Church Pastor survey, a large majority of the pastors (84 percent) agree with the statement “In order to gain a hearing for the Gospel, churches today must meet the felt needs of seekers.”[17] Church growth advocate George Barna states that one should “Think of your church not as a religious meeting place, but as a service agency—an entity that exists to satisfy people’s needs…We are well prepared to fulfill those needs—not the needs we claim people have, but the needs that people themselves recognize and express.”[18] It seems that first and foremost the congregation is to be responsive and changing, always seeking to meet the needs of its “clientele.” Perhaps this is a good strategy since most baby boomers, regardless of their religious involvement, agree that participating in religious activities is “something you do if you feel it meets your needs,” rather than a matter of “duty or obligation.”[19] As one group puts it: “Religious organizations exist to be responsive to the needs of their members and constituents, and responsive to the needs of society. A responsive congregation is one that makes every effort to sense, serve, and satisfy the needs and wants of its members and participants within the constraints of its budget.”[20] Here it is maintained that not only should the Church strive to meet needs, it should also strive to meet the wants and desires of the people. According to John MacArthur, “Felt needs thus determine the road map for the modern church marketing plan. The idea is a basic selling principle: you satisfy an existing desire rather than trying to persuade people to buy something they don’t want.[21]
It is argued that the Church should seek to meet people’s needs (whatever they may be) because this was precisely what Jesus did in his ministry. Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Valley Community Church and author of The Purpose Driven Church says, “People crowded around Jesus because he met their needs—physical, emotional, spiritual, relational, and financial. He did not judge some needs as being ‘more legitimate’ than others, and he certainly did not make people feel guilty for their needs.”[22] This sounds good at first and we may like to believe it, but is it really a true picture of how Jesus acted? It would seem that the rich young man who came to Jesus (Mt. 19:16-24) was made to feel guilty when Jesus told him, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” The young man went away sad because of his great wealth. Jesus had told him his “felt need” to acquire more and more money was not legitimate; He did in fact judge the need and the young man certainly seemed to feel guilty. As Wells points out, “A sense of need may be nothing more than habit among those who have long lived off the fat of the land, who have come to view access to plenty as a right.”[23]
Warren says: “A church will never grow beyond its capacity to meet needs. If your church is genuinely meeting needs, then attendance will be the least of your problems—you’ll have to lock the doors to keep people out.”[24] But the question is, should the Church genuinely meet needs, or should the Church meet genuine needs? Food and shelter and forgiveness for sins may be genuine needs. Eating coffee and doughnuts in the sanctuary during the service may not be a legitimate need; rather it is a desire the Church can refuse to meet without being contrary to the Gospel or being insensitive to others. Warren suggests that one survey their community to determine its unique needs. He writes that he knows of a church that “discovered through a survey that the number one felt need in their community was potty training for preschoolers.”[25] This may be a legitimate need (although not spiritual), but should the Church feel obligated to meet this need? It may get people to come to church for a conference or training session but does it do any more than that? Or is the Church just viewed as an institution one can just use for one’s own benefit when they feel like it? In defense of Warren, it is worth noting that he says, “Attracting seekers is the first step in the process of making disciples, but it should not be the driving force of the church…The church should be seeker sensitive but it must not be seeker driven.”[26]
What should determine people’s most important and significant needs? Should it be people themselves, or something larger than themselves like God or His Word? Do unregenerate people really know what their deepest needs are? The Bible seems to be adamant that before the Spirit moves in the heart, a person is unaware of his or her desperate need for a Savior and something transcendent that cannot be found within. Perhaps the Church’s ministry involves not just meeting people’s felt needs, but rather learning to name needs differently. Kenneson and Street point out that
It would seem that faithfulness to the Gospel would call the Church to challenge the very ethos of our culture by identifying many of these felt needs as illegitimate. Instead, churches too often cast themselves as one more social institution dedicated to legitimating this marketplace of desire. Such churches, by catering to the whims of discriminating consumers, encourage their constituents to expect the church to function as another service agency whose purpose is to court them by providing a smorgasbord of programs and services.[27]
One particularly glaring problem with “felt needs” is that, as alluded to above, the deepest needs are simply not felt by people until the Holy Spirit works in their hearts. One does not naturally see a need for the Gospel and for Christ. The Church must not promote the idea that people’s needs and wants are legitimate simply because they are people’s needs and wants. “Church marketers insist that the church try to meet the needs that people believe they have, not what the church believes they have (or ought to have). But central to the Gospel is the news that God has graciously provided something that humanity didn’t even know it needed.”[28] As John MacArthur says, “People’s deepest need is to confess and overcome their sin. So preaching that fails to confront and correct sin through the Word of God does not meet people’s need. It may make them feel good. And they may respond enthusiastically to the preacher, but that does not mean such preaching meets real needs.[29] There seems to be widespread disagreement as to what is the purpose of the Church. Warren cites a church consultant who surveyed church members asking the question, “Why does the church exist?” Of those surveyed, 89 percent said, “The church’s purpose is to take care of my family’s and my needs.” Only 11 percent said, “The purpose of the Church is to win the world for Jesus Christ.” When the pastors were asked these questions, the exact opposite response resulted. Nine out of ten pastors said the purpose of the church was to win the world and only 10 percent said it was to care for the needs of the members.[30]
One other point worth noting is that perhaps some do not just want their “felt needs” met; perhaps some are looking for something greater and more glorious than themselves. As Michael Horton suggests,
I really do believe that those who are genuinely “seeking,” that is, who really have been given an interest by God in the things of God, far from being impressed, are actually put off by the paternalism that treats them like children. They expect to “have it their way” at Burger King but not at church. They are here not because they have the correct questions but precisely because they don’t. They may know what their felt needs are, but they come because they want to have some new needs, deeper needs, explored and brought to light. They are tired of being twenty-four-hour consumers and want to be parishioners—they want to be cared for and not catered to.[31]
He makes a good point, but it seems that for every one who does not want to be catered to, there is one who does want to be catered to. That is why so many churches seem to be growing so much: they are catering to people’s desires and church has become exactly what people want it to be: fun, exciting, guilt-free, free food and drink, upbeat pop, rock or jazz music, etc. In the last analysis, we must realize that “To give the whole store away to match what this year’s market says the unchurched want is to have the people who know least about faith determine most about its expression.”[32]
The actual concept and philosophy of marketing the Church will be discussed in detail below. First, some main strategies of church growth will be discussed. One of the main techniques of church growth that is commonly discussed and widespread in many churches is that of targeting or “segmenting” the audience one can best reach. The thought is that a church will only really reach one main group of people, so it is convenient and “cost effective” to target the one main group the church is suited to reach. As George Barna says, “The market you select as your target should be large enough to enable you to survive. If you select a segment that is too tiny you will spend an enormous amount of resources attempting to reach and minister to a group that cannot provide the necessary economies of scale to justify being targeted.”[33] Here it seems he is saying that some people are not worth witnessing to because it may cost the church financially. They cannot provide the church with money if they become a member so they are better left alone. Who then is to minister to the poor, a group the Bible certainly emphasizes greatly? “Such cost-benefit analysis seems odd for a body of people who follow the one who suggested that leaving the ninety-nine sheep to search for the one lost sheep is perfectly reasonable within the logic of God’s kingdom.”[34]
Barna uses the parable of the sower in Mt. 13 to justify his assumption that targeting an audience is biblical. He writes:
The parable of the sown seeds (Mt. 13) portrays marketing the faith as a process in which there are hot prospects and not-so-hot prospects and shows how we should gear our efforts toward the greatest productivity. This is the essence of target marketing—recognizing the various segments of the audience, and treating marketing as an ongoing process. Some people are ready for conversion, others are not.[35]
As Kenneson and Street point out, Barna is only partially correct. Some people are ready for conversion, others are not. But what Barna suggests is the exact opposite of what the parable teaches. Kenneson and Street offer helpful criticism and proper exegesis of the text: “Barna believes that such a recognition demands that we calculate who is ready for the Gospel and who isn’t, sowing seed only where we suspect it will grow. But the sower in the text doesn’t do this at all. Instead, the sower sows seed recklessly…the mistake is in thinking that we are in a position to know which people fall into which camp.”[36]
Rick Warren also suggests churches target a specific audience. He says that those people a church is most likely to reach are those who match the existing culture of the church. Whatever type of people the church already has is the same type it will get more of over time.[37] He suggests that combining the characteristics of residents in an area into one mythological person will help members understand who the target audience is. At Saddleback Valley Community Church this person is Saddleback Sam. He is discussed in detail in the membership class so all can easily describe him. Sam is in his late thirties or early forties and is unchurched. He has at least a college degree, he is married to Saddleback Samantha, and they have two children, Steve and Sally. Sam is either a professional, a manager, or a successful entrepreneur. He is among the most affluent of Americans but carries a lot of debt because of the price of his home.[38]
Given this description one wonders why the church targeted this particular type of person. Was it because there are a lot of those people in the area? Perhaps it was because they have a lot of money. Maybe it is believed that it is easier to minister to a well-to-do professional than a poor, homeless, or drug-addicted person. Obviously these affluent people need to be ministered to, but one wonders why all seeker-churches seem to have roughly the same target audience. Willow Creek Community Church’s target market is “Unchurched Harrys,” twenty-five to forty-five-year-old, white-collar professional men who do not attend church.[39] A pastor of a church in Southern California describes his church’s target as “the typical man in his thirties, [who earns] 40 to 60 thousand dollars a year, [is] an entrepreneur, and drives a Blazer.”[40] As Michael Horton points out, “The logic that comes across in the church growth literature is not only market logic, it’s the logic of white, upscale suburban marketing.” He asks, “Ever read a good book or know a famous church whose goal is to show you how to build a megachurch in a depressed urban area? It’s a religion of the mall, by the mall, and for the mall.”[41]
Too often this targeting strategy sounds much like selling and advertising rather than evangelizing and seeking the lost wherever they may be. George Barna states that “To successfully market your product, you have to identify its prospective market…By matching the appeal of your product to the interests and needs of specific population segments, you can concentrate on getting your product to your best prospects without wasting resources on people who have no need or interest in your product.”[42] There are as many problems with these statements as there are words. The gospel is not a product to be sold and the prospective market is anyone and everyone. The Church is not to just search for the “best prospects”, and all people have need of what the Church is offering. In the words of Marva Dawn, to specify one’s target market is seemingly an “idolatrous usurpation of the Holy Spirit’s control over the effect of God’s Word and over conversion.”[43]
Most seeker church pastors agree with the targeting philosophy. Eighty-six percent of seeker church pastors believe that the Church must target its evangelism efforts rather than appeal to as many as possible.[44] Bill Hybels, pastor of Willow Creek Community Church says, “Generally a pastor can define his appropriate target audience by determining with whom he would like to spend a vacation or an afternoon of recreation.”[45] Somehow it is hard to square this with the picture of Jesus in the Gospels. Perhaps he did really enjoy reaching out to prostitutes, beggars, the crippled, blind, lepers, tax collectors and Pharisees. We must also remember that He was the perfect Son of God and we are sinful and most of the time we have too much pride and arrogance which prevents us from naturally doing as Jesus did. In the words of Douglas Webster,
Discovering your market niche to be the upwardly mobile, success-driven, child-centered baby boomer may not require focusing on a target audience as much as ignoring the church’s mission. Limiting outreach to people who understand our sense of humor, live in similar homes, earn a professional income, share the same family concerns and eat in the same restaurants may create a comfort zone for evangelism, but it may also limit our spiritual growth and dependence on God.[46]
Marva Dawn makes a cogent argument against targeting an audience when she speaks of the dangers of community in worship. She says there is danger in thinking of the church as a family because “too often the concept of community is perceived merely in terms of a feeling of coziness with God or compatibility with other members of the congregation…for that can inhibit our ability to welcome strangers or cause us to squeeze out people with whom we cannot attain intimacy.”[47] This is interesting particularly because many smaller churches do not want to lose that sense of a family feeling. Perhaps this is a contributing factor to their size.
Another danger of segmenting is “by unapologetically catering to what makes people “comfortable,” it encourages congregations to target relatively homogeneous groups in the name of more efficient outreach. The result is often even more homogeneous churches that call into question the power of the Gospel to break down social barriers.”[48] This targeting seems to be a denial of, or disregard for the Gospel. If churches seek to only get along with people who are like them, what sort of message does that proclaim to unbelievers? “If the Church is to be a sign, a foretaste, and a herald of a new humanity that God is bringing into being, a humanity in which the cultural barriers that matter in the world are torn down, then the Church cannot, in the name of mission and outreach, encourage people to simply do what comes naturally.”[49]
Another popular strategy of church marketing has recently developed. It is the tendency of churches to be nondenominational or else to change their name so as to remove the denominational label. Kimon Sargeant says this is one of the most significant trends in the seeker church movement and he points out that nondenominational churches that are five years old or less represent the largest category of seeker churches.[50] Seeker churches usually downplay any identification and connection to a denomination even though they may belong to one. More than half of all denominational seeker churches (56%) do not list their denominational affiliation on their church’s main sign.[51] Fellowship Church in Grapevine, Texas is a Southern Baptist church that has dropped “Baptist” from its name. According to the pastor, Ed Young, “My dad told us to put Baptist in the name, but I didn’t want to put it in there…If we had put Baptist in the name, we wouldn’t be where we are today and we wouldn’t be reaching the people we are.”[52] Actually, the Church is not even called Fellowship church anymore. The church officially changed its name (not its website) to Fellowshipchurch.com—the first church to become an official dotcom.[53] A Baptist church in San Jose, CA has taken things one step further: it dropped “Calvary” from its name, believing that so blatant a reference to the cross might prevent people from attending.[54] Given people’s knowledge of the Bible and theology in this day and age, one wonders if the church really had anything to be concerned about.
Related to this topic is the fact that many pastors have little or no loyalty to their current denomination or the denomination with which their seminary was affiliated. Sargeant notes that more than half of seeker church pastors surveyed (52%) are serving in a church that is of a different denomination than that of the seminary in which they were trained.[55] The great majority of seeker church pastors (90%) agreed with the statement “the seeker sensitivity of a church today is more important than its denominational affiliation.”[56] In addition to this, three out of four pastors (74%) said they rarely or never used their denomination’s publications for information, and the vast majority (88%) said they rarely or never turned to their seminary for information.[57]
What is the reason (or reasons) for this current trend? Perhaps it is because it is believed that the denominational label smacks of tradition, orthodoxy and “old time religion”, all things the seeker churches do not want to be associated with. If one hears “Baptist” or “Presbyterian”, thoughts automatically come to mind. This is one more way of breaking down a barrier and not offending a seeker or impeding their progress toward church attendance. It is probably believed by many that denominational differences are not important anyway, so there is no need to emphasize different church affiliations. However, it is worth noting that in what is supposedly the largest survey of congregations ever conducted in the United States, it was recently found that “Although the structure and meaning of these commitments differs in the various faith communities, congregations that maintain connections with their denominational tradition and organization share at least one notable characteristic—financial stability.”[58] It was also found in the study that there is a correlation between financial health and churches that stress denominational loyalty and have high moral standards.[59]
Many “seeker” churches have succeeded (if that word can be used here) in eradicating anything from their buildings and worship services that might smack of tradition. Tradition and the traditional are seen as out of date, out of touch and irrelevant to today’s culture. Many churches now advertise and promote themselves as non-traditional, different, and exciting. It is thought that anything “old” whether it is old ways, old hymns, old architecture, etc., is to be thrown out in favor of the new and contemporary. “Once the cry of ‘New!’ has been raised and has found a response,…the New does not have to justify itself, or even to identify itself precisely. It is already justified because, bathed in the aura of the Living Present, it declares itself victor over the Dead Past.”[60]
According to Sargeant, a low regard for tradition in seeker churches suggests that these churches are more committed to focusing on the needs of the seekers than on preserving a distinct religious or ecclesiological tradition. The majority of seeker church pastors (82%) agreed with the statement “Being relevant to seekers is more important than maintaining the traditions of the church.”[61] The bottom line seems to be that tradition is not marketable so it is tossed aside in favor of methods that are market sensitive. What is marketable is to advertise and promote a church by saying: “We transitioned recently from ‘the cure for the common church’ to simply ‘uncommon.’ We still hold to the previous, but we feel that this will help us zero in on exactly what it is you should remember us for.”[62] Here the church is not to be remembered for its beliefs, teachings, its people, ministries, etc. The church is to be remembered because it is just different or uncommon, and that is enough to be memorable and worthy of noting. The church’s website makes the point that the church is in a heavily churched area and therefore “We felt the need to express why it would be worth looking at us, as a church worth investigating. So we adopted the tag line, THE CURE FOR THE COMMON CHURCH which as previously expressed has made a slow shift to UNCOMMON…We do not fit any mold and are not easily categorized.”[63]
Bellview Church is explicit in de-emphasizing and throwing out tradition. They claim: “God gave them [the leaders] an uncommon vision. To reach the unchurched and restore the overchurched…They know as well as you that Jesus and the world has had enough of tradition, and needs a lotta mo love!…Status Quo church is pretty much museum material to this culture that likes to see, feel, touch, taste and hear life.”[64] Not to be outdone, Evergreen Community Church says in large letters on their homepage: Experience God, Not Religion. They ask, “Interested in God but not religion? Give Evergreen a try. Evergreen is a non-denominational Christian church. You’ll find the perfect mix of timeless Biblical principles presented in a non-traditional, contemporary way.”[65] The church claims its goal is to make Christ attractive in all it does, so “At Evergreen, we’ve exchanged traditional hymns and pipe organs for the contemporary jazz/pop sounds of our band ‘Second Wind.’ This group of extraordinary, talented and dedicated musicians plays upbeat music that entertains and inspires—music you can tap your toes to!”[66] It is worth mentioning that in the recent study by Dudley and Roozen, it was found that “Churches served by seminary graduates are less likely to maintain traditional religious-moral values and also are less likely to be committed to preserving denominational heritage.”[67]
In this battle over tradition it is important to understand the difference between tradition and traditionalism. As Bruce and Marshall Shelley point out, the two terms do not mean the same thing: “Traditionalism is an unthinking defense of the past. It is pride in the past without justifiable reasons…Tradition itself, however, is something else. It is a ballast and rudder. Professor Jaroslav Pelikan of Yale put it best when he said that traditionalism may be the dead faith of the living, but tradition is the living faith of the dead.”[68] When pastors such as John Nelson of Mill Pond Fellowship say they want to “throw out tradition [and] stay tuned to the unconvinced”,[69] it seems something is lost that does not have to be lost. It cannot be explored here, but tradition has many valuable aspects. It will suffice here to quote Yale philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorff on his remembrances of growing up in a Dutch Reformed Church:
We “dressed up” on the
Lord’s Day, dressed up for the Lord’s Day, and entered church well in
advance of the beginning of the service to collect ourselves in silence, silence
so intense it could be touched…We faced forward, looking at the Communion table
front center, and behind that the raised pulpit. Before I understood a word of
what was said, I was inducted by [the church’s] architecture into the
tradition. Every service included psalms, always sung, often to the Genevan
tunes. There was no fear of repetition. The view that only the fresh and
innovative is meaningful had not invaded this transplant of the Dutch Reformed
tradition in Bigelow, Minnesota. Through repetition, elements of the liturgy
and of Scripture sank their roots so deep into consciousness that nothing
thereafter, short of senility, could remove them. During the liturgy as a
whole, but especially in the sermon and most of all in the Lord’s Supper, I was
confronted by the speech and actions of an awesome, majestic God.[70]
Many churches have reduced membership requirements or have placed little demands on members from the day the doors opened. It seems it is harder to join the Elks club or the Boy Scouts than it is to join many churches today. One does not need to know anything about the faith or the church to join. Fellowshipchurch.com only requires a one hour class before someone can join.[71] First Presbyterian Church of Bakerstown says to join the church is a simple step: “You decide what Sunday you want to join and let us know. In place of membership classes, we seek to help visitors personally and individually become acquainted with us and find their place in our church home. An orientation experience takes place on the day you join.”[72]
What is the message being sent by these churches? It seems to be that joining a church is no big deal, requires little commitment, little effort and little knowledge of the church and of the faith. It is no wonder that nearly half of born again Christians (47%) agree that Satan is “not a living being but is a symbol of evil”; that 31% of born agains believe that if a person is good enough they can earn a place in heaven; 15% believe that “after he was crucified and died, Jesus Christ did not return to life physically” or that 24% believe that “while he lived on earth, Jesus committed sins, like other people.”[73]
According to Dudley and Roozen, congregations that have unclear or only implicit member expectations are far more likely to experience higher levels of conflict than churches with explicit and strict membership expectations.[74]
Most if not all megachurches and seeker churches do not look like traditional churches. The thought behind the new architecture is that having a church that doesn’t look like a typical church is less threatening to the “unchurched.” As Os Guinness says:
In architecture and style, for instance, the megachurches are a gigantic mutation in the churchs’ age-old “edifice complex.” They are the natural counterparts of megamalls, super-supermarkets, and multiplex cinemas, and resemble a cross between shopping malls and theme parks—modernity’s ultimate in people-moving selling-machines. The result is “spiritual emporiums” or the “malling of religion”—grand cathedrals of consumption, one-stop church complexes premised on controlled environments with multiple-option boutiques catering to diverse needs.[75]
Most new churches are constructed to look more like theaters than a church. Perhaps this is appropriate judging by what takes place inside some of them. Instead of a pulpit, the focus is a stage. An architect who specializes in building theaters designed the Fellowshipchurch.com facility. The building features a center stage large enough to drive a car onto—something demonstrated by Pastor Ed Young when he drove an Audi on stage to illustrate the need and importance for additional parking at the church.[76] Churches hire full-time media staff, programming consultants, stage directors, drama coaches, special effects experts and choreographers. MacArthur speaks of a church in the southwestern U.S. that has installed a half-million-dollar special effects system that produces smoke, fire, sparks, and laser lights in the auditorium. The church sent staff members to Bally’s Casino in Las Vegas to study live special effects. The pastor ended one service by ascending to “heaven” via invisible wires that drew him up out of sight while the choir and orchestra added musical accompaniment to the smoke, fire and light show.[77]
Willow Creek is perhaps the most well known seeker church. It describes its design strategy as follows: “Music, facilities, and the use of the arts should all reflect the culture within which we live.” Sargeant points out the following: “When leaders of Willow Creek designed their buildings and campus, they didn’t visit other churches for inspiration; they visited the sites frequented by those they hoped to reach, like corporate offices, malls, and civic centers.[78] Another popular strategy related to this is the displaying of (or lack of) religious symbols. Willow Creek does not have a cross. As Sargeant notes, “Willow Creek and many other seeker churches have made the conscious decision to exclude any and all religious symbolism or identification from their secular-style meeting spaces.”[79] He also notes that just over half of all seeker churches surveyed (52%) do not display any religious symbols at the site of their weekend services. The overwhelming majority (86%) of churches less than five years old do not display any religious symbols in their weekend meeting places.[80]
Most churches that build new facilities now use chairs instead of pews. The rationale behind this seems to be that pews are uncomfortable and are “too churchy.” The idea here is that one need not be reminded of the out-of-date traditional church. Pastor Rick Warren says uncomfortable seating is a distraction the devil loves to use. He says, “In today’s culture the only places people are forced to sit on benches are in church and in the cheap bleacher section at ball games. People expect to have their own individual chairs. Personal space is highly valued in society. If you can get away with replacing the pews, I’d advise it.”[81] One wonders if perhaps the chairs shouldn’t come with internet hookups and reclining backs as well. He also advises churches to try doubling the wattage in the church to brighten it up and adds, “You may have a revival on your hands!”[82] One can only hope he is being facetious here. The One who said, “I am the light of the world (Jn. 8;12; 9:5) is the only one who can cause a revival.
A New York Times article on the appearance of user-friendly churches stated: “Megachurches celebrate comfort, ease, and the very idea of contemporary suburban life. This is “I’m O.K., you’re O.K.” architecture: friendly and accessible, determined to banish the sense of mystery and otherworldliness that has long been at the very heart of the architecture of Chrisianity.”[83] Sargeant states that he believes the deliberate absence of religious symbols is one of the factors that suggests seeker churches depict the sacred primarily as an internal presence.[84] He adds his own critique of this phenomenon:
The design of seeker churches provides a window onto the movement’s understanding of the nature of God and worship. Rather than convey the mystery and otherworldliness of a Holy God whose inscrutable Providence should cause us to fear for our salvation, seeker churches instead emphasize the reasonableness of God and the this-worldly benefits of knowing a God who is not far from the daily concerns of Americans. Thus, the change in the form of religious meeting places is related to a change in the message—in how God and the sacred are understood.[85]
One different marketing strategy that seems to be growing exponentially in popularity is that of restaurants in churches or at least brand-name coffee and doughnuts served on the premises. Willow Creek boasts an atrium dining area and food court.[86] Starbucks Coffee seems to be the way to go as far as coffee is concerned in the Church. It is almost as though the Lord had commanded in Scripture that one must drink Starbucks Coffee in order to be a true believer. Fellowshipchurch.com has a juice bar and fruit bar for congregants, but maybe people come more for the Starbucks Coffee bar and Krispy Kreme doughnuts.[87] Crosspointe Church States on their website, “We don’t have a dress code. We don’t speak in holy jargon that only Christians can understand. However, we serve free fresh coffee and breakfast snacks every week.”[88] This seems to be what people are looking for; who wouldn’t want a free breakfast? It is comforting to know that if one cannot get their hungry soul fed at church, at least their hungry stomach will be fed.
Many other churches go this same route with the coffee and food. Celebration Covenant Church (my own denomination L) has a website that advertises “Free Starbucks Coffee, juice, milk and doughnuts are provided. Or step up to the Cappuccino Bar for something different! (You can even enjoy them during the service)…Be sure to dress casually…(or you’ll show us up)![89] The prize however, goes to the Family Christian Center, a large non-denominational church in Indiana. Not to be outdone or out-marketed, they have opened a Starbucks Coffee Café in the church.[90] The sign at the entrance reads, “Welcome to Heavenly Grounds Café. We proudly brew Starbucks Coffee.” A member of the congregation donated the $50,000 fee the company charges to license and provide the church with its traditional setup: espresso and coffee machines and display cases. The café is already turning a profit after only about a year or less. One attendee said after a Wednesday night service (as she bought a tall coffee), “Why the fuss? I think it’s a great idea. When I come in on Sundays it gives me a chance to sit down before service, have a coffee and brownie, and meet new people. Isn’t that what church should be about? What’s the harm?” William Schweiker, professor of theological ethics at the University of Chicago disagrees, saying the Starbucks is “an inappropriate waste of space in a church.” He adds, “On a sociological level I’m not surprised that this has happened, because Americans see religion no different than other consumptions. They are of the mindset that if they are going to consume religion, consume coffee with it.”
It is not uncommon to see people sipping lattes and mochas during the service. Pastor Steve Munsey sometimes holds a cup while preaching. The church resembles an auditorium and presents services not unlike musical and stage productions. The large room vibrates with gospel and rock music. Munsey says “There is nothing wrong with church and a good cup of coffee.” One wonders whether Jesus would come to the church with mug in hand or a whip in hand. The message being sent may be that worship should be casual, fun, exciting, convenient, and yes, even tasty. Is a steady diet of this sort helpful for the church and its members? Perhaps God is seen as little more than a buddy they meet with for coffee and refreshments once a week. Coffee before or after the service is one thing, but during the service? What message does this send about worshiping a holy and righteous God? It seems something is missing in the church and it does not seem to be a coffee bar. The coffee grounds may be heavenly, but perhaps they should not be treading on holy ground.
Part of the marketing strategy of the seeker church and/or megachurch is to do what Evergreen Community Church seeks to do: “Represent Jesus Christ to the world in the most winsome and attractive way possible.”[91] This may be a noble cause but sometimes there are doctrines of the Christian faith that cannot be presented in a simply winsome and attractive way. Sin and hell are not attractive concepts for people. These are not doctrines of the faith that can be marketed to consumers. No one seeks to “buy” his or her own sinfulness or eternal judgment in hell. This is why Evergreen Community Church advertises its sermons in this way: “Each message is uniquely designed, offering Biblical answers for today’s challenges without making you feel guilty.”[92] No wonder only 17 percent of people understand sin in relation to God.[93] To seeker church proponents, Rebecca Prewett asks, “Are you teaching your seekers the reverence of God? Do they stand in fear of our Awesome Judge? Do they tremble at their sinfulness? Oh, excuse me…I’m falling back on fire and brimstone here. How old-fashioned. How un-hip. It won’t sell. It won’t bring them in. Nobody will seek out that message.”[94]
One infamous peddler of this sinless Gospel is Robert Schuller of the Crystal Cathedral in California. According to Schuller, “A person is in hell when he has lost his self-esteem”, and, he says, “I don’t think anything has been done in the name of Christ and under the banner of Christianity that has proven more destructive to human personality and, hence, counterproductive to the evangelism enterprise than the often crude, uncouth, and unchristian strategy of attempting to make people aware of their lost and sinful condition.”[95] Schuller adds that “Once a person believes he is an ‘unworthy sinner,’ it is doubtful if he can really accept the saving grace God offers in Jesus Christ.”[96] As David Wells points out, in another age, Schuller’s ministry may have been viewed not as a Christian ministry, but as a comedy:
Would it not be possible to view him as providing a biting parody of American self-absorption? Sin, he says with a cherubic smile, is not what shatters our relationship to God; the true culprit is the jaundiced eye that we have turned on ourselves. The problem is that we do not esteem ourselves enough. In the Crystal Cathedral, therefore, let the word sin be banished, whether in song, Scripture, or prayer. There is never any confession there…God is not so mean as to judge; he is actually very amiable and benign. Comedy this devastating would be too risky for most to attempt. But Schuller is no comic. He earnestly wants us to believe all of this, and many do.[97]
The problem with Schuller and others like him is that sin and hell are denied or de-emphasized greatly. These days “hell” seems to be one of the four-letter words one is not supposed to use in church. The opposite of what Schuller says is true: one can only accept Christ as his or her Savior if they see themselves as an unworthy sinner. There is indeed good news, but the bad news must be realized first. Otherwise, who needs the good news? Wells points this out when writing of Martin Luther: “According to Luther, unless this self-righteousness is plucked up and destroyed, unless the real nature of sin is understood, the Gospel cannot be received. The greatness of God’s grace will never be grasped unless it is preceded by an understanding of the greatness of sin.”[98] No one says it better than the great preacher and theologian, Jonathan Edwards:
Surely it cannot be unreasonable to suppose, that before God delivers persons from a state of sin and exposedness to eternal destruction, he should give them some considerable sense of the evil from which he delivers; that they may be delivered sensibly, and understand their own salvation, and know something of what God does for them…And that it is God’s manner of dealing with men, to lead them into a wilderness, before he speaks comfortably to them, and so to order it, that they shall be brought into distress, and made to see their own helplessness, and absolute dependence on his power and grace before he appears to work any great deliverance for them.[99]
This is certainly not popular in the church today because it simply will not sell. Wells speaks of the danger of watering down the message of sin:
It is impossible, of course, to speak about the Gospel without speaking about sin, though if there were a way, our church marketers, with their boundless ingenuity, would have found it. They have often come close to passing the Gospel off as if it had more to do with what we want than with who we are, more with consumption than with repentance. The closer they have come, the closer they have come to a self-defeating strategy, because if there really is no danger from which deliverance needs to be sought, then there really is no necessity for anyone to take the Gospel seriously and believe it.[100]
People today often view sin as problems they struggle with within themselves rather than as a spiritual and moral condition. Sin is discussed in terms of how it harms the individual rather than how it offends a righteous and holy God. It is seen as a nuisance that keeps one from realizing his or her full potential.[101] Kimon Sargeant describes the seeker church mentality on this topic:
Seeker church proponents do not abandon the “Gospel truth” but repackage it in a kinder, gentler, format. They maintain the evangelical emphasis on the importance of faith in Jesus Christ but subtly transform the reasons why one should pursue such a faith…The promise of this-worldly peace and fulfillment supplements, perhaps even supersedes, the eternal consequences of one’s personal response to Christ. As one pastor of a nondenominational church in Georgia puts it: “We’re not at all hesitant to say that what you really need to live life to the fullest is a relationship with Jesus Christ. We don’t back off of that at all, even in our Sunday morning services.” “Not backing off at all” now means that seeker churches will not hesitate to proclaim that life without Jesus is not fulfilling.[102]
Pastors do not like to preach on sin and apparently others have the same conviction. In a 1993 survey of seminary students, Wells and others found that 41.9% of those surveyed said it is always or under most circumstances “in poor taste when sharing the Gospel to emphasize damnation and repentance.”[103] But Richard Lovelace is closer to the truth when he says,
We may need to challenge more, and comfort less, in our evangelism and discipleship. We need to make it harder for people to retain assurance of salvation when they move into serious sin…We need to tell some persons who think they have gotten saved to get lost. The puritans were biblically realistic about this; we have become sloppy and sentimental in promoting assurance under any circumstances.[104]
Salvation only comes though, when people get a sense of their own sinfulness. The modern user-friendly movement reverses this. “Rather than arousing fear of God, it attempts to portray Him as fun, jovial, easygoing, lenient, and even permissive. Haughty sinners who ought to approach God in terror (cf. Luke 18:13) are emboldened to presume on His grace. Sinners hear nothing of divine wrath. This is as wrong as preaching rank heresy.”[105]
Marva Dawn laments the loss of the wrath and judgment of God. She cites Henri Nouwen who says the Church in the West has much to learn from our Eastern sisters and brothers, because “the awareness of human sinfulness is hardly existent in the West.” She says in response: “My thesis is that we lack such an awareness because we dumb down the truth of God in false efforts to feel better about ourselves. We do not have enough of God—especially the truth of his wrath in the midst of his love—to experience the exhilarating freedom of confessing our sin and the joyous beauty of forgiveness.”[106] C.S. Lewis sums up this entire point when he says, “To a Christian the true tragedy of Nero must not be that he fiddled while the city was on fire but that he fiddled on the brink of hell.”[107]
The holiness of God has little place in the teaching of many churches today. Whether this is a purposeful elimination or not is not the real issue. The fact is that it is true and the Church needs to understand why it is this way so the situation can be remedied. It seems that too often all one ever hears about God is that He is a loving God; God is love and He loves regardless of what one does. It is true that God is love (1 Jn. 4:8) but He is more than that. It can be argued that God’s holiness is his most important attribute. Isaiah 6:3 reads, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty.” In the ancient world, if one wanted to emphasize something it was said twice. To say it three times as in this verse is to give it supreme emphasis. The repetition highlights God’s infinite holiness. As David Wells says,
Holiness fundamentally defines the character of God and love is not an alternative to it but, rather, an expression of it…Holiness is what defines God’s character most fundamentally, and a vision of this holiness should inspire his people and evoke their worship…Robbed of such a God, worship losses its awe, the truth of his Word loses its ability to compel, obedience loses its virtue, and the Church loses its moral authority…The Bible “does not begin,” as Carl Henry notes, “like liberal theology, with an emphasis on divine love for the sinner to which divine wrath is and must be subordinated”; it begins with God’s indignation at the fall into sin, which was an expression of his holiness.[108]
Why has the Church lost sight of God’s holiness and focused almost solely on His love? Most likely it is because the Church realizes that this is what people want to hear. People want to be affirmed no matter what, because people are self-centered and egotistical. The thought of God loving them no matter what is comforting and liberating for people. The Church (whether knowingly or not) too often promotes the idea that God’s love is limitless—and so people can sin all they want because God will only love and love and love. God’s love is not this way. Rather, as R.C. Sproul points out, “Holiness provokes hatred. The greater the holiness the greater the human hostility toward it…No man was ever more loving than Jesus Christ. Yet even His love provoked men to anger. His love was a perfect love, a transcendent and holy love, but His very love brought trauma to people. This kind of love is so majestic we can’t stand it.”[109]
According to Kimon Sargeant, although seeker church pastors agree that God is holy, they do not explore the implications of this very often or very thoroughly. The immanent takes precedence over the transcendent. Sargeant cites a Willow Creek series of sermons entitled Yea God! in which fourteen aspects of God’s character were discussed:
According to the message titles, God is “relational, expressive, wise, joyful, an equal opportunity employer, patient, a refuge, righteous, gracious, committed to me, generous, a guide, powerful, a servant.” From this list, only the terms “righteous” and “powerful” might indicate that the God whom we celebrate with a big “Yea!!” is holy. Seeker messages do not prominently discuss the “awe-ful” (in the original sense of the word) aspects of a God whose “thoughts are not your thoughts” and whose “ways are not your ways.”[110]
To support his argument, Sargeant cites a study by Greg Pritchard who studied Willow Creek messages. Pritchard found that seven out of ten messages during a year focused on God’s love and only 7 percent of the messages emphasized God’s holiness.[111]
The Church must recover the reality of the holiness of God if it is to be the Church Christ calls it to be. Holiness signifies that something or someone is set apart. The Church is to be holy, set apart to and for God. Many Churches today are anything but set apart; rather they are set in—set in a culture that belittles God and views Him as trivial, meaningless, joyless and unable to change or affect the world. The fact that the Church is to be set apart form the culture will be discussed in much greater detail below. For now it suffices to say that, as David Wells points out regarding the evangelical Church today: “There is too little about it that bespeaks the holiness of God. And without the vision for and reality of this holiness, the Gospel becomes trivialized, life loses its depth, God becomes transformed into a product to be sold, faith into a recreational activity to be done, and the Church into a club for the like-minded.[112]
Seeker churches must stop emphasizing only the pleasant aspects of God and move on to preaching and teaching the whole counsel of God. The holiness of God, as well as sin and hell, are good places to start. Perhaps people would take God more seriously and realize maybe they should not sip coffee and eat doughnuts while hearing God’s Word and worshiping Him. In the last analysis it is, as usual, informative and edifying to quote David Wells at length:
It is this holiness of God, then, without which the Cross of Christ is incomprehensible, that provides the light that exposes modernity’s darkness for what it is…God’s holiness is fundamental to who he is and what he has done. And the key to it all has been the loss of God’s otherness, not least in his holiness, beneath the forms of modern piety. Evangelicals turned from focusing on God’s transcendence to focusing on his immanence—and then they took the further step of interpreting his immanence as friendliness with modernity…The loss of the traditional vision of God as holy is now manifested everywhere in the evangelical world. It is the key to understanding why sin and grace have become such empty terms…Divorced from the holiness of God, our worship becomes mere entertainment…It is this God, majestic and holy in his being, this God whose love knows no bounds because his holiness knows no limits, who has disappeared from the modern evangelical world. He has been replaced in many quarters by a God who is slick and slack…whose Church is a mall in which the religious, their pockets filled with the coin of need, do their business. We seek happiness, not righteousness. We want to be fulfilled, not filled. We are interested in satisfaction, not a holy dissatisfaction with all that is wrong.[113]
One of the greatest books ever to be written on the subject of preaching is entitled Preaching and Preachers by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones. In the opening paragraph of the book he writes, “To me the work of preaching is the highest and the greatest and the most glorious calling to which anyone can ever be called. If you want something in addition to that I would say without any hesitation that the most urgent need in the Christian Church today is true preaching…”[114] If this was true when he wrote it thirty years ago (and it certainly was) then it is even more the case today. Solid, biblical preaching has become a relic of the past in some churches. Lloyd-Jones argues: “In many ways it is the departure of the Church from preaching that is responsible in a large measure for the state of modern society. The Church has been trying to preach morality and ethics without the Gospel as a basis; it has been preaching morality without godliness; and it simply does not work.”[115]
Part of the problem is that preachers and congregations alike do not appreciate, admire, respect, and value the preached Word as they should. Preaching, to many in the pews (chairs) is viewed as a necessary evil that must be endured before they can go home to the meal and the ballgame on television. But then why bother to come to church at all if this is the attitude? The American Puritan Cotton Mather knew preachers were important and not a dull, boring, necessary evil in the life of the church:
The office of the Christian ministry, rightly understood, is the most honorable, and important, that any man in the whole world can ever sustain; and it will be one of the wonders and employments of eternity to consider the reasons why the wisdom and goodness of God assigned this office to imperfect and guilty man!…The great design and intention of the office of a Christian preacher are to restore the throne and dominion of God in the souls of men…It is a work which an angel might wish for, as an honor to his character; yea, an office which every angel in heaven might covet to be employed in for a thousand years to come. It is such an honorable, important and useful office, that if a man be put into it by God, and made faithful and successful through life, he may look down with disdain upon a crown, and shed a tear of pity on the brightest monarch on earth.[116]
Where has this conviction about preaching gone? It seems that with the loss of absolute truth and morals, preaching is looked upon as good, practical, helpful advice for those who desire to hear it. Gone is the urgent sense of need; all that remains is a desire to be pleased and comforted. As to why people turn from the truth MacArthur writes,
Because deep down inside they simply want to have their ears tickled. They don’t want to be confronted. They don’t want to be convicted. They want to be entertained. They want preaching that produces pleasant sensations. They want to feel good. They want their ears tickled with anecdotes, humor, psychology, motivational lectures, reassurance, positive thinking, self-congratulation, ego-massaging sermonettes, and agreeable small talk. Biblical reproof, rebuke, and exhortation are unacceptable.[117]
Preaching in many churches today is exactly as MacArthur describes it. Clear Creek Community Church asserts that messages should be “targeted, biblical, practical, relevant, interesting, simple, and positive…Messages should be richly and creatively illustrated, and laced with humor.[118] As mentioned earlier, Evergreen Community Church advertises its sermons in this way: “Each message is uniquely designed, offering Biblical answers for today’s challenges without making you feel guilty.”[119] MacArthur speaks of a number of newspaper and magazine articles about the user-friendly movement that he searched through. Some of the descriptions of the preaching were as follows: “There is no fire and brimstone here. No Bible-thumping. Just practical, witty messages”; “You won’t feel people threatened with hell or referred to as sinners. The goal is to make them feel welcome, not drive them away”; “As with all clergyman [this pastor’s] answer is God—but he slips Him in at the end, and even then doesn’t get heavy. No ranting, no raving. No fire, no brimstone. He doesn’t even use the H-word. Call it Light Gospel. It has the same salvation as the Old Time Religion, but with a third less guilt”; and lastly, “It’s a salvationist message, but the idea is not so much being saved from the fires of hell. Rather, it’s being saved from meaninglessness and aimlessness in this life. It’s more of a soft-sell.”[120]
Why do churches stoop to this level of preaching? Because it brings people into the seats on Sunday morning and it gets them to come back. This sort of preaching will never meet people’s deepest need though. “The Gospel is often re-packaged as the answer for low self-esteem, marital discord, career problems, psychological distress, etc. Rather than seekers being perceived as sinners in need of salvation, they are perceived as lonely singles, bored executives, victims of dysfunctional families, or whatever.”[121] As one pastor says, “As a pastor to boomers, I’m convinced that they need to hear even negative messages presented in positive terms…I’ve made a deliberate practice of making sure that the messages I direct to my age-group always strike a positive note.”[122] It is lamentable that
The preacher, instead of looking out upon the world, looks out
upon public opinion, trying to find out what the public would like to hear. The
he tries his best to duplicate that, and bring his finished product into a
marketplace in which others are trying to do the same. The public, turning to
our culture to find out about our world, discovers there is nothing but its own
reflection. The unexamined world, meanwhile, drifts blindly into the future.[123]
David Wells speaks of people in the postmodern world to whom “Nothing is more incomprehensible and offensive than preaching about sin as the contradiction of God’s character and law, not to mention any references to the consequences of not believing… What they want is an uplifting, exciting, fun, inspirational time, so that when they emerge they can feel better about themselves and their prospects.”[124]
Today the preaching in many churches can hardly be called preaching. Many sermons could be given anywhere and they wouldn’t be recognized as a “sermon.” This seems to be exactly what churches seek to strive for, and what many people want to hear. Douglas Webster speaks of the quality of preaching (or lack thereof) and writes the following: “No wonder nominal Christians leave church feeling upbeat. Their self-esteem is safely intact. Their minds and hearts have been sparked and soothed with sound-bite theology, Christian maxims…kids or work. But the question remains: has the Word of God been effectively and faithfully proclaimed…?”[125] In the past Webster reminisces, church history’s greatest theologians and preachers “proclaimed the Word of God as if they were sailing a great ocean spreading to a limitless horizon of God’s truth. There was no end to exploring God’s truth or delving into its depths. By contrast, today’s market-driven pastors invite people poolside to wade in the shallow end. No diving is allowed, and the purpose is recreational.”[126]
For many churches and those attending church, the pastor is viewed as the chief executive officer rather than the bearer of the Word of God. Wells makes the observation that “The minister’s authority and professional status rides not on his or her character, ability to expound the Word of God, or theological skill in relating that Word to the contemporary world but on interpersonal skills, administrative talents, and ability to organize the community.”[127] Interestingly, as far back as 1886, Nation Magazine reported: “Indeed, so far has the Church caught the spirit of the age, so far has it become a business enterprise, that the chief test of ministerial success is now the ability to ‘build up’ a church. Executive, managerial abilities are now more in demand than those which used to be considered the highest in a clergyman.”[128] If this was the case over a hundred years ago, what is it like today? One modern example is Trinity Church in upscale Greenwich, CT. The church placed a wanted ad for an “Executive Pastor” in a recent issue of Christianity Today magazine. The ad claims the church is a programmatically innovative seeker-sensitive church with about 350 in weekly attendance and growing. The church is searching for a pastor who can relate well to affluent, “fast track” commuters and their families. The church claims to be in need of “a highly relational, self-motivated individual who can develop and motivate leaders, design and build infrastructure, envision and create ministry delivery teams, oversee staff and direct operations. Seminary degree unnecessary and a business background preferred.”[129]
Many pastors also view themselves as a business manager rather than as the shepherd of God’s flock. According to Sargeant’s seeker church pastor survey, three out of five pastors (61%) agree that “Pastors increasingly need to function as chief executive officers in their churches.”[130] Sargeant notes one church that seeks a senior pastor with these qualities: “Knock-em-dead platform skills, transparent persona, aggressive leadership style and grueling background investigation required. Marketplace success respected over ministry credentials.”[131] It is a sad commentary on the present state of the Church that a manager is prized in the pulpit more than a preacher and teacher. Sooner or later the Church will awake from its comfortable hibernation with the world and realize that is has missed out on truly being the Church God desires. Hopefully sooner rather than later the Church will realize it is God and His message that will build the Church, not a chief executive pastor.
Another prominent strategy used by “seeker-sensitive” churches and megachurches is entertaining, exciting, professional, and fast-paced worship. The idea is that worship is not to be boring so that people will want to come. Many church services resemble a concert or other performance rather than a worship service. Sargeant quotes Charles Trueheart who provides this portrait of the seeker service that is characterized by enthusiasm, creativity, liveliness and informality:
No spires. No crosses. No robes. No clerical collars. No hard pews. No kneelers. No biblical gobbledygook. No prayerly rote. No fire, no brimstone. No pipe organs. No dreary eighteenth-century hymns. No forced solemnity. No Sunday finery. No collection plates…Centuries of European tradition and Christian habit are deliberately being abandoned, clearing the way for new, contemporary forms of worship and belonging.[132]
Edwin Young, pastor of Houston’s Second Baptist Church says, “Our service moves. There is no dead time.”[133] “Exciting Second” as the church is called, sent its staff to Disney for training on everything from smooth parking flow to modern multimedia services.[134] According to Young he “takes what is worldly and baptizes it.”[135] Walt Kallestad of Phoenix’s Community Church of Joy prides himself on offering what he calls “Entertainment Evangelism” and he says, “Alternative forms of worship,” especially contemporary music, “must be a priority for a congregation if worship is to be effective.”[136] Rick Warren claims that “There is a place for silence in worship, but it’s not at the beginning of a seeker service. Have you ever seen a sign over a church auditorium that says, ‘Enter in silence’? That is the last thing you want in a seeker service. You want the atmosphere…to be alive and happy and contagious with joy.”[137] Referring to the music in his church, Warren writes, “We’ve often been referred to in the press as ‘the flock that likes to rock.’ We use the style of music the majority of people in our church listen to on the radio…we made the strategic decision to stop singing hymns in our seeker services. Within a year of deciding what would be ‘our sound,’ Saddleback exploded with growth.”[138] A Pastor of a nondenominational church in Pennsylvania says his church often uses songs by popular artists such as Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston, and especially Billy Joel, who, according to this pastor, is “somewhat of a prophet for our age.” He adds that Joel’s song “River of Dreams” can lead seekers to a “personal relationship with Christ.”[139]
What is true worship? Is there something inherently wrong with the worship that takes place in many seeker churches? It seems there is. Marva Dawn describes worship as “a cascade into the ever-flowing surprises of encounters with the immensity of God’s magnificence and sublimity and radiance.”[140] She points out that “We live in an age and a culture that want instead to turn the worship of God into a matter of personal taste and time, convenience and comfort.”[141] However, “Because God is both subject and object [of worship] Christian worship is about offerings or sacrifice.”[142] Dawn provides William Temple’s definition of worship, which is:
the submission of all our nature to God. It is the quickening of the conscience by His holiness; the nourishment of the mind with His truth; the purifying of the imagination by His beauty; the opening of the heart to His love; the surrender of will to His purpose—and all of this gathered up in adoration, the most selfless emotion of which our nature is capable.[143]
Dawn says it is wrong to call a church service worship if the purpose is to attract people rather than to adore God. Many church services then, do not qualify as worship at all. Dawn says, “To use Christian worship for any other purpose other than the glorification of God is to abuse it…Whereas many worship services allow congregants to be an audience viewing the pastor and musicians as actors, genuine worship happens when everyone knows that God is the audience.”[144] This is precisely why worship services should not be primarily evangelistic tools used to attract seekers. Only those who know God, who know His character and believe in Him, can worship Him. “Since the term worship has to do with the worthiness of the One who is worshiped, certainly only those who know and acknowledge that worth can genuinely ascribe it and proclaim it.”[145] Dawn writes that the Church must not confuse worship with evangelism because “If we choose a certain musical style or other elements simply to appeal to those outside our walls, then we are forcing worship to bear the brunt of evangelism…Don’t misunderstand: good worship will be evangelistic, but that is not its primary purpose, for it is directed toward God, not toward the neighbor.”[146]
Dawn says she believes unequivocally that it is “utterly dangerous for churches to offer choices of worship styles.”[147] This is a quick-fix solution to the problem. She says, “It is much easier to change the kind of music offered than to change the hearts of members to make them more hospitable in worship and daily life, more willing to witness, more loving toward their neighbors.”[148] Dawn sees several problems with having two or more distinct services. Different styles of worship at different times promote the consumer mentality and the notion of marketing religion. Dividing the church members into “traditional” and “contemporary” sets up two distinct groups and often separates the older people from the younger ones. One never gets the opportunity to discover different types of worship if they just go to the service that feels most comfortable. Worship is not a matter of taste, it is a matter of God.[149]
Pastor Rick Warren claims: “Almost all churches need to pick up the pace of their services [and]…work on minimizing transition times.”[150] Each element of their services is timed. All this is because as Warren says, “television has permanently shortened the attention span of Americans.”[151] But as Dawn correctly points out: “If television is causing people to be dissatisfied with the worship of our churches, should we change worship to be more like television—or should the splendor of our worship cause people to ask better questions about television?”[152] Some churches time every part of their service and everything is controlled and professionally staged. Fellowshipchurch.com has a clock that counts down the time until the service starts to the one-hundredth of a second. Os Guinness questions all this and asks if it allows room for God Himself to work in His Church:
Totally planned, professionally orchestrated, single-purpose environments may be as “effective” for evangelism in megachurches as they are for selling in megamalls. But when everything is controlled, from first impressions in the parking lot to the wardrobe colors and stage movements of the platform party, who controlls the church and who controls the controllers? Something of the mysterious and lovable but unwashed reality of the real-life bride of Christ is lost. Something of the impossible-to-predict, category-shattering sovereignty and grace of God is walled off.[153]
What is the problem with worship as entertainment? As will be discussed further below, “How God is worshiped (i.e., praxis) may, in fact, subtly alter the worshiper’s understanding of who that God is.”[154] For example, when one goes to church and hears the Rod Stewart song “Have I told You Lately That I Love You” during a communion service, or the Eagles’ song “Desperado” on Easter Sunday, as happened at Mill Pond Fellowship,[155] or they see an all-male “Back Street Boys” motif on Mother’s Day Weekend,[156] what message about God does this offer people? It certainly is not wonder, awe, reverence, or respect. It may make people feel good and makes them happy, but one wonders if God is pleased.
Marva Dawn explains the problems with entertaining worship:
An emphasis on what we “get out” of a worship service—above all, that we feel good about ourselves—displaces the theocentric praise of God with anthropocentric utilitarianism. Since the worship of God is an end in itself, making worship useful destroys it, because this introduces an ulterior motive for praise…We have let modern idolatries reduce God into such an anemic irrelevance that we must entertain people instead of introducing them to God…“Praise” that uses only “upbeat” songs can be extremely destructive to worshipers because it denies the reality of doubts concerning God, the hiddeness of God, and the feelings of abandonment by God that cloud believers going through difficult times.[157]
The fact is people are broken in spirit and are hurting emotionally, psychologically, and most importantly, spiritually. They need more when they come to church than “Don’t worry, be happy.” Worship needs to have some substance to it. Dawn also points out that one main cause of the “dumbing down” of worship has been the contemporary confusion of praise with “happiness.” She says, “Some worship planners and participants think that to praise God is simply to sing upbeat music; consequently, many songs that are called “praise” actually describe the feelings of the believer rather than the character of God.”[158] Although speaking in terms of the Christian mind, Guinness has some interesting insight on evangelical’s separation of “heart” and “head” and their usual choice of the former over the latter. He claims many in the church are like the Tin Woodman in L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Here is a selection:
“Why didn’t you walk around the hole?” asked the Tin Woodman.
“I don’t know enough,” replied the Scarecrow, cheerfully. “My head is stuffed with straw, you know, and that is why I am going to Oz to ask him for some brains.”
“Oh, I see;” said the Tin Woodman. “But after all, brains are not the best things in the world.”
“Have you any?” enquired the Scarecrow.
“No, my head is quite empty,” answered the Woodman; “but once I had brains, and a heart also; so having tried them both, I should much rather have a heart…
“All the same,” said the Scarecrow, “I shall ask for brains instead of a heart; for a fool would not know what to do with a heart if he had one.”
“I shall take the heart,” returned the Tin Woodman; “for brains do not make one happy, and happiness is the best thing in the world.”[159]
Guinness’ response here has a lot to say about the Church’s view of worship, theology, teaching, and preaching:
Never mind that “heart” in the Bible is more a matter of understanding than sentiment—so “heart” versus “head” is a false choice. Never mind that the Spirit of truth is also the Spirit of love and the Spirit of power—so truth must never be pitted against love and power. Ever since the mid-eighteenth century we evangelicals have had a natural bias toward the Tin Woodman’s choice—empty brains and happy hearts. We even glory in our choice.[160]
Whatever is fast, easy, and works is promoted by some as the best sort of worship.
The idea is people want “worship” that is fun, easy, entertaining, and undemanding. This is precisely what Rev. David Luecke promotes in his review of Dawn’s book, Reaching Out Without Dumbing Down:
The assumption is that most people would prefer gourmet food if they could get it. That’s questionable. It can be hard to digest and the cost in time and money is usually too high…Home cooking in general seems to be disappearing. That leaves Burger King. The whole worship discussion could be reframed around two alternatives: If you and your congregation had to choose between being a fancy French restaurant or a Burger King, which would you prefer?…Most advocates of contemporary worship, including me, would opt for Burger King; in a given week it feeds a lot more people, and the food meets the needs…Which kind of food service do you think Jesus and Paul would choose?[161]
The problems with a statement like this seem obvious. One wonders what this pastor’s church services are like. Hopefully even today there are those who would much rather sup at the banquet table of the glories of God rather than eat out of the trough of modernity which offers only the gruel of quick, easy, jovial, and non-committal “worship.” Jesus and Paul would no doubt opt for a fancy French restaurant rather than a Burger King. Why? Because at Burger King one can get it “your way, right away.” This is not worship and adoration, but convenience and consumerism; not sacrifice and commitment, but marketing and expediency. Dawn responds to the critique this way:
Isn’t the gospel sometimes hard to digest? Luecke complains that worship should not be like gourmet food, which “can be hard to digest”—but if worship is always easy, are we giving its participants the true God?…Doesn’t discipleship cost a lot of time and money?…don’t we have a Christ who told a rich man to sell all he had, who warned those who wanted to turn back home that they weren’t fit for the kingdom? If our worship is not costly in terms of time, participation, and commitment, how will we teach what discipleship means? The medium must match the message…No matter which kind of food service our worship resembles, we must ask whether it meets our genuine needs…as we eat, are we growing stronger or just fatter?…isn’t it a severe theological problem to say that our worship should be like Burger King food because other food is hard to digest and costs too much in time and money? It seems to me that then we are talking merely about marketing and entertainment, instead of discussing worship, formation for discipleship, and liturgy (which means “the work of the people”).[162]
The final aspect of marketing worship that should be mentioned is the use of religious terms and language in church. Should the Church use words such as justification, redemption, and propitiation, or should these words be thrown out simply because people do not understand them? As the Rev. Jess Moody of First Baptist Church in Van Nuys, California says, “If we use the words of redemption or conversion, they think we’re talking about bonds.”[163] Marva Dawm has some very helpful and insightful comments on this subject and it is instructive to quote her at length:
Many people leave churches that intend to offer deeper nurturing because they do not understand why we do what we do when the Church worships. What many churches do in response is eliminate anything that is different from the surrounding culture and reduce their worship services to a few songs that are simple to sing, a band that always plays in ways that sound familiar, and a preacher who does everything else. This misconception frequently touted is that worship should be user-friendly… If children join the Boy Scouts and don’t understand how to tie knots, the troop won’t eliminate knot-tying so that kids will stay; instead, the Scouts do all they can to help the children learn it… If people are leaving churches because they don’t understand everything, then perhaps we have made them feel like they should understand everything right off or we have embarrassed them in their lack of understanding. Our churches must make a far greater effort to help worship participants know that it is good to be a learner still, to relieve their embarrassment, to make worship such a delight that everyone knows it is worth learning more as we participate in this splendor.[164]
It is also worth quoting D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones here on this subject. He says the answer to this whole argument is to ask another question, When did people understand terms such as justification, sanctification, or glorification? He writes:
When did the unbeliever understand this language? The answer is: never! These terms are peculiar and special to the Gospel. It is our business as preachers to show that our Gospel is essentially different and that we are not talking about ordinary matters We must emphasize the fact that we are talking about something unique and special…Our business is to teach people the meaning of these terms. They do not decide and determine what is to be preached and how: it is we that have the Revelation, the Message, and we have to make this understood.[165]
Ten different marketing strategies of the contemporary seeker-church movement have been discussed above. What now remains to be discussed are the assumptions and presuppositions behind the philosophy itself. These assumptions are often wro