False Assumption
The
second challenge with the church growth movement is their belief that there are
people seeking God. Bill Hybels and the Willow Creek phenomenon in Chicago are
often thought to have created the Seeker-Sensitive Movement that plagues
evangelicalism today. Hybels and his ilk certainly refined the idea and ran
with it but they did not “invent” it.
When
Henry Ward Beecher in the late 19th century began preaching a “loving”
and “accepting” gospel, he in essence was preaching what he thought people
wanted and would respond to. He began to fill his buildings with what he
thought people wanted to hear and would hear rather than what the bible
actually taught.
Norman Vincent Peale
Peale
came along in the 1930’s and introduced “the church” to secular humanist psychology.
He popularized the “power of positive thinking” psycho-babble developed by
Charles Fillmore. Peale attracted thousands
of people who were seeking a “spiritual experience” coupled with mysticism and
the occult. He taught than one could turn one’s wishes into realities by the
power of the unconscious mind. Needless to say Peale was both a heretic and a
false teacher. He is mentioned here for two reasons. First, he presented a
message that people wanted to hear. Second, he heavily influenced Dr. Robert
Schuller of the former Crystal Cathedral fame.
Robert Schuller
In
1955 Schuller went to Garden Grove, California where he founded the Garden
Grove Community Church, the forerunner to the Crystal Cathedral. Having been
heavily influenced by Peale and his power of positive thinking he set out to
find what people wanted in a church. He surveyed large areas of Garden Grove
and surrounding areas asking people why they didn’t attend church and what they
wanted in a church. He then gave it to them.
Schuller also was a false teacher preaching a false gospel. Schuller has
been a friend, mentor, and a heavy influence on Rick Warren of Saddle Back
Community Church and Purpose Driven fame.
The
church growth movement is built on the false assumption that the unconverted
are actively seeking after the God of the Bible. As a result many in the church
growth movement advocate making the church and the services as “use-friendly”
and seeker-sensitive as possible. The change that this philosophy has brought
into the church is disastrous. It has been disastrous to the spiritual health
and well-being of the individual churches.
In
order to make both the church and the services seeker-sensitive congregations
have removed any intimidating item from a “church” building including crosses,
pulpits, religious art, stained-glass windows to clothing. These things do not
keep people from attending the corporate gathering of the body of Christ. Décor
or methodologies are not the answer.
The
Bible makes it very clear that people are not seeking God. There are no
seekers. Therefore the church growth/seeker-sensitive movement is seeking to be
sensitive to a non-existent entity. Romans 3:9-18 describes the condition and
attitude of every living human being. The scripture is adamant that no one is
seeking after God.
“as it is written:
None is righteous, no not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God.” (Romans 3:10-11, ESV)
No
one, no living human being prior to conversion seeks after God. They may seek
after relief from guilt, a spiritual experience, a better mind-set,
spiritualism, mystic experience, happiness, inward peace, satisfaction,
acceptance, and many other things. They are not seeking the God of the bible.
Scripture
refutes this notion of individuals seeking after God in at least three (3)
ways:
First
– (Unconverted man) has no fear of God (Romans 18)
Second
– Unconverted man held court, assessed the evidence of God and determined to
reject, suppress, and did not honor (value) God as God (Romans 3:21)
Third
– Unconverted men hate the light and
love their darkness (John 3:19) Since God is light, men in their unconverted
state, hate God. They are God-haters. Unconverted
men do not seek after God. We think that we can remove our neckties and
jackets, wear jeans with holes in them that the unconverted will see our
sensitivity toward them and they will come seeking. Removing the pulpit will
not make the service any more appealing to the unconverted. It merely sends the
message that the word of God is no longer thought of as sufficient or authoritative.
“And
this is the judgment: the light [Christ] has come into the
world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works
were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not
come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.” (John
3:19-20, ESV)
When
individual, local churches subscribe to church growth methods they have in
essence cried Uncle. They have usually abandoned things like fervent,
passionate, Spirit-filled prayer meetings, they have abandoned expositional
teaching and preaching of the word, they have abandoned biblical fellowship
with all the members of the body, and the regular meals together which include
the Lord’s supper. More importantly they have abandoned the only means by which
true biblical churches flourish by and that is discipleship. Church growth methods
center on programs, personalities, and promotions rather than faithful
obedience to the great commission.
The
only church growth plan in the New Testament is found in Matthew 28:18-20. As
each individual member of the body of Christ goes about their normal daily life
they are to be making disciples. Those disciples once made are to be baptized
and then taught everything that Jesus had taught.
To be continued...
My wife and I got hooked on a "reality" TV show of all things. The show is called Gold Rush and it is on the Discovery Channel. It features in a documentary form six (6) men from Sandy, OR as "rookie" gold-miners digging for gold in the Klondike. I noticed from the first two seasons that a major problem with this outfit is improper tools. Their heavy mining equipment is either too old, or has been"run hard and put away wet," or may not be the right equipment for the job.
“Coming to Christ” is not the easy matter so many imagine it, nor so simple a thing as most preachers represent it to be. Instead of its so being, the incarnate Son of God positively declares that such an act is utterly impossible to a fallen and depraved creature unless and until Divine power is brought to bear upon him. A most pride-humbling, flesh-withering, man-abasing word is this. “Coming to Christ” is a far, far different thing from raising your hand to be prayed for by some Protestant “priest,” coming forward and taking some cheap-jack evangelist’s hand, signing some “decision” card, uniting with some “church,” or any other of the “many inventions” (Ecclesiastes 7:29) of man. Before any one can or will “come to Christ” the understanding must be supernaturally enlightened, the heart must be supernaturally changed, the stubborn will must be supernaturally broken.
As promised in yesterday’s post, I want to give the underlying
foundational errors of the church growth movement. Let me say this, the
offspring of the church growth movement is known as “The Seeker-Sensitive”
Movement. The foundational errors of this movement are three-fold; first,
it denies the authority and sufficiency of the Scriptures, and secondly,
it is built on the false assumption that the unconverted is actively seeking
after the God of the Bible, and third, the purpose of the Sunday morning
worship service is to reach the lost. These are three false assumptions
that have lent themselves to the harm of the church;
