We are losing them…but it had nothing to do with the way we do church. We have a handful of churches here in town that the “furthest out” person would be comfortable attending…but still these friends of mine don’t attend.

They’ll say its because they feel judged when they go to church or that the church is full of hypocrites. All these statements may be true…but it still isn’t the reason that they don’t go.

They don’t go because they don’t want to and no amount of seeker friendliness is going to convince them to be in church. They want to sleep late & nurse their hangover. When they wake up…they want to watch TV from their couch…not a preacher with a sweet goatee & spikey hair.

So…what’s my point? People who want to go to church…”seekers”…are going to go to church. They’ll find the best option available for them & get plugged in. So why not make sure that every available option out there is focused on teaching the bible…not making people comfortable.

Just my thoughts.

Who would’ve thought Christian’s would use a Budwesier commercial format/theme? Talk about thinking outside the box!

Here’s one person’s motivation for his critique of the Seeker-Sensitive movement:

“[With Jesus] every encounter is not necessarily controlled by the lost person’s agenda.

… the sinner’s wants or “felt needs” don’t necessarily control the agenda.

There’s a world of difference between telling someone the Gospel and being driven by his agenda.

There is nothing wrong (and can be much wisdom) in taking the sinner’s wants as a launchpad, but you use it to go where he needs to go, not necessarily where he wants to go.

… the rich young ruler talks about “good”; well, Jesus has some thoughts about “good” for him to chew over. The woman wants water; Jesus will talk about her real thirst. And so on.

But in others, He just takes charge and does a 90-degree turn. “Nicodemus, that isn’t what we really need to be talking about at all. Here’s what you need to know:….”"

Basically, a church, whether it be seeker-sensitive, mainline liberal, or postmodern emerging, isn’t fulfilling it’s mandate when the general case is that:

The sheep are starving, while the goats are being entertained.

P.S. Well-Intentioned Pastors —> (possibly/probably) False Gospel —> False Converts

Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

Maybe we should consider what there is to affirm in these churches instead of always looking for what can be criticized. Maybe some of these churches are actually handling the gospel, and proclaiming it to the lost, better than our own churches. There should be unity among Christians, not infighting. This is a better testimony to the world. All churches have their faults and blind-spots….because all are inhabited by partially blind sinners!

The fact is that in a culture that is getting increasingly post-modern, the church is seen as more and more rigid and conservative. That it to be expected. We shouldn’t “compromise” with the world. But we need to make sure that what we are standing firm on are the essentials (TTP 101) and not make the church even more unacceptable to the culture by the addition of our centuries-old traditions. Where we *can* lighten up on our traditional three-hymns, a choir special during an offering, followed by a sermon with exactly one joke, one poem, and three topical points, we *should*. The MTV/SMS/YouTube generations don’t communicate that way any more. We are losing them. The traditional fundamentalist independent baptist church that I grew up in may as well be speaking a different language for all the relevance it has in today’s world. We should never compromise on the message, but the means of communication is something that we can’t leave stuck in the 19th century. That *method* of doing church is a non-essential.

If I may be a little serious, at the end of the video the anouncer says “You already have yor reward” unfortunately and sadly this kind of attitude is the same attitude that Ballam and Korah had. And things didn’t turn out so good for them.

That was before Christ died on the cross; how much more do you think it will be now that people like this trample under foot the death of the Son of God?

Like, lets take Joel Osteen: he has gone on record saying he doesn’t mention “sin” because doesn’t want to hurt peoples feelings. Well, as I said in my very first sermon, The Good News without the Bad News is really no news at all (though I’m sure someone else has said that as well). People cannot come to Christ until they are told why they need to come to Christ. You can’t repent of something you’re not aware of. Until you come face to face in the presence of God through the power of His Word and get a glimpse of His holiness, one will never get saved. This is the problem with these churches, some of them are not doing this.

I’ll let my buddy R. C. Sproul speak more to this issue.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2zvqQ1w-Os

I’ve seen this on mission trips overseas. Missionaries trying to “do church” just the way we’ve done it in the US for the last century. It doesn’t work. And our culture today isn’t the same as it was decades and decades ago. I many ways I see a lot of the arguments against “seeker friendly” churches based more on tradition than theology. We need to recognize when our traditions get in the way and be willing to sacrifice our traditions for the benefit of getting the message out.