Seeker Sensitive Church Quotes

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 the faith determine most about its expression.

Worship, then, needs to be characterized by hospitality; it needs to be inviting. But at the same time, it should be inviting seekers into the church and its unique story and language. Worship should be an occasion of cross-cultural hospitality. Consider an analogy: when I travel to France, I hope to be made to feel welcome. However, I don't expect my French hosts to become Americans in order to make me feel at home. I don't expect them to start speaking English, ordering pizza, talking about the New York Yankees, and so on. Indeed, if I wanted that, I would have just stayed home! Instead, what I'm hoping for is to be welcomed into their unique French culture; that's why I've come to France in the first place. And I know that this will take some work on my part. I'm expecting things to be different; indeed, I'm looking for just this difference. So also, I think, with hospitable worship: seekers are looking for something our culture can't provide. Many don't want a religious version of what they can already get at the mall. And this is especially true of postmodern or Gen X seekers: they are looking for elements of transcendence and challenge that MTV could never give them. Rather than an MTVized version of the gospel, they are searching for the mysterious practices of the ancient gospel.

We all have that divine moment, when our lives are transformed by the knowledge of the truth.

This is one of the most serious problems with seeker-sensitive churches. I was talking to a pastor at a seeker-friendly church not long ago about his idea that prospective Christians needed to “feel welcome” and “accepted” before anything else: no “threats,” no “judgmental baggage.” I asked, “If you had a person living in sin come to your church, would you confront him?” He furrowed his brow and shook his head disapprovingly. “Oh, no! We’d want him to feel loved and welcome.” My eyes widened. “How long would it be before you would actually say something about that?” “Maybe a year and a half, two years,” he said, smiling. “Because then he would really feel a part of things.” That was shocking to me. Is there some virtue in leaving a man in his sin for the sake of feeling accepted? “Well, that’s the difference between your church and our church,” I said finally. “Openly practicing sinners come to our church, and they either get saved or they don’t come back.

Lord, here's what we need today, right away, or as soon as we can get it: we need world peace, prosperity, security, life without risk, pleasure without pain, happiness without cost, and discipleship with no cross. That's why we're here, at church, to get our needs met. Our church tries to be user-friendly and seeker sensitive. That's why on Sundays we serve espresso with a dash of amaretto before our services, a little caffeine boost until we get to the main point of our worship: the prayer requests. So like we were saying, we need a quick recovery from gall bladder surgery, an effortless cataract removal, a happy marriage, obedient and chaste kids, and a reason to get out of bed in the morning. If you love us, you'll meet our needs. Now then, is there something that we could do for you? You're thirsty? Well, if you're the Messiah, why don't you fix yourself a divine drink? We've got needs of our own, thank you. It's our job to have need; it's your job to meet need. For this and all other needs, spoken and unspoken, felt and unfelt, incipient and obvious, personal and corporate, immediate and long term, we pray. Amen.  

In the seeker-church movement the emphasis away from the use and explication of creedal confession is obvious, since the whole point is to focus on the 'felt-needs' of the person in the pew - especially the felt-needs of nonbelievers. The rationale is that the church and its main service are evangelistic in nature. Because nonbelievers simply cannot penetrate the arcana of historic Christianity, the felt-needs of people become the point of entry into conversation with them.

John Shiver, Revival Glory: The American church will ultimately determine America’s fate in the days ahead. It must abandon its present pursuit of financial and numerical success which it seeks to achieve through compromise and spiritual lukewarmness. We must return to our passion for God and all that He is without reservation. We must become more “Holy Spirit sensitive” than we are “seeker sensitive” in what we do as a church.

When the heartbeat of the church is something other than being a praying and inclusive church (whether it be missional, organic, seeker-sensitive, purpose-driven, or any number of good things), it arouses Jesus’ ire.

The church should be seeker sensitive but it must not be seeker driven.

There is an ever-growing trend in the western church to somehow “soften” the Gospel of Jesus Christ and make it more palatable to the sensitivities of seekers and churchgoers alike, but if the story of a holy and merciful God taking the punishment for our sins and wickedness upon Himself is somehow softened and watered down (with all those parts about “sin”, “wrath” and “hell” taken out so people won’t feel bad), that’s not really “Gospel” at all. The word “Gospel” simply means “good news”. It’s good news that we’re broken, because that means we can stop trying to be good on our own and rest in the completed and finished work of Jesus on the cross. But people will never find that peace if we feed them a cheap substitute that won’t save anyone. That kind of cheap and blasphemous distortion might grow “churches” (not the Biblical kind, just the cultural kind), but it won’t change lives.

Many churches are waking up to this fact. Willow Creek (well-known for its seeker-sensitive approach to bring in people) recently had a look at what they were doing. Through a scientific survey like the one we conducted, they wanted to see if their church was really helping people grow. The findings shocked them: We discovered that high levels of church activity did not predict increasing love for God or increasing love for other people. Now don't misread this! This does not mean that people highly involved in church activities don't love God. It simply means that they did not express a greater love for God than people who are less involved in church activities. In other words, an increasing level of activities did not predict an increase in love for God. Church activity alone made no direct impact on growing the heart . . . it was a flat line – and a stunning discovery for us.38 That is a tough pill to swallow. But at least they were willing to evaluate the effectiveness of what they are doing and consider making adjustments. Whether or not they make the right adjustments is another matter, of course. When it comes to the modern-day church, I think one of the most piercing passages of Scripture is this: They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men. You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men (Mark 7:6–8; NIV).