During the last few decades, some churches, in an effort to attract visitors and hopefully new members, have attempted to make their worship services more ‘friendly’ or comfortable to those individuals and families who perhaps are church shopping, or are not yet believers in Jesus. Sometimes the term ‘seeker sensitive’ is used indicating that the design and content of the church services will contain little that might be likely to offend or disturb a visitor, and instead might be rather pleasing, appealing, and non-threatening, maybe even a bit entertaining.
The risk of this approach is that once a person comes to believe in and submit his/her life to Christ, any biblical exposure thereafter to the challenging or ‘hard sayings’ of Jesus may result in their walking away from serious discipleship of the Master. After all, they were not, early on, made aware of the ‘fine print’ of the true cost of discipleship-of being an apprentice to Jesus. On occasion, when Jesus spoke truths hard to hear or receive, His ‘followers” sometimes melted away e.g.: “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But there are some of you who do not believe…As a result of this, many of His disciples withdrew and were not walking with Him anymore” [John 6:63,64,66].
Being friendly to church visitors is, of course, a positive and very good thing for many reasons. People may be starved for a warm and caring social environment. They may want a friendly place for their children or teenagers to ‘fit in’ and make friends of their own. They may hope to ‘hear from God’ in some way, or may wish to find out if God’s representatives, i.e. the church members, are welcoming of them in light of the ‘baggage’ they might bring with them, i.e. their past failures, troubles, and problems.
Ironically, God Himself, is the primary person who is doing the ‘seeking.’ ‘For God so loved the world, that He gave…” [John 3:16]. Fundamentally, God is the initiator when it comes to our establishing a relationship with Him. When we were ‘dead’ in our transgressions/sins; when we were ‘helpless’; when we were ‘ungodly’; when we were ‘sinners’; and even ‘enemies’ of God [Rom 5:6,8,10], God, because of His great love for us, provided the solution for our dilemma by sending His son, the Lord Jesus whose sacrificial death opened the way for us to have a direct and very personal relationship with Him who is the ‘Grand Seeker’.
One example of a new testament church gathering indicates that if a ‘visitor’ happens to attend, he will possibly experience ‘shock and awe’ and conviction of conscience rather than warm fuzzy feelings in a ‘feel good’ environment: “But if… an unbeliever or an ungifted man enters [a church gathering], he is convicted by all, he is called into account by all; the secrets of his heart are disclosed; and so he will fall on his face and worship God, declaring that God is certainly among you” [I Corinthians 14:24-25].
God certainly has taken the initiative in seeking to connect with us. But He also commands us to respond in kind, as spoken by David: “When You said ‘seek My face’, my heart said to You, your face O Lord, I shall seek” [Ps 27:8]. The phrase ‘seek My face’ is a way of saying that God wants close personal, relational intimacy with us-far more than mere church attendance, or other forms of ‘religious activity.’ The plain truth is that most of us are often easily intimidated by the thought of being ‘close’ to God [and certainly to a considerable degree rightly so], but if we seek to avoid ‘face to face’ closeness to Him, our lives will be profoundly spiritually poorer as a result. Good friends enjoy time together, including ‘face time.’ Abraham, Moses, and the twelve disciples of Jesus were called ‘friends of God.’ In one sense they each spoke with God ‘face to face.’
If being a ‘seeker friendly’ church results in a diluted gospel, and a soft ‘mash potatoes’ form of Christian discipleship, then I suggest that perhaps that particular church leadership may have ‘gone off the rails’. The challenge appears then, to work at becoming a warm, friendly, caring church that all attendees, members, and visitors alike, experience some level of ‘awe’ at the power, presence, and glory of the living God. “Be still and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.” [Ps.46:10]. “Therefore, since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude, by which we may offer to God an acceptable service, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire” [Heb 12:28-29].
The kindness of God is meant to lead us to repentance along with our own individual pursuit of Him-His ‘face’ [Romans 2:4].
Indeed, God is ‘seeker friendly’ toward us and calls us to return to Him and seek His face. Is your heart, the deepest part of your being, also seeking His? “This people honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me” [Isaiah 29:13, Matt 15:7-9].
Where is your heart?
CJS
This is great Curt! God is the primary seeker and He prompts us to seek Him! So many churches have gotten of course on the this seeker church thing. It’s all about our loving God and bringing others to Him and not just to the church. Barb