Over at The Gospel Coalition, recently, Erik Raymond chronicled an encounter with a non-Christian friend who had been visiting a church for a while but then decided to not go back. In the conversation that ensued, this “seeker” said he grew tired of the church experience being too shallow.
In response, Raymond wrote:
This makes me ask uncomfortable questions. Why are they doing this? Who are they doing this for? Why the music? Why the teaching? Why the whole production? Is Wilson right . . . is this whole thing not for the seekers after all but for the consumer-minded Christians? Are we holding back doctrine because the Christians want us to? Are we not using tough theological words for the Christians? Are we singing peppy but airy songs devoid of the real stuff of life (suffering, trials, apostasy) for the Christians? Are we accumulating teachers after our own desires? Is this what itching ears looks like? (2 Tim. 4:3).
It breaks my heart to consider this perspective. I think of an unbeliever going to church, a Christian church, and walking away disappointed because it lacked a seriousness, weightiness, and gospel content. It was so practical that it was irrelevant. What in the world are we doing?
It’s a good point to ponder: Does being seeker-sensitive actually result in seekers coming to know Jesus? Even if we don’t call ourselves seeker-sensitive, we Baptist argue over things like the “alter call” and expository vs. evangelistic sermons based upon the notion of reaching the lost within our church gatherings.
This raises the question: How much should we focus our church services on the seekers and non-Christians among us?
The Bible doesn’t go into great detail about what the early Christians did whenever they gathered as a church, so we certainly must allow for freedoms among our forms. There is no singular right way of doing church. Some hints we find come from Acts 2:42-47 where the baptized gathered daily house to house and in the temple for sharing of the word (the apostle’s teaching), their lives, their possessions, their food (also involving the Lord’s Supper), and prayers. Then in 1 Corinthians we find Paul speaking of partaking in the Lord’s Supper while gathering (chapters 10-11) as well as edifying one another with spiritual gifts, songs, lessons, prophetic revelations, discussion of such, tongues, and interpretations (chapter 14).
So we might give a basic rubric for church gatherings: songs, teaching, prayers, discussions, food (including the Lord’s Supper), serving one another, and caring for one another.
But what about gearing these things for the non-Christians?
In 1 Corinthians, Paul addressed a spiritual gift one-upmanship among the church members, which was especially centered around tongues. As spectacular of a gift as speaking in tongues could be, Paul said, “In church I would rather speak five words with my mind in order to instruct others, than ten thousand words in a tongue” (14:19). Later he said that if no one was present with the gift of interpretation then the person with a message to share in tongues should keep silent (14:28).
In the midst of this, Paul exhorted:
In the Law it is written, “By people of strange tongues and by the lips of foreigners will I speak to this people, and even then they will not listen to me, says the Lord.” Thus tongues are a sign not for believers but for unbelievers, while prophecy is a sign not for unbelievers but for believers. If, therefore, the whole church comes together and all speak in tongues, and outsiders or unbelievers enter, will they not say that you are out of your minds? But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or outsider enters, he is convicted by all, he is called to account by all, the secrets of his heart are disclosed, and so, falling on his face, he will worship God and declare that God is really among you. (14:21-25)
It is in Acts 2 where we see tongues most clearly directed at unbelievers. Yes, it was in part a sign that the Holy Spirit had come upon God’s people just as Jesus had promised, but as the apostles spoke to the crowds and the crowds heard in their native dialects, some scoffed but some also came to believe. In that day, 3000 people became followers of Jesus and part of the church—a great evangelistic result!
But from what Paul told the Corinthians, life in church gathering should be different. He didn’t dismiss tongues outright as something they should never do when gathered; but he placed boundaries on tongues and minimized their usefulness next to something more edifying such as prophecy.
So the very thing that Paul called a “sign for unbelievers,” he said to minimize or not even use in the church gathering (if no one could interpret). Instead, focus on edifying the believers.
With this is the interesting note: Paul expected non-Christians to be among the church gatherings, at least at times. Perhaps this could be in the form of family members or household servants, or possibly even friends or neighbors wondering what these regular gatherings with signing and teaching were about. Yet, Paul warned: If you focus on what is a sign for them while you’re gathered, they’re going to call you mad. If, however, you focus on edifying each other through prophecy and the like, they may well be convicted and come to realize that God is manifest among you.
In other words, Paul essentially said the best way to be seeker-sensitive is to focus your church gatherings on edifying believers.
Yes, expect unbelievers to be among you, and make everything you do and teach as clear as possible to edify those present and avoid confusion (14:6-11), but “strive to excel in building up the church” (14:12). Focus more on the believers than the non-believers present. So, may we let our songs be theologically rich, our teachings driven by explaining and applying the word, and our love for one another great. May our “church” gatherings be just that: a meeting of the people of Jesus for the sake of loving God and loving each other.
And through this, let us pray for conviction upon any lost among us that they truly might experience the presence of God and through such conviction, fall on their face before the one, true Savior-King.
I think a lot of this is based on how you view the church. Do you view the church primary as a way to equip the saints to go out to the world? Or do you view the church in more of a seeker sensitive way that tries to attract people to church?
The answer to those questions will determine a lot in a church.
Personally, I grew up in a more Seeker Sensitive church (a SBC one). There were many people like the man described in the TGC blog post. Rarely did they every perform church discipline, the preaching was pretty weak, and the church was way more concerned with attracting people than equipping people.
“… the church was way more concerned with attracting people than equipping people …”
Tyler, you have hit on a major issue in the American church. If the organized church created an environment aimed at equipping the saints to do the work of the ministry, rather than laboring to come up with new methods to attract a crowd, we might see Church return to church. As it is, many folks in the pew are not engaged in the Great Commission and the world is not drawn to it … requiring gimmicks to get them there.
Thank you, Mike! There are certainly spiritual dead intellectuals in the church, as I hear many people argue, but anti-intellectualism is a far worse problem. Both are outworkings of sinful human pride.
We should assume unbelievers will be in our church services. We should do all we can to get unbelievers to join us in our worship services.
I’ve never understood the argument that Revelation 3:20 is only for Christians since it was written to a church. Every church needs to often hear the plan of salvation, both to equip the saints and to point unbelievers to Jesus. I’ve always looked at Revelation 3:20 as easily applying to both the saved and the lost.
Therefore, we should have evangelistic preaching and altar calls.
We should present the gospel in easy to understand terms.
We should preach in easy to understand language, whether our preaching is expository or topical.
While staying true to the Bible, we should make guests feel welcome and comfortable. Minister to the saved and the lost.
But of course, there will always be unbelievers, as well as believers, who will not return to our churches. We can only pray and do the best we can. We can’t win and disciple all, but we can win and disciple some.
David R. Brumbelow
Good article. As I look around the church landscape, I see a hunger for and return to more substantive and theologically and musically rich worship. Yes, even among the younger crowd. I live in the St. Louis area and setting aside the Journry churches theology (Calvinistic) and Patrick’s recent departure, one cannot help but be amazed at the incredible number of younger people attending and joining these churches. Now I know numbers aren’t everything. But if you want to know where a whole lot of younger singles and families are on Sunday morning, visit a Journey campus church. What you’ll find is rich preaching and theologically deep music.
My own church, Twin Oaks PCA, would be considered high church by some. We still have a printed order of service (bulletins are online at our website) that stay fairly much the same liturgy, no overheads for singing (we still mostly use hymnals and when use music not in the hymnal, the songs are printed in our bulletin and are more recent, theologically sound songs/hymns or sometimes older hymns set to newer tunes), an incredible pipe organ, and often Bach or some other classical sacred music to violins and flutes, etc.
Yet, we are seeing more and more younger singles and families attending and joining. From all denominational or no denominational backgrounds.
Our pastor most often issues an invitation for unbelievers to repent and trust Christ (though no walk down front time and no leading in a sinner’s prayer). But, our services are definitely for the redeemed. As I think they should be. We know unbelievers are present. That’s a given. We want them to attend. AND, we want them to simultaneously feel welcomed and prayerfully spiritually alarmed. We seek out in follow up hoping to have one on one gospel encounters and pray for conversions.
Lately we have been using a phrase we want for people: “belonging before believing.” We want newcomers, saved and unsaved, to come to feel a sense of belonging and for the unsaved to then believe. Loving them and caring for them in the process…getting to know them, inviting them to social events, visiting them or their families in the hospital, etc. We are praying for God to bless this and bring many more into the kingdom.
No, we don’t think we have it all figured out. But we are using many means to reach the lost in our community. Many hooks if you will. Yes, Reformed folks do, or should, care for and try to reach lost souls as much as anyone else.
Here is last Sunday’s worship service that I broadcast live on our Facebook page. We are two weeks into two services, so there’s that reference to the first service. https://www.facebook.com/TwinOaksPCA/videos/10153751781616954/
In summary, I think there is more and more a hunger for substance and depth. And as ur society devolves, I think more and more people will be looking for it.
You might find some of the reasons that Christians converted to Islam interesting. People write about this and Google can find it for you.
David Wells does a marvelous job of addressing these issues in his book God in The Whirlwind. He speaks to the ‘weightiness’ of God that is absent in so many ‘churches’. Well worth the time to read this as well as the other 5 titles he wrote from 1993 – 2014. Tom Fillinger 803 413 3509