In the ’70s, Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois, pioneered a bold approach to the Great Commission—to create a church environment that didn’t feel churchy, to eliminate any unnecessary barriers preventing spiritual seekers from placing faith in Christ.
The effectiveness of that model has inspired a new generation of church planters, such as James Emery White. Five years ago, he planted Mecklenburg Community Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, a church engineered to reach the seeker. In his book Rethinking the Church, White writes, “There is a pressing need for the church and its leaders to rethink why they do what they do the way they do it.”
The seeker movement has had supporters as well as critics.
Leadership asked White to respond to several criticisms of the seeker-church model and to help pastors reach today’s spiritual seeker.
What attracts a secular person to a seeker church?
His or her relationship with a believer.
How’s that different from why a secular person would attend another type of church?
The dilemma is this: most Christians intuitively know not to invite their friends to church because they know it’s not designed for seekers. Nor will it facilitate the seeking process.
What makes a seeker church unique, then?
A seeker-targeted church understands its mission to reach out to irreligious, unchurched people in order to turn them into fully-devoted followers of Christ. I purposefully use seeker-targeted instead of seeker-driven to describe churches like Mecklenburg. Seeker-targeted throws the emphasis on the outreach element, the entry points into church life.
What’s the difference between a seeker-sensitive and seeker-targeted church?
Most seeker-sensitive churches are simply contemporary churches with a heart for evangelism. They use some of the same forms as seeker-targeted churches—drama, media, contemporary music—but they are still oriented toward the already convinced. Being seeker-targeted is a set of values and a complete orientation to reach out first and foremost to the seeker.
Are today’s seekers even curious about the church?
Nothing could be more irrelevant to them than a local Christian church. The average seeker has gone through the “great divorce,” to steal a line from C. S. Lewis. The great divorce is the separation of spiritual longing from thinking it can be fulfilled through a particular religious faith, much less Christianity.
Seekers today are not interested in your beating around the bush.
Most people no longer see their spiritual desire and search as involving the discovery of a faith or religion.
One critique of seeker-targeted churches is that to get seekers in the door, they dumb-down the gospel.
Many who critique seeker-targeted churches would be well served to visit one.
Being seeker-targeted has nothing to do with dumbing-down the gospel. In fact having a seeker-service is not even what attracts a secular person. Yes, the entry points of the church are designed for seekers, but what attracts them is an invitation by a friend. As Michael Green, in his book, Evangelism in the Early Church, writes, “In the early church, the gospel was shared like gossip over the backyard fence.” That begins the adventure of evangelism.
So what the seeker church does uniquely is create a structure for the gossip over the fence to continue.
Absolutely. It creates an environment where someone can explore Christianity in ways most conducive to an effective search.
The seeker-targeted church designs small groups, weekend services, Internet chat rooms, special events, seminars—anything that enables a person to invite her non-Christian friend to explore the faith.
Another criticism is that seeker-type churches don’t emphasize discipleship.
That is patently false and is a caricature of the movement. I think of the discipleship process as a car assembly line. On one end you have the raw materials that go into building a car—the wire, the metal, the chassis, the glass. On the other end of the line, the car rolls off for service.
Most churches specialize in one small segment of the assembly line. They take cars that have already been put together and simply check the tire pressure and fluids, and ensure the car is clean and the engine runs well. But in many churches, there’s no commitment to the car rolling off the line for service.
They function more like a garage than an assembly line?
Exactly. A seeker-targeted church, on the other hand, cares about the whole assembly line—raw materials to finished product.
Other than Willow Creek Community Church near Chicago and a handful of other churches, there seem to be few seeker-targeted churches. Is there a reason?
Its current form with weekend seeker-services is relatively new and hasn’t had time to spread. On another level, the issue of transitioning an established church to this model is huge. The seeker-targeted emphasis is a hard sell.
Why?
Because many Christians have sold out to the culture of narcissism. There’s a spirit in today’s church that makes the needs and desires of the believer the center of attention. That is ironic, given that one critique of seeker-targeted churches is they sell out to the narcissistic mindset of contemporary culture by catering to its needs.
In reality that’s not where narcissism has taken root. Believers act as if the fattened calf should be reserved for them.
Also, there is much animosity in the church toward seekers. Christians today talk about non-Christians as if they were the enemy: “Those secular humanist, pro-abortion, anti-family types.” The rhetoric is filled with hate.
Is the seeker church really a church, or is it a parachurch?
Of course it’s a church. A seeker-targeted church is a biblically functioning community as described in Acts—worshiping, discipling, ministering, engaging in the dynamics of community, and, of course, reaching out to a lost world. But in spirit, a seeker-targeted church may actually have more in common with the parachurch movement than with the traditional church.
What is the biggest myth about seeker-targeted ministry?
That these churches water down the gospel. In a flourishing seeker-targeted church, you will hear every bit as much, if not more, discussion of sin, heaven, hell, the cross, repentance, commitment, and sacrifice as you will in any other model. When people visit Mecklenburg, one of the most common statements is “You talk more about sin than we do.” Seekers today are not interested in your beating around the bush. The best communicators in seeker-sensitive or seeker-targeted models are blunt, in-your-face, and straightforward.
But aren’t many seeker-targeted churches known for their “Here’s three principles for a better family” sermons?
I think that’s why a lot of seeker-targeted churches fail—they’re too oriented to the horizontal. There needs to be a diet of horizontal and vertical messages. The purpose of a horizontal series of messages is to convince seekers of the relevance of Christianity, but then the leader should follow up with a series on the character of God, the nature of repentance, the cross. It’s in the vertical series that people get saved.
I want people to know (a) Christianity works, and (b) it works because it’s true.
Having a seeker service is not what attracts a secular person.
It seems that seeker churches require a major center of population, a high number of managerial-type people in the congregation, and an upper-middle-class area to succeed.
Those are characteristics of some of the better-known models, but that’s not necessarily what it takes to make a seeker-targeted model work. It requires simply (1) a deep commitment to reaching lost people, (2) a church culture that doesn’t see them as the enemy, and (3) strategic entry points that facilitate their exploring the faith.
Given the complexity of creating a church that can compete with popular culture, are extraordinarily gifted leaders the only ones who can pull off this model?
A lot of new churches fail because those planting them didn’t have the necessary gift mix. Gifts related to communication and leadership are crucial, and I would throw in evangelism as well.
I’ve also seen seeker-targeted churches fail because the leader had a vision for the weekend service but not for the other six days of the week.
But let’s raise the big issue: Has God called you? Spiritual gifts are a part of that, but is planting a seeker church the call of your life?
A lot of people have been bit by the seeker-targeted bug. Some love the artistic freedom to color outside the lines, but they don’t understand that the vision is not an innovative weekend service but to be a biblically functioning community.
The flip side is throughout biblical history God has delighted in choosing leaders nobody thought could be used, so that people say, “Not what Joe does, but look what God did.” I’m uncomfortable saying, “This is what you must have to succeed.”
What’s the long-term future of this model?
The seeker movement is birthing something much larger than evangelism.
Suddenly pastors are talking about communication in the pastorate and leadership as a spiritual gift. The rebirth of spiritual gifts in the church can be largely attributed to this movement. So can the discussion about biblical community—truthtelling and confrontation and resolution, the application of Matthew 18:15.
Burning in the hearts of the leaders of this movement is a deep desire to be the church. They are simply trying to live out Acts 2:42-47, and that will never go away.
James Emery White is pastor of Mecklenburg Community Church in Charlotte, North Carolina.
1998 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. For reprint information call 630-260-6200 or contact us.
