It seems a bit odd to be revisiting a blog topic from a year ago, but I still hear the same topic being used completely out of context by Christians after all this time. Worse yet, the people who are now misrepresenting the news are seminary professors and theology students.

It seems there is a deep-seated hatred of the “seeker-sensitive” church by many who would consider themselves “better” Christians. They portray the strategy of tailoring the Sunday morning worship events of the church toward non-Christians as being manipulative, unspiritual, and incorrectly representing the gospel message by not clearly portraying “fire and brimstone” to hell-bound sinners.

Too often, I believe they fail to realize the most people come to faith because God is shown in light of the love and kindness He has extended to sinful men. They fail to realized that the “seeker-sensitive” model is not about watering down the gospel, but about communicating the gospel in language that is familiar to non-Christians, and avoiding words that do not hold meaning for them, like: “sin, perpituation, redemption, etc.”

In my classes, Willow Creek church is characterized as having apologizing publically for pushing an incorrect strategy in their emphasis on seeker-sensitivity and small groups. This is entirely incorrect.

The Reveal study (www.revealnow.com) is another example of how Willow Creek is using the best of culture and academics to refine it’s mission to reach lost people. It does not in any way apologize for the major thrusts of Willow Creek’s past strategy toward being Seeker Sensitive, or promoting small groups. It instead shows that these strategies have been extremely successful in reaching the non-Christians and growing Christians of their church and the churches of the Willow Creek Association. What it apologizes for is its failure to lead people successfully through the stages of maturing Christian growth. It shows that they have failed to teach spiritual disciplines, or to show maturing Christians that they should stop looking to the church programming as the next step in their spiritual journey. Their failure is not a culture adoption problem at all…in fact, cultural adoption is still the key to much of their success in reaching new generations moving into the Chicago area. Their failure is keeping “older” believers motivated to grow in Christ, but not providing the most effective means for them to pursue that growth.

See my original post, here: https://blog.pathfinders.training/church/the-willow-creek-rumor-of-repentence/

Tomorrow I will once again approach the pulpit, in an attempt to communicate the Word of God effectively. It is a task that requires a TON of diligence, and one to which I feel totally inadequate. Give me a classroom, and I feel right at home, but put me behind a pulpit, and all is lost. Here are a few reasons why:

The sermon requires a monologue, not a conversation:
During my first sermon I approached the message with a concrete knowledge of my outline, thinking the inflections of my words and motions of my body would simply fit themselves to the message. I was wrong. I spent 12 minutes pacing back and forth with my hands bouncing together as if they were connected with a giant rubber band. My motions failed to follow my words and distracted the audience from God’s Word.

I’ve realized since then that a monologue is best fit into the category of acting, rather than speaking. It requires diligent rehearsal…both of words and physical actions. This time I wrote out my outline with inserted body movements, and I have practiced on the stage and in front of the mirror, rather than across a blank table. Next, I should allow my wife to critique my practice…but I just don’t have the guts for that yet.

Outline or Full Manuscript, I still cannot decide!
It really is quite difficult for me to decide whether I would prefer to preach from an outline or a manuscript. The manuscript allows me to be more eloquent with my words…but the process of revising it over and over along with my constant habit of  changing the wording in the midst of the sermon makes all that hard work seem useless.

Using Scripture to Explain Scripture: Bad.
There is rarely a sermon that I hear today that does not seem to need to validate the words of a passage of Scripture with the example of David, Abraham, Joseph or Jesus. It carries with it to negative connotations.

Firstly, it seems to imply that if Jesus didn’t say it, it’s not as important to us as what He said–or that it doesn’t apply to us today. My professor jokingly said it this way: why do we need red-letter Bibles? The church believes that the entire Bible is the written product of the Holy Spirit. He’s just as much God as Jesus. The entire thing should be red-letter!

In addition to this, it is REALLY common to use Scripture to validate Scripture. We preach from Proverbs, only to pull in an example from the book of Job. The problem again is this: Scripture does not need to be repeated to be true. One lone command should be just as powerful in our lives as a command repeated 10 times. I cannot think enough to elaborate on this more right now, except to say this: beware filling the need to make Joseph or David the example for everything you teach. We should feel the need to enhance the commands of Scripture with stories of Scripture. Examples from real life are often more applicable, especially since many of the story examples I hear used to validate lessons on character or leadership tend to take the intention for the stories of these Biblical figures out of context.

Send up a prayer for me…this may be a class assignment, but it still involves proclaiming the Word of God, and I never want to take that lightly.

There are so many audio files available to us today, that I am reluctant to recommend or use any. However, I have found few good audio resources on small group strategy and leadership, until now.

North Point Community Church has posted the audio from their group leaders training event, Re:Group online for download and use. I practically downloaded every talk (I listen to them on my way to and from work 3 days a week).

I hope you enjoy these as much as I have. Small groups are amazing when they are done well, but when they are done poorly, I almost wish the group strategy had never been tried.

Regroup Audio

Brandon Johnson of Learning to Walk as a good post on the “social gospel” movement, and how it often serves mankind without sharing the gospel. I want to leave his words to speak for themselves, but I thought I would add a few applicable quotes to emphasize his point. Read his post by clicking here: Christianity and Social Justice.

“There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.” – Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)

“We cannot state too strongly in an age when the thought of men is full of things, and the body has crept up on the throne of the soul, that our work is not immediately and in itself a philanthropic work, a political work, a secular work of any sort whatsoever; it is a spiritual and a religious work. Of course, religion must express itself in life, but religion is spiritual life. I had rather plant one seed of the life of Christ under the crust of heathen life than cover that whole crust over with the veneer of our social habits on the vestiture of Western civilization.
~ Robert E. Speer, 1867 to 1947

A decade ago, the internet was viewed as a nusance…now it is the information and entertainment center of the developed world.

A few years ago, and unknown pastor and his church in a little-known suburb of Oklahoma decided to pioneer the use of this medium to create a relevant online worship experience, where people could hear the gospel, and visit church without having to leave their homes. Here’s the result…

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/3387278[/vimeo]

Thank you, LifeChurch, for ignoring the critics and paving another channel for the effective proclamation of the gospel!

www.lifechurch.tv