The Now and the Know

It’s nice to be back into the habit of blogging. I can’t remember the last time I posted two blogs in two days… in fact this might be the first time. Anyway, to those of you who make The Now and the Know a regular stop, many thanks. And if you stumbled upon this site by accident… welcome!

Today I will begin a series about something that’s a hot topic in a lot of ways: Church Marketing. I’m hoping to get one or two “guest bloggers” in here too because, let’s be honest, we’re all tired of listening to me rant.

Recently I was in a wedding in Missouri. One of my good friends from college got married at a small winery in the Ozarks, it was very lovely and good times were had by all. Anyway, from where I am in Des Moines it is a 5 hour drive and there’s not really no good way to get there. We took a different route coming home than we did going down and all along the road were BIG billboards that said things like: Know Jesus [above a picture of clouds and light, read: heaven] or No Jesus [above a picture of fire, read: hell]. While I am willing to give them credit for being mildly clever, I was frustrated to the point of anger when I first saw that sign. And it wasn’t the only one, I can remember seeing at least 3 more with a similar message. There was not a single sign that invited people in a relationship with Jesus that would be life-changing and fulfilling while at NOT presenting it at the sunny alternative to an otherwise gloomy after-life.

But that got me thinking about this passage from Meeting Jesus at the Bar: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Evangelism an essay by Heather Kirk-Davidoff:

As a mainline pastor I carried with me some assumptions that I inherited from the tradition in which I was formed. The outreach work I had been trained to do focused on attracting visitors to my church with flyers, programs, and advertisements, and then following up with visits, encouraging them to become members, to make financial pledges, and to agree to serve on a committee. Behind this work was an assumption that membership in a church was what the people in my community wanted and needed. My job was to recruit them into the particular church I was leading.

I think a lot of people think of their church as a product. And what’s the first thing you ask yourself when you are creating a new product… what do people want/need? Heather Kirk-Davidoff’s church was making was that people wanted committees and boards and service projects and all of the things that come along with a traditional (and cliche) church experience. If you believe that people want potlucks once a month to which no one brings an entree and everyone has a meal of salads and desserts until someone finally goes to Hy-Vee and gets fried chicken, then that’s what your church does or becomes. The job of the church leaders isn’t so much spreading God’s word and Kingdom Expansion as it is marketing a product. And that puts a sour taste in my mouth. But it goes deeper than that, was Kirk-Davidoff writes:

My evangelical colleagues were also trained as recruiters but of a different sort. Evangelism, as they were taught it, is rooted in the assumption that people are (or can easily be led to become) deeply anxious about their fate after they die. Christianity offers a solution to that anxiety because the moment that a person makes a decision to accept Jesus’ atoning sacrifice on the cross, his or her eternal fate changes from damnation to bliss. As Dallas Willard insightfully describes in The Divine Conspiracy, when Christians focus on recruitment alone, the ongoing nurture of relationships and practices in this life becomes nearly irrelevant.

Remember those signs I mentioned earlier? Let’s ask this question: what assumptions did the people who made those signs have? They were convinced that, as Kirk-Davidoff says, “… people are (or can easily be led to become) deep anxious about their fate after they die.” To put it simply: they are convinced that people don’t want to go to hell. And if they don’t believe that hell exists, they can easily be convinced that it does and they don’t want to go there. It actually reminds me of an episode of the Simpsons, the first one I ever saw. In this episode the town comes into some money and they have a meeting to try and decide how to spend it. A smooth operator of a salesman comes in and convinces the town that they need a monorail. Anyone remember that? Did the town of Springfield really need a monorail? Absolutely not. But this guy had a product to sell and he created a need for it. I really believe that some churches are doing that too. They are a certain thing or can provide a certain thing and they go out and convince people the church (not God, please note) is what they need. And that puts a sour taste in my mouth too. The focus shouldn’t creating an imagined need for a God that isn’t actually relevant, the focus should be uncovering the deepest questions of our souls and discovering through the revelations in scripture and experience that God is the answer to those questions.

Anyway, as I kick off this series on The Church Market I wanted to have some of the people I know and trust weigh on this question: what assumptions do we as the church make about “seekers?”

From Luke:

I guess my personal stereotype is that they may not have any questions at all. When I think of someone “seeking,” I think of someone who either had a reason for not going to church and has reconsidered (me), or someone who never really thought about church in the first place and had his or her curiosity sparked somehow.

I don’t think a lot of people go to church [services] to get really tough questions answered. Maybe some do, but a service is just that: a service intended for the masses. When people have specific questions, I would think that their logical move would be to ask a Christian friend, look online, do some research, etc. So, I guess it depends on the level of questions we’re assuming they have.

From a Friend of Sarah:

I won’t attempt to posit a complete answer since my words would be laden with my own personal issues with the church. But, since I often consider myself an “outsider” to the church (and have been called that by churchgoers on numerous occasions), I feel somewhat compelled to at least respond to your inquiry. I offer the following brief, personal reflections. (In other words, I do not attempt to speak for all outsiders or “seekers” or churchgoers, just myself.)

The closer churchgoers are to outsiders, the better churchgoers will understand them.

Churchgoers often criticize the views of those who hate the church without understanding that hatred ourselves.

Churchgoers often defend Christianity while forgetting that Christianity doesn’t need to be defended. Rather, Christian faith should lead the church to defend the outsider.

All parties involved need to understand “Christ” as separate from “Christianity” and act accordingly.

Churches make far too many assumptions about “seekers” that have no bearing in reality.

In our day, there is (almost) no such thing as a “seeker.” Very, very few people are simply coming to church as “seekers.” People end up at church because other people invite them. And churchgoing people earn the right to invite other non-churchgoing people to church only if they build relationships with them.

The church cannot provide “answers” to the questions of “seekers” unless it is willing to question itself.

The day of the “seeker-sensitive” church is over. If a church thinks that it can play “cool” music, open the doors, and watch the “seekers” come in, that church is already dead.

Again, I do not claim to offer anything profound here, just my own feelings and experiences. (This is me as outsider and insider, former and hoping to be future pastor, and a would-like-to-be-a churchgoer.)

From Bill:

I think I agree with a lot of what Sarah said. As a life-long “insider,” it is sometimes hard to identify what a “seeker” really is. I’m afraid that attempt to plan a “seeker” service seem to think that all those non-church-goers out there are just waiting to find the “right” church that will be comfortable to them.
Actually, Jesus said “GO make disciples,” not “plan a service and wait for them to come.” There are people “out there” who truly have spiritual needs. They may be searching for something, but unless they have a relationship with someone who knows from experience what Jesus can and has done for us, they will not, on their own, “find” him by “seeking” a church. A true “seeker” is a Christian who seeks out those who don’t know Jesus and works to develop a relationship that will help lead that person to Jesus.

From Mike:

I’ve been a seeker for over 12 years now and I’m still asking a lot of questions on this journey. I haven’t quite moved out of the seeker category yet so you better be sensitive to me and my questions. lol

Anywho…Here are some of my favorite questions I ask often…as a seeker:

Who are you God and what’s your perspective/heart on xyz ?
Who do you say I am?
How can/do/should we relate with one another?

From Sarah:

“There is a doubter in every believer, and the doubt has an almost wholly positive function, for it keeps faith from degenerating into credulity. There is also, for the most part, an openness to something akin to faith in every nonbeliever, and that openness also functions positively, for it keeps disbelief from degenerating into cynicism.”
(Douglas John Hall, God and Human Suffering, 16)

From Ryan:

I’m going to make the assumption that everyone on the list is well inundated in typical church activity and are “church-goers”.

One thing that has always bugged me about some evangelism is when people come from the perspective of, “I need you to accept Jesus the way I do, or I won’t be okay…” I’m all for faithful witnessing & challenging people, but let’s leave the approval up to God. If God sends His Spirit into the new believer, marks them and convicts them of Sin, you’ve got a follower of Christ. Let us keep to thanksgiving and prayer, lead by love in Christ. Col 3

My favorite quote on the “seeker” movement.

>> I’m for the seeker movement, I go to seeker conferences and I tell them I’m in. There’s only one problem there’s only one seeker and His name is Yahweh. He’s seeking you to keep His commands in love.

-Paul Washer (vague memory of, not exact)

All-Keep meditating on the word through prayer and comparing yourself with Christ through gathering with followers regularly.