Arminians Gone Wild
Jun 28
That’s kinda the imagery I think of when I consider seeker-driven churches. It’s this mindset that we have to do and spend all we can to convince/attract/appeal to the unchurched to come to church/God. It’s like our theology of free will propels us to do all we can to get people to choose to come to church or to come to God.
It’s why in the past, when we didn’t have problems getting people into church, but had plenty difficulty getting them to make a decision for Christ, we Arminians worked hard to make altar calls as dramatic and compelling as possible. And why in the present (since that’s not effective anymore) we are now looking for the next thing that will be effective at getting people to walk in our church doors, because they’re just not coming anymore.
I don’t think this mindset is always a bad thing, except that it seems like we Arminians have concluded that the Holy Spirit really isn’t that effective at drawing people to Christ, so we have to use lots of money, talent, professionalism, entertainment to make up the slack.
I know what the rebuttal would be: perhaps the Holy Spirit is using these very things to draw people to God? I think in some churches He is, no doubt. But I question this assertion as a given, as I see that church has become simply a business model that has proven to be effective at growing one’s church organization. In other words, GE can grow a successful and profitable business without the Holy Spirit, and churches can do the same thing, if they view themselves as similar to a business like GE.
The product is the Gospel. It’s the ultimate product, because it’s of eternal value. It needs to be advertised, which costs a lot of money these days. And the whole point of marketing is to convince people that they really need something that they don’t currently believe they need, so that they’ll buy in. The unchurched are those people who are not yet customers whom we are trying to hook in. Those who are already reached have hopefully become our investors, and we constantly appeal to them to invest in the company. Those of us on staff are the employees who are paid to run the business. And the pastor is the CEO, leading the company into the future.
In such a model, the Holy Spirit really isn’t needed. Everything is our job–it’s up to us to get this process up and running smoothly. Free will, baby.
This is why I find Calvinists refreshing sometimes. While I feel they swing the pendulum all the way to the other side, they put their trust in God to draw people to Him. I think both sides could learn from the other. Yes, there is an element of doing all we can for Christ, but there’s also an element of wholly trusting in Christ.
I’ve heard it said, “Pray as if it all depended on God, and work as if it all depended on you.” Judge church leaders for yourself. I know plenty of pastor CEOs who are workaholics, but I know very few who are prayaholics. I’m speaking to myself here, too. Maybe it’s because I’ve grown up in Arminian circles, and we have convinced ourselves that it’s all up to us and somehow we’ve got to do the work of the Holy Spirit.
We need to be reminded of Jesus’s words: I am the Vine, you are the branches. Remain in me. Apart from me, you can do NOTHING.
We might be able to grow a megachurch without Jesus–I’m convinced it is easy to do that. Really easy. In fact, I think the only reason why there are so few churches who succeed at growing megachurches is that they just haven’t recruited the right talented, savvy, high-quality staff who know how to do that–but they could hire those people if everyone would just start tithing. Yet to do anything of eternal/spiritual value…I think God is more interested in looking for those untalented, humble, Spirit-driven people who aren’t so much as interested in being effective in growing church organizations as they are as remaining in Christ.
Am I saying we shouldn’t be concerned with reaching the lost? Not at all. In fact, when I was a youth pastor, that was clearly on my mind. And we would brainstorm ideas/events that would bring the unchurched youth into our doors. We started with three or four youth. We weren’t happy with “us four and no more.” Over a few years, we did see the group grow to an average of 30-35 youth each Sunday night. But you know what? Whoop-dee-doo.
While the congregation and leadership of the church would be understandably happy with such results (even though I’m aware that amount of growth isn’t anything to write home about) I know that we could have even grown the group larger than that and it still not be led of the Holy Spirit. And it would have been just as possible to have only grown to 10 youth, and be much more completely led of the Holy Spirit than we were. Our success in youth ministry is better judged by other criteria than the numerical growth of the group.
We judge the effectiveness of leadership at whether the ministry “grows” or not. That’s bull crap. You can be totally far from God as a leader–not even a Christian yourself–and grow a very successful ministry. Look at televangelists. And you can totally shrink a ministry from a large crowd to only a small handful who are still with the ministry and be completely full of the Holy Spirit. Look at Jesus.
Jesus was all about reaching the lost right? You would think He would then try to amass the largest crowd of them as possible. He didn’t do that. Why do you think that is?
And Jesus didn’t come to sell a product; He came to offer His life. He didn’t feel the need to build a budget to advertise his ministry; the miraculous moving of God’s Spirit through Him got the word around fast on its own. He didn’t feel the need to try to convince a self-made society who felt they had no need for Him or His “services”–He went straight to the ones who were ready to recognize their need for God’s salvation (the poor, marginalized, etc.). He hired the kind of guys that no megachurch would even remotely consider on staff. He never campaigned for money to build a bigger building or have a “greater impact.” And after three short years, the “business” went under when you look at it from a worldly point of view.
But as Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5, “We no longer know Christ from a worldly point of view.” For those of us whose eyes have been opened to the Gospel by the power of the Holy Spirit, everything we need is in Christ. Our treasure is in the Gospel, and our hope is in the power of the Holy Spirit. We could care less about having lots of money, talent, people to carry out the ministry of Christ. Our power does not come by our ability to attract the unchurched.
What megachurch could say, “Silver or gold have I none, but by the power of God, rise up and walk!” I’m afraid many of our modern churches would have to say, “We’ve got lots of silver and gold–see what we’ve done with it just for you to make you feel right at home? The power of God? Well, wasn’t that worship service powerful–I mean the professional band gave you chill bumps and the moving sermon made you laugh and cry all throughout. Your kids got to play on a state-of-the-art jungle-gym, and the youth are going to Six Flags next week. We have so much to offer you and your family! We’re not like that other church down the street–they don’t care about reaching unchurched people like you. They don’t have jungle-gyms or rockin’ music. They probably just pray together and leave or something mundane like that. But you’re not a church person, so we understand that you’re not interested in praying to God. Instead, here’s a cup of coffee and with our church’s logo on it (created by a professional graphic designer–doesn’t it look awesome?) so that you might think about coming back, that is, if you have a good enough time today–which we all hope you will. After all, it’s why we spend the big bucks around here.”
Arminians gone wild.
While I do not entirely disagree with any of your points, there are many caveats that I think should be considered. First and foremost is that this is an issue that hits churches of all sizes rather than just mega-churches, but that the mega-churches tend to exist as mega-churches because they are “seeker-friendly.”
I agree (as an Arminian) that Arminians have a lot to learn from Calvinists, especially as it applies to God’s ultimate role in bringing people to Him. I think this largely shows up in many Arminians’ focus on getting people saved, but lack of interest in truly making disciples of those who accept Christ.
I don’t think it is necessarily bad to operate a church as a business, but many churches are often operated like bad businesses. Strong businesses meet their customers’ needs well, so customers buy into the business’ philosophy/product/whatever. Weak businesses push a product on customers without real consideration regarding what those customers need. Selling salvation as a product but not understanding that the decision is rooted in specific deeper needs (for relationship with God, purpose, forgiveness, acceptance, etc) is operating the church like a weak business. Of course, this analogy ignores the Holy Spirit’s impact on the process, but it’s just an analogy. Also, I think this applies to anti-seeker-friendly Arminian churches more than other types.
I do credit seeker-friendly churches with something that I do not see elsewhere. They have a better understanding (structurally speaking, at least) that there are irrelevant issues that other churches use to block “seekers” from finding and accepting Christ. For example, a lot of traditional and internal cultural stuff in churches make them alien and undesirable to people who are being drawn to Christ. That may not be as much of an issue, except that most of those same things have very little (or no) ultimate value in the congregation’s relationship with God.
Good points, Drew, and I agree that this affects everyone, not just megachurches. I also think most church leaders wish their church would become something of a megachurch, which may be why it affects so many other churches. I also hear what you’re saying about running churches as bad businesses–seen plenty, plenty, plenty of that over the years. There are definitely plenty of disorganized churches out there, and it is frustrating to be part of a church like that–ugh.
But I also hesitate to assume that by finally running churches as good businesses, we solve our core problems in the Church. In fact, I tend to take the approach that church should be run as a business, as little as possible–only when necessary. Which is why I tend to try to convince churches to downsize money, buildings, staff, etc and encourage churches to try to operate more like a family as much as possible. Both businesses and families need organization, but with a family, the purpose of the organization is to foster communication and relationships, which is a more healthier way to look at church, in my opinion, than the business model.
And I think you’re absolutely right–I’d rather go to a seeker-friendly church than a church like you describe, which focuses on irrelevant issues and makes church unnecessarily alien and undesirable to unbelievers. For me, the seeker-driven church is the least of two evils when it comes to those two options.