Today the Church of Christ in nearly all its denominations has to face, or already is facing the seeker friendly or seeker sensitive movement. I hardly need to describe the essential nature of this movement becuase it has been tangental to most lives, so if you have been involved in church life at all in the past 25 to 30 then you likely have, either been a part of the seeker movement, or an opponent of it. I think it is important to define at this point, the"seeker" category. Who are being referred to when this term is employed? And, if there are those who are seeking, then as a group they are, quite necessarily, set apart from the whole, thus their opposite must also exist--those who are not seeking. But in Romans 3, Paul has this to say,
9 What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, 10 as it is written: "None is righteous, no, not one; 11 no one understands; no one seeks for God. 12 All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one." 13 "Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive." "The venom of asps is under their lips." 14 "Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness." 15 "Their feet are swift to shed blood; 16 in their paths are ruin and misery, 17 and the way of peace they have not known." 18 "There is no fear of God before their eyes." 19 Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. 20 For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.
At first glance one might get the impression that Paul is quoting the psalmist to infer that no one "seeks" after God, not even one. This would be a fairly good understanding with which to come away from the text; notice that he says that very thing in verse 11. Some have tried to say that the emphasis Paul places on "no one" exclusively proves the point that neither the Jewish man, nor the gentile man is without sin; that all "groups" of people are "not good". While this is true, it also must be said that if none of those groups are good, then none of the individuals contained therein are good; you can't have a group that isn't good to some degree, if some individuals in it are in fact good.
Rooted in a pragmatic approach, the "seeker" profile could be anyone from a nonbeliever who finds some sort of desire fulfilled in the attendance of and fellowship produced by the visible church, to the saved individual whose priorities in seeking or finding a church home are skewed away from biblical standards (proper Law & Gospel preaching and the sacraments rightly administered) toward any other number of variable qualifications that are utterly subjective to the seeker's eclectic religious tastes. So one could say that the "seeker" demographic ranges in personalities from the outside consumer to the dictating shareholder. But, in light of the passage in Romans, we know that we should not call an unbeliever a "seeker" in the biblical sense of seeking after God. Though we know he was not perfect, we are told that David was a "man after God's own heart", and Abraham was a friend of God, but we also know that their pursuit of God (imperfect as it was) was initiated by God Himself, for He loved them before they loved Him. In addition to the Reformation distinction between the visible and invisible church and for our day especially, I suggest that there is a third category in which we can view persons: those unbelieving individuals outside the visible church who periodically attend our churches; those who are interested in hearing what the bible means; maybe those who just have a fear of what lies beyond death, often these folks will be deists who have been convinced by general revelation, but have not been called by the Spirit through the instrument of special revelation. In one sense these persons are "seeking", either information or experience, but they certainly are not "seeking" after God, or pursuing Him in a way that is not sinful, so the question to answer is, how do we refer to this group, and the broader question that is not fully addressed in this article is, how do we relate to them? The specific question being addressed in this article is, has physical mobility helped to cultivate the "seeker" and "seeker sensitive" movement? As to the name of a category of persons outside the visible church who show some degree of interest in questions conjured by thoughts of eternity, I suggest we continue to use what the bible allows, unbelievers.
Those of us who stand outside the boundaries of the seeker or seeker sensitive camps must begin to wonder how this phenomenon came into existence. Of course the two afore mentioned camps relate to one another in a symbiotic way; the seeker is catered to by those sensitive to his felt needs, and the seekers existence is perpetuated by those who find it their job description to meet his needs. But what other things happened in American culture and church life and practical theology in the past 50-1oo years to bring this about?
While I am fairly certain that the number of conditions and elements of cultural climate which have shaped this phenomenon is vast, I will suggest one--mobility. I believe that the ability persons in the United States posses to move on to the "next best thing" has permeated our culture; if you don't like the product one retailer is distributing, then you simply threaten to go down the street in pursuit of a product you believe is more fit for you to consume. This same demand for product customization has been applied to one's pursuit of "the right church". I submit that, because we can (and often we are willing) to travel miles and miles to attend a church in a community far removed from our own, the visible church at large has sold out to the expectations of the prospective demographic profile of those persons in the surrounding area, desperately trying to obtain a larger portion of the "market share". The region in which I live is spotted with many, many church buildings and congregations, and I am glad that my family and I have the resources to travel 20 minutes to go to what we consider a "good" church, but I must admit that this church really isn't what I consider "local"; it is not in the community in which we live; no one in our neighborhood goes to our church, in fact (with the exception of two households) only two families in our neighborhood attend the same church. Don't get me wrong, I am glad that we only have to travel 20 minutes to find a church we are "seeking"; we have heard of those who travel nearly an hour to find a church that even preaches the gospel, and we justify our decisions to forgo attending churches in our own local by marking it up to discernment. I want to reinforce the idea that there certainly are times when we must decide to leave churches which do not preach the gospel of justification by faith alone, and there really are a multitude of nuances within that provision by which we as Christians are given to leave a particular church or travel outside our immediate area to find good Law & Gospel teaching for our own spiritual good and the spiritual wellbeing of our families. I submit though, that we have taken that privalege for granted, and we use it to justify all kinds of unreasonable movement within the body.
We shouldn't forget how recent this resource of physical mobility is. My grandmother (who was born in 1913) just died this year, and she lived primarily a span of time which can be referred to as the time from horse & cart to piston and air conditioning. So with just a brief and superficial study of travel and mobility in the United States in the past 100 years, we discover that persons have become increasingly able to move; whether it be large scale movement, all at once (most often for career reasons), or periodic movement to visit family and friends or for vacation, or daily commuting that is most often job related.
In conclusion, I think we can safely say that this development has cultivated the occurance of consumer oriented church seeking and the church catering to those "seekers".
9 What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, 10 as it is written: "None is righteous, no, not one; 11 no one understands; no one seeks for God. 12 All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one." 13 "Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive." "The venom of asps is under their lips." 14 "Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness." 15 "Their feet are swift to shed blood; 16 in their paths are ruin and misery, 17 and the way of peace they have not known." 18 "There is no fear of God before their eyes." 19 Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. 20 For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.
At first glance one might get the impression that Paul is quoting the psalmist to infer that no one "seeks" after God, not even one. This would be a fairly good understanding with which to come away from the text; notice that he says that very thing in verse 11. Some have tried to say that the emphasis Paul places on "no one" exclusively proves the point that neither the Jewish man, nor the gentile man is without sin; that all "groups" of people are "not good". While this is true, it also must be said that if none of those groups are good, then none of the individuals contained therein are good; you can't have a group that isn't good to some degree, if some individuals in it are in fact good.
Rooted in a pragmatic approach, the "seeker" profile could be anyone from a nonbeliever who finds some sort of desire fulfilled in the attendance of and fellowship produced by the visible church, to the saved individual whose priorities in seeking or finding a church home are skewed away from biblical standards (proper Law & Gospel preaching and the sacraments rightly administered) toward any other number of variable qualifications that are utterly subjective to the seeker's eclectic religious tastes. So one could say that the "seeker" demographic ranges in personalities from the outside consumer to the dictating shareholder. But, in light of the passage in Romans, we know that we should not call an unbeliever a "seeker" in the biblical sense of seeking after God. Though we know he was not perfect, we are told that David was a "man after God's own heart", and Abraham was a friend of God, but we also know that their pursuit of God (imperfect as it was) was initiated by God Himself, for He loved them before they loved Him. In addition to the Reformation distinction between the visible and invisible church and for our day especially, I suggest that there is a third category in which we can view persons: those unbelieving individuals outside the visible church who periodically attend our churches; those who are interested in hearing what the bible means; maybe those who just have a fear of what lies beyond death, often these folks will be deists who have been convinced by general revelation, but have not been called by the Spirit through the instrument of special revelation. In one sense these persons are "seeking", either information or experience, but they certainly are not "seeking" after God, or pursuing Him in a way that is not sinful, so the question to answer is, how do we refer to this group, and the broader question that is not fully addressed in this article is, how do we relate to them? The specific question being addressed in this article is, has physical mobility helped to cultivate the "seeker" and "seeker sensitive" movement? As to the name of a category of persons outside the visible church who show some degree of interest in questions conjured by thoughts of eternity, I suggest we continue to use what the bible allows, unbelievers.
Those of us who stand outside the boundaries of the seeker or seeker sensitive camps must begin to wonder how this phenomenon came into existence. Of course the two afore mentioned camps relate to one another in a symbiotic way; the seeker is catered to by those sensitive to his felt needs, and the seekers existence is perpetuated by those who find it their job description to meet his needs. But what other things happened in American culture and church life and practical theology in the past 50-1oo years to bring this about?
While I am fairly certain that the number of conditions and elements of cultural climate which have shaped this phenomenon is vast, I will suggest one--mobility. I believe that the ability persons in the United States posses to move on to the "next best thing" has permeated our culture; if you don't like the product one retailer is distributing, then you simply threaten to go down the street in pursuit of a product you believe is more fit for you to consume. This same demand for product customization has been applied to one's pursuit of "the right church". I submit that, because we can (and often we are willing) to travel miles and miles to attend a church in a community far removed from our own, the visible church at large has sold out to the expectations of the prospective demographic profile of those persons in the surrounding area, desperately trying to obtain a larger portion of the "market share". The region in which I live is spotted with many, many church buildings and congregations, and I am glad that my family and I have the resources to travel 20 minutes to go to what we consider a "good" church, but I must admit that this church really isn't what I consider "local"; it is not in the community in which we live; no one in our neighborhood goes to our church, in fact (with the exception of two households) only two families in our neighborhood attend the same church. Don't get me wrong, I am glad that we only have to travel 20 minutes to find a church we are "seeking"; we have heard of those who travel nearly an hour to find a church that even preaches the gospel, and we justify our decisions to forgo attending churches in our own local by marking it up to discernment. I want to reinforce the idea that there certainly are times when we must decide to leave churches which do not preach the gospel of justification by faith alone, and there really are a multitude of nuances within that provision by which we as Christians are given to leave a particular church or travel outside our immediate area to find good Law & Gospel teaching for our own spiritual good and the spiritual wellbeing of our families. I submit though, that we have taken that privalege for granted, and we use it to justify all kinds of unreasonable movement within the body.
We shouldn't forget how recent this resource of physical mobility is. My grandmother (who was born in 1913) just died this year, and she lived primarily a span of time which can be referred to as the time from horse & cart to piston and air conditioning. So with just a brief and superficial study of travel and mobility in the United States in the past 100 years, we discover that persons have become increasingly able to move; whether it be large scale movement, all at once (most often for career reasons), or periodic movement to visit family and friends or for vacation, or daily commuting that is most often job related.
In conclusion, I think we can safely say that this development has cultivated the occurance of consumer oriented church seeking and the church catering to those "seekers".
2 comments:
Interesting point on the aspect of mobility in the Seeker movement. With gas being so high maybe it will slow it down? What's your take?
Also an interesting observation. Shockingly, as much as I normally think about the price of gas, I didn't even consider it as I was writing this article.
To answer your question though, I think we could analyze how retail sales (particularly the volume of gas sold at a retail level) have been affected by the gas price increases and assume a proportionate amount of decrease in travel and mobility regarding the topic of this article.
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