December 24, 2007
Obsession
Warren Cole Smith’s article published in the December 1st issue of World has a great sidebar titled, ‘Seeking but not finding: The mother church of the seeker movement has a midlife crisis.’ Mr. Smith reports on a study and a book (‘Reveal: Where Are You?’) co-authored by Callie Parkinson and recently published by Willow Creek Church. The study suggests, “Most churches are not doing a good job of true discipleship.” Apparently not overly concerned, Ms. Parkinson boasts the suburban Chicago church is not just, “seeker-focused. We’re seeker-obsessed.” No doubt the Willow Creek obsession will continue to filter down to the leadership in our churches. It just seems to me that the seeker focused movement is looking more and more like a golden calf.
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Gail;
-----A golden calf indeed! And maybe they are using the gold of their dynamic imaginations to fashion it. For indeed they think they are rich, and that they have no need in their acquired wealth. They have fashioned in their own minds what the Lord’s desires for His church would be, using only snippets of the Word for a pattern. Yet they have not realized that all self-deception is mental idolatry, the replacement of the truth with a falsehood. They fail to see that any thinking using only snippets of the Word will be either true and very shallow and small, or deep with embellishment and falsehood.
-----I watched many segments of a college course produced by Governors State University entitled, “Beliefs and Believers.” This series was not presented by a Christian college. Truly, Professor John Simmons, Ph.D. of Western Illinois University brought a very new agey, “believe all, believe whatever, isn‘t everything anybody thinks so wonderful” perspective to the study. One episode dealt with seekers. It was very interesting to see the seeker through the eyes of the lost. Through the eyes of the Christian, the seeker is somebody who is searching and will recognize Jesus as the Messiah when presented with the evidences. But what “Belief and Believers” exposed was somewhat different. The seeker is a seeker because that is what he believes in, seeking. He looks under spiritual rocks, and through the spiritual weeds, in the woods, around the corner, and in your church, too, for snippets of spiritual evidence from which to fashion his own personal, golden calf. The seeker is not interested in sitting down with the Bible in his lap and surrendering his spiritual constructions to Jesus Christ through the Holy Bible. To him the Bible is passé, and using it for the only pattern of belief is an error of restriction. In his mind, knowing God through the Bible would be like trying to run a marathon while breathing through a soda-straw. The seeker might use some of the Bible, some of Jesus, and some of what happens in your auditorium, because he is seeking to construct the truth.
-----The mega-Christian thinks that he is seeking to find it. Why else would everyone call him a seeker? The mega-Christian thinks that if enough of the truth can but slipped into his water, without detection, eventually he will begin to assimilate that truth into his thinking. Then one day the seeker will have filtered so much of the truth from the spiked water, that he will become a Christian. Whallah! Shazzam! Just open your church doors and hide your stodgy little Bibles to see all the little seeker seeds turn into tiny sapling, Christian trees! But in order for the seeker to continue drinking that spiked water, it must first have enough flavor familiar to him. It must smack somewhat of that golden calf he has been constructing with careful duty and commitment. There must be inside the church the stuff of which his calf is made, the gold of spirituality! A bit of life-style tolerance, a trace of global warming fear, a few thoughts of an animal’s rights, a goodly gaze at Mother Nature, and a lick or two of a Muslim boot. Of course these things won’t hurt the sheep to tolerate in their pasture. Just play for them some loud, emotion driving music with Biblically shallow messages, usually about how much “I have come to worship” and how great ”I proclaim” the Lord to be. So everyone then has some marshmallow to wash down with the spiked water. If anybody needs more substance than that, come to the back rooms after the service, or find a small group to join, which also will have lightened up to a spiked-punch if a seeker happens to be in it’s midst.
-----It is nothing more than trying to hold the seeker’s interest with something that looks like what he is constructing while sneaking to him shallow, little Christian messages. But you, Gail, have hit the product of such Tom-foolery on the head. The seeker is interested in a golden calf. And that is why the mega-leaders of the mega-churches are fashioning golden calves amongst the sheep. They think they have so found the way to reach the whole world for Jeeeeeesus! They think they are spiritually rich, that they have completely acquired their visions from God and now have such abounding wealth of wisdom and knowledge of His will they no longer need to listen to or respect any one else, “…but you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see. Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest, and repent. Here I am! I stand at the door and knock.” (Rev 3:17b-20a)
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