"Go into all the world, making disciples of all men..." Jesus said. Which means we are meant to go. Get out into it, leave this place. The disciples understood well enough when they took the message to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and out into the world. So much so that the gospel went ahead of even Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles, into Rome.
This is the mandate for Christians, we are to be seekers of people, like our heavenly Father, going out after them, pursuing them. After all, is the Holy Spirit not the most passionate seeker of men? We are to get out there, where they are at, in their homes, gardens, and places of employment with our message just as He does.
But the Seeker sensitive movement rather has everyone coming to a church building to hear the word. The congregation isn't going out after the world with the good news, they are luring the non-believers into their lair. That means Church isn't the place that the believers gather anymore to recharge and regroup with passionate devotion to God Almighty, it's the place where non-believers are converted (if they ever actually are) with gentle stories and kind words.
And if that's true (which it is) then it means the Seeker Sensitive Church by nature absolves us of our responsibilities to evangelism. It's an easy chair, and it's too easy. People in them settle into a kind of stupor, content to invite people to their Sunday service, absolved of their duty to the world. Seeker Sensitive paradigm has a lot of problems, as I've said before, but I think this one might be the most pernicious, and the most hidden problem. It makes it so easy to stop being passionate about evangelism that one almost can't help turning the whole effort over to the professional pastors.
No comments:
Post a Comment