In my criticisms of the megachurch/seeker-friendly movement, I try hard to avoid reactionary thinking. There are some people who, seeing the problems associated with the sort of growth a megachurch brings, find themselves opposed to growth itself in reaction. My opinion is that a healthy church is a growing church- and by “growing” I mean in numerical numbers over a long period of time, not short-term trends. I also do not mean “growing” in the postmodern sense of constantly seeking new vanities, fads, programs, etc. I’m talking about numbers, people, here. We have this on Biblical authority:
Isaiah 9:7: Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this.
I have bolded the word increase. In calculus terms, the first derivitive of church numbers will always be positive. We have it on Scriptural authority that the Church will always grow.
What is the engine of this growth historically? It’s not evangelism and it’s not missions, in the programmatic sense of those words. It’s Christian families having Christian children. God has clearly ordained the family, the seed of believers, as His preferred method of growing the church. Missions, evangelism and revivals are secondary historically. The most efficient way to grow the church is to simply encourage Christians to have more children; of course, infants don’t pay tithes that support purchasing basketball arenas for your “church”.
Baptists, sometime early in American history, drifted into a sort of hyper-individualism, where one’s faith was not based so much on the objective truth of Scripture and the dispensation of Grace through the ordinances of God’s Church, but rather on a subjective emotional experience and “journey”.
In Fischer’s Albion’s Seed, it is the Scots-Irish “heart religion”, of camp meetings, invitations, and dramatic emotional turning points; this Baptist faith was tailor-made for the Celtic soul, and it turned a country of Scottish Presbyterians into Baptists in a generation. It was no longer enough to be simply born into the faith like most Christians historically, Protestant or Catholic, but rather each individual had to decide for himself which path to follow. Concepts that are rather loose Biblically (”a personal relationship with Jesus Christ”), and the attendent emotional dramatics associated with a heart-centered faith, began to replace the primacy of Scripture- if not formally (as Baptists have always been doctrinally studious), then at least practically by the retail evangelist.
This had some good effects. In the short-term, it tended to correct gross errors made by some who believed the faith of their parents was automatically valid for them (though, it must be stated that this was their error, as they would receive no sanction from any church, Baptist or not, for this position) . In the long run, however, this focus on individualism would lead to a focus on “hell avoidance” as a priority over everything else.
The logic runs something like this: people are dying without Christ, and we are dooming them to eternal loss if we do not do everything possible to turn them back. That means we need to distill the Gospel down to its bare minimum to maximize its appeal, and everything else beyond this minimum is negotiable. Now, for a while the Church coasted on centuries of tradition, and as the health of society generally improved between the 1700’s and the 1800’s (the 1800’s of the Victorians was a much more conservative and healthy society than the effete Enlightenment idealism of the 1700’s), this change in priorities had no effect. However, as the great cultural decline of the 1900’s began to take place, this change would have its effect.
The 1900’s saw the mass-commidization of everything: banking, retail, restaurants, even churches. There’s nothing particularly ground-breaking about the megachurch- it’s just the least common denominator in taste scaled up, no more significant than McDonald’s. Like McDonald’s, it’s mediocre, consistent and predictable. It’s an ok place to eat if there’s not a better choice available, and you know what you’re going to get. But nobody expects McDonald’s to become an authority on good food or release a recipe book.
In the same way, Rick Warren and Bill Hybels have appealed to the least common denominator of church leadership: the appeal of raw numbers, bigger facilities, bigger budgets and the human vanity of catching the bandwagon and pursuing the latest fad. And just like McDonald’s, their success is based on appealing to man’s weaknesses instead of his real needs. We don’t need a greasy hamburger, but it sure tastes better than steamed brocolli. And we don’t need a self-help sermon, but it makes us feel better than the offense of Christ crucified for sinners.
McDonald’s has a legitimate excuse: the market. Its purpose is to make money, and the shortest way to that destination is to appeal to our gluttony, not meet our nutritional needs. The Church, however, is supposed to be about the business of what we need, not what we want (the seeker-friendly word for this is “felt needs”).
In brief, here are the factors leading to the megachurch ascendancy:
1. Dissatisfaction with God’s provision of growth through the children of believers and supplemental evangelism/missions, switching a balanced approach with individual-centered “heart religion” entirely focused on numbers.
2. The reductionist approach of 1) sufficiently simplifies the operation of the church to allow for an industrial scaleup by the megachurch pastors.
Rick Warren is merely taking heart religion to its natural end with ruthless efficiency.
I’m not necessarily opposed to industrial scale-up. Standardization and mass economy can lead to improvements in quality with a reduction in cost. It is not unthinkable that a technological breakthrough of some sort could happen for the Church- if you’re a postmillenialist (as I am starting to lean), then it seems downright necessary.
But are Rick Warren and the seeker-friendlies leading this “Second Reformation” as they claim? Let us focus on results, not rhetoric.
We are now starting to see the first complete generation coming out of the Church who were entirely raised on the megachurch methodology of self-focused worship, self-help sermons and infotainment religion. And statistically, the Church has failed them.
Josh McDowell, the author of Evidence That Demands a Verdict, has recently written a book called The Last Christian Generation. This book is based mostly on a study conducted by the Barna Group (a Christian pollster) of teens in youth groups at “born again” churches. Remember, these are kids who attend church. Here are the findings:
Conclusions:
1. I think we must question the whole “seeker sensitive”, megachurch genre of authors. In my opinion, they have lost all credibility (I hear Rick Warren is worried about discipleship now in his church- which is great, except where’s the “sorry guys, guess I was wrong about watering down the message” memo?). For twenty-odd years, the church has been marketing itself to felt needs and pushing hard doctrine and Bible study under the rug. And now we see the fruit: we have a generation coming out of the church who have no idea what being a Christian even means. If the church can be compared to a tree, it is as if we have been sold a fertilizer that grew the branches (as toning down the offense of the cross will certainly draw greater numbers) but killed the fruit. And now, instead of admitting the mistake, we are just doing more of the same, expecting a different result. That’s a popular and useful definition of insanity!
2. Dave Ramsey talks about how the “me generation” attitude towards debt and consumption leads to the bondage of debt slavery today- and Ramsey’s prescription is not a quick fix, just hard work and no easy way out: as Dave says, “My advice comes from God and grandma.” We need to be looking to our grandparents and great-grandparents, the oldest in the church, for the wisdom and Biblical instruction of the old-time-religion that has sustained a Christian people for 400 years in the American South. That’s the only way to recover our priceless inheritance, before it’s too late, from the fruit in our young people that the megachurch, seeker-sensitive methodologies have wrought.
I think, in general, as we look at what has happened over the last 50 years, we have to give our grandparents and great-grandparents a lot of credit; they were right about nearly everything and the Baby Boomers, who thought they would change the world, were mistaken.
In other words, the doctrinal crisis in the church right now demands a big, fat “undo” button. It’s as if we had this beautifully formatted document in Microsoft Office, and then some chubby guy in a Hawiian shirt walks up and offers to “improve” it. He adds lots of clip art, logos and cutesy fonts, but deletes the text, which was the whole point of the document anyway. Our first reaction shouldn’t be to try and “work with” or “manage” his innovations- we need to find the undo button, and fast.
We need to dig out the worship music of the 1930’s, the children’s Sunday school curriculum of the 1930’s, and everything else we can find to undo this damage before it’s too late. Only once we’ve undone the damage by starting over can we begin to move forward with real, instead of false, progress.
“We all want progress, but if you’re on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.” – C. S. Lewis
Wow. You know, I am a fairly new Christian, about 4 years now. I was raised in the manner of “believing what you are comfortable with” as the proper thing. If hell and Satan made you uncomfortable, then just edit them from your little belief system. I now don’t agree with that in the slightest. However, I do have a small question. I don’t mean this to be taken in any way other than as a question, because I really want to know. If churches don’t have any of the “God is love” sermons, how do you draw a person who is as angry and far from God as I was to Him? I walked into church prepared to be pissed off by a preacher telling me what God demands and expects from me. I heard a wonderful message of love and grace instead, and I kept coming back. I have now gotten past just the “Jesus loves you” kind of message. But how do you bring people like me in without that? If I had come in to a serious discussion of God’s expectations of us as Christians, I might never have darkened the door again, given my present state of mind at the time.
This fits in well with a quote I heard at a Bible Study yesterday. “In the last days the church will depart from the faith.” I don’t think there is a problem with telling people that Jesus loves them. I just think we are leaving out the important part. Jesus loves you so much that he died on the cross as a sacrifice for your sins and rose again to give you eternal life. In order to obtain salvation we have to acknowledge our fallen state. There is no way someone can acknoweledge their sin if they don’t think they are sinning. And if we only preach that Jesus loves you and here is how to manage your money and your relationships many souls will miss out on the most important relationship of all: Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord of their life.
Shanon,
A Bible-based sermon will focus on God’s Love to the same extent it is expressed in Scripture. However, it is only one side of the coin. Anyone who preaches love and grace without obedience and repentance is teaching only half a gospel. If that offends someone, that’s unfortunate, but I don’t think it’s responsible to teach one without the other.
In any case, suffice to say that I do not endorse a one-sided pure “hell and brimstone” either, and when I talk of hitting the undo button, that is not what I mean. We just need to teach the Bible, unedited, unreconstructed; period.
Tom
Jonah preached a one-sided sermon of nothing but wrath and judgement to a pagan people steeped in wickedness so great the Lord took special note of it, and yet the results were miraculous. I’d say it was because the results were in God’s hands and scarcely dependent upon the subtlety of the messenger.
Jonah 3:4-5
And Jonah began to enter into the city a day’s journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them.
It’d be the equivalent of a preacher saying, “You’re all about to die from God’s judgement in 40 days unless you repent now!”
It worked
Tom,
I am surprised to think that evangelism is God’s less prefered means to bring salvation. Perhaps, as you say, in all history, most believers share the faith, or lack of it with their family and culture. And I think there are important Biblical promises about God’s blessing (or cursing) families in relation to the faith of an individual (Moses law indicates blessings, or cursing to “3rd or 4th generation” and Paul promised salvation to the Philipian jailer’s household). On the other hand, the Christian view of the OT envisions promise in every book that God’s blessings ultimately will be most fully experienced when they are shared well beyond the Hebrews and their families. And I think almost all the conversions mentioned in the NT are outside of family relationships. I can think of only a relatively few (Jesus and John the Bapt, James and John, Andrew and Peter, Timothy and his mother, Phiip and his daughters, are some) examples compared to the much greater emphasis placed on Great Commission style evangelism. If anything, doesnt the NT include dark warnings about making assumptions that the faith of family members gives other members safety.
Also, Tom, I think we need to be careful around families who have experienced heartbreak and tragedy. We know Godly parents who suffer great guilt over their wayward children. And yet the Bible makes it clear that Godly parents may have ungodly children (Adam, Isaac, Eli, David). Sometimes, these grieving parents need to know that the Holy Spirit is in charge of salvation, or lack thereof. And that each individual is responsible for his own response.
Thanks for the interesting question!
Bert
Most church growth historically comes from the children of believers; of course, each believer goes back to some original evangelistic experience. Evangelism has a very important role, but an over-emphasis on it, and all attempts to engineer it have led to doctrinal compromises at least on the retail end of things.
The megachurch movement has simply scaled up the doctrinally minimalist approach; and unfortunately many non-megachurches have hopped on the bandwagon. While technically sound in some cases, their lack of emphasis on doctrine has led to a generation of “believers”, who according to the survey, are not Christians in any real sense of the term.
One of the hardest concepts to understand but also one of the most important is the idea of “opportunity cost”. Most of the time people argue over something by saying that A is bad and B is good. In reality, A is not totally bad but B is better. The advocates for B overstate their case by condemning A, when the rational course is to look at the opportunity cost of doing A over B.
It’s not that what the megachurches do is so bad, it’s what they could be doing instead. They could be teaching doctrine, but they teach self-help instead, pushing direct Bible study to a weeknight where none of the “seekers” will be weirded out. Thus, the people who most need it don’t get it. And since the human brain is not completely rational, but only retains that which is repeated over and over, the lack of emphasis on doctrine leads to the results on the survey, even though the megachurch itself may have a “Statement of Faith” that is orthodox. I’m sure the youth in the survey would be very adept at discussing their feelings, their self-esteem issues and “life strategies” for success, maybe even how the Bible might apply in some cases, because that it what they have heard repeatedly. But when it comes to doctrine, the results speak for themselves.
When a church grows in numbers without reproducing its core beliefs in its youth, it is simply a one-generation hardy hybrid- like a mule, it appears stronger and superior in many ways to its antecedents, but ultimately it is sterile and cannot reproduce itself. In short, it is a big tree with no fruit.
Yes, Tom, well said. And isn’t “church growth” different from Church growth. I think large churches are found to be much less efficient (per capita) in numbers of baptisms and other measures of true evangelism.
I’m intrigued that you would pick the American 1930’s as a “golden age” for purity of theology in evangelism. I’m not so sure!
Bert
There’s nothing particular to me about the 1930’s, just an arbitrary point in the past coincident with our grandparents’ generation.
[...] The Bill Hybels / Rick Warren ”seeker friendly” movement is a cancer in the modern Church. The necessary outcome of this is that you water down the Word in order to make it more appealing to a broader base of people. The only way to make the offense of the cross palatable to the masses is to remove all meaning from Christ’s sacrifice on our behalf. [...]
If we only look at the visible church, the building,the local, the outward trimmings etc. we do not get a real understanding of The Church, the Body of Christ. The Lord promised His Church that the Gates of Hell would not prevail against it. Historically revival has been the renewing life of the Church. When the darkness seems to be ready to overwhelm, God honor’s His Son and sends revival. It is incumbent on believers to pray for revival in their own hearts and then ask God to send forth His Spirit to shake the upper room yet once again.
There is remarkable Christian growth in Africa, certain parts of Latin America and even sections of Europe. Unless you follow some of the Missionary publications you would never know about it. It is in these locations where a pure Gospel is preached offering a Risen Lord to needy sinners, sans self-help psycho-babble
It’s amazing that your complaint(s) about Rick Warren are so different than my impression of him and his ministry.
Like he sayes in his best seller: “It’s not about you”. So it’s not about us, it’s about others. It is about selfless obedience and discipleship.
Also, your discussion/observations seem robotic and incomplete because they do not consider the miraculous works of the Holy Spirit. What are your thoughts on his role?
Mitch, it takes a little digging in regards to Warren. It’s a much more complex situation than Bill Hybels. The Purpose Driven Life, in particular, is only subtly problematic. Examples: using six different versions of the Bible depending on which proves the point (sends alarm bells of bad theology), prescriptions admonishing the dangers of too much Bible study but later advocating PDL discussion groups (i.e. we don’t need more bible studies, you see, we need Rick Warren studies).
My real problem comes with his initiatives AFTER PDL. His flirtation with social gospel liberals like Barack Obama (including allowing the baby-murder-enabler to speak at his church) and focus on politically-correct causes like AIDS and “ending poverty” (which Christ tells us is impossible). He goes around bragging about how he’s leading a “Second Reformation” that will put aside doctrine to instead focus on a gospel of works.
Feel free to use the search box on the site for “Rick Warren” to see other comments.
He’s been more quiet lately. I would guess his vainglorious PEACE plan for solving African poverty (including making Rwanda the world’s first “Purpose Driven Nation”) is crashing on the hard rocks of African reality. Billions upon billions of dollars, not to mention the personal help of thousands of good-hearted Western liberals like Warren, and the entire continent is still worse off than it was 100 years ago under proper leadership.
Wow! What a fascinating discussion. I agree with the basic premise of your argument, and especially agree with the fact that it’s not EITHER having Christian families/children OR practicing evangelism, but it’s BOTH. It’s knowing our faith and beliefs in such a way that they encompass every part of our lives, which is automatically going to spill out.
I think that the problem isn’t one of each individual teaching being “wrong” – it’s just that no individual teaching is going to be complete by itself. If it was, God wouldn’t have seen fit to give us 66 books – three or four chapters would have sufficed. So, it’s not a matter of “friendship evangelism” being wrong, it’s just not something you can build your entire life/belief/doctrine around. See the truths in it and incorporate it as the Spirit leads, but don’t be fooled that this is “all you have to do” and everything will turn out fine.
The ultimate solution for this problem is to get people individually back into the Word of God. Removing the mystique that makes us think we need pretty, “easy” books to read to help us understand the mysteries of God, and instead realizing that God has given us His Spirit in order to understand His words. The Reformation began because people started to see that the “elites” were wrong – the ones who had told them that they couldn’t understand the Bible on their own, they had to be taught by the smart ones – the ones who could read and understand Latin.
We are capable of understanding God’s Words on our own – but it’s not always easy. So do we cater to those who “just won’t do it” because it’s hard? Or do we exhort fellow believers in order to encourage them to put in the work that’s necessary to learn, and believe. They’ll do the work to get a Master’s degree – why not to understand how to truly live?
(By the way, in my experience, Precept Ministries has been an excellent tool in this endeavor. Their stated mission and purpose is to teach people how to study the Bible on their own.
Also, incidentally, Precept Ministries reports growth of their ministry in every country in the world – EXCEPT America, where they are in danger of going under. This should say something about the apostasy and complacency that is going on in America today.)
We should remember Christs words to the multitude later after feeding them, when He said you only follow me for the food! And then most left Him.
The church was never instructed to go forward like the Red Cross, with due respect. Not that the church must shy away from such things, but it is not part of the prime directive.
Warren like others is in bed with the government as well. His lack of respect for the constitution as well as his lack of understanding or just disregard for the Bible is a clear warring.
You say: “The church was never instructed to go forward like the Red Cross.”
However, Proverbs 21:13 says “Whoso stoppeth his ears at the cry of the poor, he also shall cry himself, but shall not be heard.”
I’m not saying the church’s responsibility is to take care of the poor. The Bible is also full of examples of the fact that people’s choices often lead to poverty or riches. However, individually at the very least, we are called to have compassion on the poor and needy. Also, helping those in need also gives us the opportunity to show Jesus’ love to those people in a way we never could otherwise, and that IS part of our “prime directive”.
So, how do we reconcile the two?
All New Testament Church examples in the Bible seem to restrict charity to the deserving poor of the church. Even this charity is highly regulated.
Widows and orphans, and only some of those who did not have family to support them, or who were over a certain age with no family. We could logically extend this to the extreme physically disabled IMO.
Otherwise, those who don’t work don’t eat.
This is a hard issue. It’s hard as a human to see the great suffering in our world and not want to do something about it. This is what has motivated so many good-hearted Westerners to lives of thankless work in Africa, and others to send billions upon billions in public and private aid. All for nothing.
This is because that kind of charity is at odds with the “don’t work, don’t eat” principle. It’s not sustainable, as many are people with high fertility who lack the economic output to fill their basic needs.
Giving a man a fish is not helpful.
But what do you do with someone who can’t or won’t learn to fish either? Solution: put them to work on your own fishing boat. Colonialism was clearly a divine mercy, but the flaw was ultimately in Western man, not Africa. Westerners lost their moral courage and self-confidence, and let a bunch of Marxist troublemakers guilt them into turning the whole continent over to its own lusts.
Aid to Africa is a black hole absent proper leadership there, and we ought to be especially concerned about efforts to divert scarce church resources when we know the outcome of previous endeavors.
I have a post brewing about what I call “pornographic charity”.
I understand and agree with what your saying. 2Thessalonians is very clear that people who refuse to work shouldn’t be given handouts. In fact, the Thessalonians were instructed to stay away from such people.
Still, these were situations dealing with individuals. To take your example about Africa – I am sure that there are people in Africa, just like here, who do not work and refuse to learn how. However, there are also people who are working as hard as they can, and still are unable to provide the basic necessities for their families. We don’t know which are which.
I have trouble reconciling the thought process of large groups of people with negative outcomes and the individual people that are involved, as each individual may have a completely different set of circumstances. Jeremy says I’m too soft-hearted. =)
The admonition that those who will not work, won’t eat, applies only to those in the church, i.e., believers. Charity is to be applied, IMO, broadly and liberally. The problem I see is that too many people allow themselves, in the name of Christian charity, to become — for lack of a better word — cuckolds for intransigent con artists; it’s kinda like the $100 you keep finding your brother-in-law is perennially short. If you keep giving it to him, he’ll keep needing it. So then it becomes a problem of stewardship, which is why I’ve got zero problem with means-testing of aid recipients.
But to the other question of large, distant groups of people, I’m not sure there’s any substantive answer there. Unless you’re talking about disaster relief, when there’s a clearly demonstrable need, I’m not sure it’s not better to take care of those close to home and leave the world at large to its own devices.
Then, when they’ve learned how to manage something as complex as, say, running water (which the Romans mastered two millenia ago) for themselves, we could look into something more.
We live in a complicated world. We live complicated lives.
Jesus and his message was simple.
We don’t need Rick Warren or anyone else to help us with our love
of and faith in Jesus Christ. Thank you Lord, for saving such a sinner as I.
Forgive me and others who forget and do not fear enough your
magnificent power and glory! You came to earth to save us from eternal damnation…that was your love given to those who believe. Why is this so complicated and hard for most people to understand? Could it be Satan making it more difficult to believe that our God could love us that much and do that for us?
It is hard to believe that any Christian who is fully committed to Jesus Christ could stomach someone like Rick Warren. Rick, Jesus does this without need of a church or songs or money. Please move out of Jesus’s way. Thanks!