In doing some research about a book I’d like to read called Reveal I stumbled across a blog post on said book:

 

 

In response to this post I wrote a somewhat rambling rant-like monologue, the substance of which is below –

 

 

One of the reasons churches continue to move in the direction of "culture-pleasing" or whatever you want to call it is a collective failure on the part of many Christians to take their faith into the world (and to be challenged to do so).

 

When the people of God gather together they do so in worship in order to be equipped…equipped for what? Equipped to continue the commission that Christ has given – we gather as believers in order to be equipped to take the Gospel into the world in the various ways we do as we are gifted. Rather than doing this we have reversed the model of church and call the world inside and expect them to be confronted by Christ through great hermeneutic.

 

What becomes of a church that expects non-believers to come to faith through experiencing the gathering of the faithful? It’s message changes and it’s language changes to accomodate the needs of the one to whom "the gospel is foolishness". As long as Christians expect salvation to happen within the walls of our structures rather than bringing the salvation message into the world then the temptation (and necessity?) to become "seeker-driven"  will continue.

 

Interestingly some of the faithful have been wonderfully critical of the Willow Creek model and continue to gather in a self-satisfyingly Christ-centric orthodox fashion but still forget to do one thing – go into all the world and make disciples of all nations baptizing…they simply leave the church, fat on the word of God and go to sleep until next Sunday…well Christ has a message for all of us – "sleeper awaken".