I'm Now Seeker-Sensitive...

I know I have said much against "seeker-sensitive" churches. I want to now change my stance. I now believe that we need to design our worship services with and for the seekers in mind. Our entire corporate worship service needs to be seeker-friendly. The Lord's Day assembly needs to be decently ordered for the seekers. The reason I say this is because the New Testament makes it clear that those who seek after God are those who have already been regenerated and converted by the Holy Spirit of God. It is Christians, and Christians only, who seek after God. In Rom 3:10-11 Paul says, "None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God."

The modern church has bought in to this idea that God is somehow playing hide and seek with the lost and waiting for them to seek Him out and find Him. The lost, though, love their lostness. They have "all turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one." (Rom 3:12) Paul, a couple chapters earlier described the lost like this: "For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse" (Rom 1:19-20). They, the lost, do not seek after God, says Paul, they suppress the truth that has been made so very clear to them (1:18). So why do Christians today design their entire worship service to appeal to the unbelieving, so-called "seekers"?

The unbeliever is not a seeker. The only two kinds of people who are truly seeking in a worship service is the Triune God and those who believe in the Triune God. This is why Jesus came to seek and to save those who are lost. He is the true Seeker and He is seeking true worshipers. The worship and the seeking after God by the Body of Christ is for Christ and only done by the Body of Christ. You do not begin seeking after God until you have found Him, or rather, He has found you. The church is the "called out ones" who the New Testament calls the communion of saints. The worship service is not supposed to be primarily about evangelism. It is a time for God's people to ascend together into the heavenly presence of God in order to worship Him and be equipped for the work of the ministry (like evangelism) throughout the rest of the week.

The main focus of the "assembly of the saints" needs to be worship and not evangelism. Our worship equips us for evangelism but our worship is not evangelism. So many today go to church concerned only about how the "service" makes them feel or how it serves their needs. We need to go to church concerned about how God feels and how well we served Him. The unbeliever should be the outsider looking in to our worship service. The unbeliever should not be the focus or the audience. Biblical corporate worship has God as the focus and God as the audience. Because of this misunderstanding today, exaltation has been replaced with entertainment. Confession has been replaced with carnality. Preaching has been replaced with performing. Sacraments have been replaced with sentiment. Liturgy has been replaced with licentiousness.