The other day I responded to the question about whether or not we should be making it harder or easier for people to join our churches. I argued that it was both yes and no. In so doing, I mentioned that the “high bar”/”make it harder” approach had originated really in rection to “seeker sensitive approaches.”
Seeker sensitive church was pioneered by Willow Creek under Bill Hybels. The idea was that Sunday gatherings should primarily be evangelistic. This would make it easy for people to turn up. Everything would be sensitive to the culture around with teaching focuxed on practical help and formats that included performances and interviews. Real discipleship and teaching took place at midweek gatherings, initially through a worship service and teaxhing all together but later WCCC developed a small groups approach.
One person in response to my article suggested that because of this, Seeker Sensitive was in fact high bar, with people expected to make a significant commitment when it came to discipleship and full church membership. I took their point and I think that was the case with the original intent and some of the key churches in the movement.
However, I think there are a couple of provisos to that. First, I think we must distinguish the theory and how this was applied as best practice from how seeker sensitive became to be experienced across much of the church as others sought to mimic Willow Creek, hoping for a share in their success.
Secondly, it is worth noting that Willow Creek, themselves, began to find that people were happy to settle for the entry phase and were not growing in maturity. They were failing to disciple those who came to them. That is one reason why they began to move towards small groups.
Thirdly, I think that this approach fell into the same trap as much of North American influenced Christianity. It created a two tier approach. This was similar to the approach of distinguishing believers who accepted Jesus as saviour an disciples to owned him as Lord. You see, it was in fact easy to join the church in the eyes of many people because for a lot of people, joining means coming on Sunday. It was hard to then progress into the inner circle.
On a side note, I think that this also meant that Seeker Sensitive let people down because it was equivalent to springing the small print on people. Oh yes, you’ve got your “Christianity 2.1 for free but to properly benefit from all its features, there’s a fee to pay.”
So, yes, Seeker Sensitive movements can be both low bar and high bar at the same time but not in a healthy and helpful way.
Faithroots 