Seeker Sensitive or Seeker Friendly

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Permalink Reply by Seek on September 17, 2014 at 6:18am

Well I didn't.  I felt sorrow and repentance but not uncomfortable with the Word.  I felt uncomfortable with how I'd been living.

Permalink Reply by Amanda on September 17, 2014 at 9:09am

>>"For clarification:  We as Christians can reach out to the lost & should, but by using God's standards and God's means, which is the Gospel.  I remember a saying once, I can't remember the author, but it goes something like this:  "If the prodigal son were to be living in these days, someone would have given him a sandwich and a warm bed and he would never have gone home."'>>

I'm not sure that providing a warm meal to a lost person is the real issue. Yes, the seeker sensitive movement is going too far, but mostly because the modern church isn't keeping the gospel message (death, burial, resurrection of Christ) in its purity, undiluted and undistorted (teaching false gospels) plus, it is permitting many cultural ways of doing things that don't align with the biblical way (regarding making disciples and growing spiritually, etcetera).

But as far as reaching out to the hungry and the poor and meeting some of their needs, I think providing that kind of comfort isn't wrong. There's a local Presbyterian church here who offers meals to the community near the end of every month, knowing that many people on fixed incomes (elderly and disabled, as well as those who were laid off from work) don't have enough to eat at that time, as they wait for their next stipend. We could get into all the ones receiving benefits who aren't truly entitled, and all the ones who mis-spend their funds and use them unwisely, yet there are people receiving them who actually do qualify and actually are impoverished and the funds just aren't enough.

In 2010, poverty in the USA was "15.1 percent, up from 14.3 percent in 2009 ─ the third consecutive annual increase in the poverty rate. There were 46.2 million people in poverty in 2010, up from 43.6 million in 2009" https://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/income_wealth/cb1...

IMO, A lot of the money being used in modern churches could be and would be better spent in other ways.

Permalink Reply by Seek on September 17, 2014 at 9:31am

IMO, A lot of the money being used in modern churches could be and would be better spent in other ways.

Can I get a big fat AMEN!?

Permalink Reply by Amanda on September 17, 2014 at 11:55am

I should add those who are minimum wage earners. I've known young couples who have both worked full time but the low wages weren't enough to take care of all their needs, not to mention their children. Here's a link to help us understand what living on minimum wage is like, although some know firsthand. I remember working for it years ago and trying to make the rent, a car payment, insurance, etcetera, and I was single. My son is 18 and earning minimum wage. If he had a wife and a child, and even if his wife worked full time on minimum wage, it would be still difficult. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/02/09/opinion/minimum-wage....

Permalink Reply by Amanda on September 17, 2014 at 12:04pm

A family of 3 would have to earn 19,530 a year to be considered not in poverty. http://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty/13poverty.cfm

Permalink Reply by Seek on September 17, 2014 at 12:12pm

You can earn more than that and still be in poverty.  That's just what the government considers poverty to decide you need no help whatsoever.   The regulations are written by politicians who we are supposed to pray for.  I try dear Lord, but please explain to me why the government can help you by paying $160/mo. of your daycare but when you get a raise of $90/mo. (less after taxes), they now say you can pay the $160 yourself.  Someone's math is a bit skewed.  DO'H!

Permalink Reply by Seek on September 17, 2014 at 12:16pm

By the way, the reason they can do that is because they're basing $19,530/year on 1950 housing prices.  You could rent something for $200/mo. or even less really.  You can't even get an efficiency apartment here for even close to that amount.  I paid $200/mo. on daycare for my daughter and nearly $600/mo. now for my son.  Prices go up, cost of living goes up, but government brain capacity keeps going down.

Permalink Reply by Amanda on September 16, 2014 at 9:52am

The lengths to which people will go to reach the lost most likely include a number of factors, such as how much freewill people are believed to have and if there's anything that can be done to make the ground into good ground upon which the seed falls --ground that is fertilized, watered, and ploughed -- to name a few factors. 

If a local church is Arminian, or even semi-pelagian, as I once was, believing that God and humans work together as a team to achieve salvation because people have the ability to make a free will choice and to make the first efforts themselves to seek God and then God will respond to that first effort on someone's part to know Him, then it will effect how the lost are treated.

Additionally, if a church holds to the belief that the soils in the parable of the sower can be changed, so that any ground can become good soil, then why wouldn't those who carry a heavy burden for the lost be working to that effect?

Here are two informative articles coming from the view that a church shouldn't be based on what the unsaved would want in a church. 
http://www.gotquestions.org/seeker-sensitive-church.html
http://www.gotquestions.org/seeker-friendly-churches.html

But we are still left with a dilemma -- which ones are only seeking a form of religion, to be entertained, or to get a temporary need met, and which ones are truly seeking, not doing it on their own, but are being called and drawn by God first? 

IMO, the parable of the weeds gives some insight, Matthew 13:24-30.

Permalink Reply by David Velasquez on September 16, 2014 at 5:31pm

Amanda,

Great points,

"But we are still left with a dilemma -- which ones are only seeking a form of religion, to be entertained, or to get a temporary need met, and which ones are truly seeking, not doing it on their own, but are being called and drawn by God first?"

"The ones that are being effectually called by God to be eventually regenerated, will respond to God's Word. So rather than investing efforts on seeker sensitive programs we do well to give the whole church the Word and Let God do the Seeking of the lost through the preached Gospel.

Permalink Reply by Amanda on September 17, 2014 at 4:41am

Yes, David. There's no need to differentiate between one kind of seeker and the other, IMO, between the good seed and the bad seed, just as the parable of the weeds explains.

Permalink Reply by David Velasquez on September 17, 2014 at 5:49am

Amanda,

Spurgeon (supposedly) said something like: "If God had painted a yellow stripe up the backs of the elect, I'd go through London lifting up coats and preaching only to them. As it is, He has not, so I preach the Gospel to all, and God brings his sheep."

Permalink Reply by Amanda on September 17, 2014 at 6:00am

Amen.

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