Market Driven Church by Gary Gilley  (con't)

A Little History

The church growth movement owes much to Robert Schuller, who claims to be its founder, at least in this country, by being the first to launch the marketing approach in Christianity. "The secret of winning unchurched people into the church," Schuller said, "is really quite simple. Find out what would impress the non-churched in your community" then give it to them (as quoted in Willow Creek Seeker Services, by G.S. Pritchard, p. 51). Believing that expository preaching is a waste of time, and borrowing the philosophy of his mentor Norman Vincent Peale, Schuller "began to communicate a message of Christianity that focused on meeting the emotional and psychological needs of people" (Pritchard, p. 53). Schuller laid out his philosophy of ministry in his 1982 book Self Esteem: The New Reformation, in which he called for a radical shift in the church's focus from God to human needs. The most important issue before Schuller was to determine through some means what was the deepest human need upon which the church should focus. He decided that mankind's deepest need was self-esteem, a "need," by the way, nowhere mentioned, alluded to, or even hinted at in the Scriptures. He then went on to wrap his theology and church growth strategy around this all-important need. Originally, Schuller's church growth philosophy met with scorn and denunciation by conservative Christians everywhere. But while Christian leaders held the theological front against need-oriented Christianity they were out-flanked by pragmatism. It just so happened that Schuller's methodology worked, and those who employed it were seeing exponential numerical growth in their churches. In most arenas, truth doesn't stand a chance against success; this proved to be the case in the church growth wars.

If Robert Schuller was the architect of the user-friendly church, then Bill Hybels, pastor of Willow Creek Community church, became the contractor. Working from the premise that, "The most effective messages for seekers are those that address their felt need" (Inside the Mind of Unchurched Harry and Mary, by Lee Strobel, pp. 214,215) it remained for Hybels and company to determine which felt needs most needed attention. Leading the pack, Hybels decided it was not self-esteem, although he did not reject it, but rather personal fulfillment (or the pursuit of happiness) followed by identity, companionship, marriage, family, relief of stress, meaning and morality (ibid., pp. 70-73). To Hybels, fulfillment was the felt need that encompassed and defined all others.

Since, to the founders of the new paradigm church, felt needs are the driving force behind the actions and attitudes of people, and since Christianity, Hybels would argue, is the best means to solve problems and satisfy the desire for fulfillment (ibid., p. 143), he developed the gospel of personal fulfillment. According to the research book Willow Creek Seeker Services by G. A. Pritchard, the canon within the canon at Willow Creek is that human beings can be fulfilled. Fulfillment permeates every venue at Willow Creek, even leading to a redefinement of sin. "Instead of only portraying sin as selfishness and a rebellion against God, Hybels also describes it as a flawed strategy to gain fulfillment" (ibid., p. 177).

It should be noted that while this felt need strategy is not derived from Scripture, coming clearly from secular psychology, it nevertheless would become the foundation of the new paradigm church.

The Repercussions

The result of psychology's invasion of our culture has been, as R. Albert Mohler, Jr. noticed, that "Americans are now fanatic devotees of the cult of self-fulfillment and personal autonomy" (The Coming Evangelical Crisis, edited by John H. Armstrong, 'Evangelical': What's in a Name?" by R. Albert Mohler, Jr., p. 40). The role of the church has been to challenge the spirit of the age, for as Wells points out, "The church is in the business of truth, not profit" (God in the Wasteland, by David Wells, p. 76). Unfortunately, "the healers of our time -- psychotherapists and advertisers -- have extended their long reach into the life of the church as well. Our secular healers have populated the Church with their close cousins" (Losing Our Virtue, by David Wells, p. 197). Even "the language of theology has been replaced by the vocabulary of the therapeutic" (Mohler).

These new cousins have affected every aspect of church life. Take worship for example -- New paradigm pastor Wes Dubin goes on the offensive when his entertainment oriented worship services are challenged. "It (worship) is not all gloom and doom," he states, "and all of us take our Bibles and just bore each other; let's show them that we can also have fun" (In the Name of God, video with Peter Jennings). There is a time for fun in the church but surely, "the purpose of worship is clearly to express the greatness of God and not simply to find inward release or, still less, amusement. Worship is theological rather than psychological" (Losing Our Virtue, p. 40).

And then there is the issue of sin. In a psychological world, sin is reduced to sickness and addiction. The sinner is not seen as depraved, but as a victim. What is then lost is our capacity to understand life, and ourselves, as sinful. When the seeker-sensitive church adopts the language and theology of psychology, it then attempts to dispense psychological prescriptions for life's issues rather than Biblical ones, for after all, it reasons, the world now thinks within the framework of psychology and we must be relevant. Rather than challenge and confront the world's wisdom, the modern church is seeking to sanctify it. The result is, as the prophet Jeremiah warned in his day, "They have healed the brokenness of My people superficially" (Jeremiah 6:14).

The emphasis on psychology is also changing the focus of the church. Pritchard is right when he says, "Instead of looking at God's face, this teaching suggests that individuals look in the distorted mirror of modern psychology" (Pritchard, p. 233). Pritchard claims that when he attended the church (ibid., pp. 227, 235), the majority of the books sold in Willow Creek's bookstore were psychological and self-help books, with the decidedly anti-Christian Codependent No More by Melody Beattie the top seller. This accentuation on psychology, "instead of encouraging Creekers to know and love God, encourages them to know and accept themselves and develop a strong self-esteem. The goals and means of one's ethics change from a God-centered to a human-centered orientation. … Willow Creek Christians have accepted the psychological framework as foundational to their self-understanding and as a trustworthy guide for daily living" (Pritchard, p. 234).

Pritchard's assessment of the psychological influence at Willow Creek is lethal. "Ironically, while Hybels is evangelizing those in the world toward Christianity, he is also evangelizing Christians toward the world. As the unchurched Harrys in the audience (10 percent) move closer to Christianity, the Christians in the audience (90 percent) are often becoming more psychological and worldly. … In the effort to become relevant Willow Creek ironically is in danger of becoming irrelevant" (Pritchard, p. 238-239 -- Percentages of Christians and non-Christians attending Willow Creek are estimates based upon the author's research).

Pritchard's critique of the need-oriented approach to "doing church" is worthy of quoting extensively:

The unintended consequences of this approach are that Hybels incorporates large chunks of the American psychological worldview into his basic teaching and teaches that fulfillment is a consequence of the Christian life. There is a lack of critical evaluation to Willow Creek's approach to relevance. This felt-need approach to relevance ultimately distorts their Christianity.

A more biblical approach to the current American fixation with fulfillment is to call it the idolatry that it is. Jesus does not guarantee that to follow him will make one fulfilled. In fact, at several points, the direct opposite is communicated: "I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you" (John 15:19); "I did not come to bring peace but a sword" (Matthew 10:34); "If they persecuted me they will persecute you also" (John 15:20). The temptation to say that Christianity will meet all one's needs and provide fulfillment is not true to biblical Christianity (Pritchard, p. 200 -- emphasis mine).

Willow Creek's unintended failures result from an uncritical use of various cultural tools and ideas (marketing, psychology, media). In particular, their mistakes are rooted in a superficial understanding of the American culture and an inadequate grasp of Christian theology (Pritchard, p. 207). 

The seeker-sensitive experts would defend marketing as a tool they use to attract more Unchurched Harrys to hear the gospel. Methods change, the message stays the same, is the cliché. What they naively do not seem to understand is that the message will ultimately be shaped by the method. This is especially true of marketing, since it "shapes how one views the world. People become 'consumers' and 'target audiences.' These consumers have 'felt needs,' which 'research' discovers in order to modify the 'product' to meet these needs" (Pritchard, p. 244).

There exists a subtle yet important difference between the New Testament church and the new paradigm church. The church, the New Testament teaches, is to glorify God and instruct people on how to please Him. In the process, needs may very well be met, but the purpose of the church is not to meet people's needs (except for the need for godliness). In the modern church, needs reign; God exists to meet Harry's needs. Harry comes to Christ, not to glorify Him, but to find the promised fulfillment and happiness in this life. When Harry is attracted through a felt-need philosophy, he will not be retained when that approach is no longer used. In other words, if Harry is drawn to the church in order to get, in order to satisfy his flesh, he is not likely to stay around when and if he discovers that Christ calls for him to lose his life for Christ's sake (Matthew 16:25). The result is that churches which have been built on the quagmire of the superficial must remain superficial if they hope to retain their Harrys and Marys.

                                                                                                    part 5

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