Church Growth History

Continuing on with Chapter 5 of Gary Gilley's This Little Church Went to Market.

The church growth movement owes much to Robert Schuller. He 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 nonchurched in your community [then give it to them]. 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.

He decided that mankind's most fundamental need was self-esteem; a 'need' nowhere mentioned, alluded to or even hinted at in the Bible.

Working from Schuller's premise that, as [Lee] Strobel would later communicate, 'The most effective messages for seekers are those that address their felt need', it remained for Hybels and company to determine which felt-needs required most attention. Leading the pack, Hybels decided, was not self-esteem, as Schuller taught, although he did not reject it, but rather personal fulfilment (or the pursuit of happiness). This view was derived from secular psychology, not the Bible, as we demonstrated in our last chapter. Fulfilment was followed by identity, companionship, marriage, family, relief of stress, meaning and morality. To Hybels, fulfilment was the felt need that emcompassed and and defined all others.

When Harry is attractred 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 (Matt. 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.

David Wells asks the right question of these seeker-sensitive churches. 'Does the church have the courage to become relevant by becoming biblical?'

That's the end of what struck me in Chapter 5. My question is, can a church help fulfill needs and be strongly biblical at the same time? Didn't Jesus meet physical and spiritual needs in the people He ministered to? Or are we just talking emotional needs here? I think we are. I think the point the author is trying to make is that all emotional needs can be addressed by a person's deep and abiding relationship with Christ and if a church focuses everything on fun to draw them in, and ministries that try to heal through psychology instead of addressing sin for what it is and allowing Christ to do the healing, then the church is barking up the wrong tree. That's my summary. We'll see what he says tomorrow. Blessings on this gorgeous Wednesday!