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Gateway Country
4 myths about reaching the unchurched - and 4 ways to draw them in.
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In the movie Field of Dreams, the character played by Kevin Costner is told to build a baseball diamond in the middle of a corn field. "If you build it, they will come," a mysterious voice promises him, meaning the reappearance of Shoeless Joe Jackson and the 1919 Chicago White Sox. Many assume that's true of building a church: fashion one that is seeker-targeted, and seekers will come. So they advertise "Seeker Service—y'all come," and then sit back and expect it to grow. They think that if you offer topical messages, casual dress, drama, drums, and Starbucks coffee—then the church will grow. It's a myth. The reality is that seeker services, which Mecklenburg itself offers, are nothing more than a tool in the hands of those who are doing the inviting. Apart from that, they're meaningless. If unchurched seekers want Starbucks, they'll go to Starbucks. The idea that such things themselves will be a draw is ridiculous. Mecklenburg is a seeker-targeted church, which means that when it comes to how we want to grow, we want it to be from the unchurched. That is what it means to be seeker targeted. It's not about a formulaic service. Service styles vary from church to church and setting to setting even among "seeker churches." Being seeker-targeted is not about style. It's about a radically different set of values, that the church doesn't exist to meet the needs of the already convinced, but to win the world. We may not even have a seeker service in five years, but we will always be seeker targeted, because being seeker targeted is about building relationships and earning the right to talk about spiritual things. It's about carefully creating entry points to support the evangelistic and invitational efforts of believers attempting to fulfill the Great Commission through the local church. Myth #3: Everyone needs small groups.Okay, let's all say it together: "We don't want to be a church with small groups, but a church of small groups." Everybody says it. Well, everybody but Mecklenburg. We have found that small groups are very much needed by those who need small groups. Read that sentence again slowly. The truth is that many do not need them, and may not be best served by them. We initially rebuffed this idea. Somehow it was sacrilegious to even verbalize the thought. In fact, small groups can become just as much a sacred cow to the contemporary church as Sunday school was to earlier generations. We discovered instead that it is community that is taught in the Scriptures, not a programmatic methodology for achieving it. Yes, there were house churches in the New Testament, but this is a narrative insight, not a didactic teaching from Scripture. Early cell groups have more to do with the nature of the growth and culture of the early church than they do a methodological mandate. |             |
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