Seeker Churches: Promoting Traditional Religion in a Nontraditional Way: Promoting Traditional Relig

Editorial Reviews. From the Back Cover. America's religious landscape is in flux. New churches Seeker Churches: Promoting Traditional Religion in a Nontraditional Way by [Sargeant, Kimon Howland.
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Learn more about Amazon Giveaway. Promoting Traditional Religion in a Nontraditional Way. Set up a giveaway. Feedback If you need help or have a question for Customer Service, contact us. Would you like to report poor quality or formatting in this book? Click here Would you like to report this content as inappropriate? Click here Do you believe that this item violates a copyright? There's a problem loading this menu right now. This usually meant that the church had to have a separate weekly gathering for believers, as the seeker service was more akin to an evangelistic rally.

Although basic, orthodox doctrine will never cease to be important, seekers will not be patient with some of the doctrinal nit-picking that is prevalent in many churches. Seeker-centered churches can develop two focuses—one that is highly visible and seeker-centered, and one that is behind the scene, oriented to nurturing committed Christians. Seeker-centered churches also go by the name seeker-driven because their philosophy of ministry is driven by the desire to reach the unchurched. According to church-growth wisdom, only new or quite young churches ought to consider implementing the seeker-centered extreme.

For most established congregations that is, churches more than ten years old , moving toward the seeker-sensitive end of the spectrum is the most that can and ought to be attempted. Doing more would cause deep disruption in a church.

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Seeker centered worship, also called seeker targeted or seeker driven worship, is primarily oriented towards the unchurched…. Everything, from the message to the music, is designed to make a positive impression on the non-believer.


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It should be God centered, and Bible-based. These churches often try to adapt the Purpose-Driven or Seeker-Centered model of church to the tastes of a younger audience. The seeker-focused service as made popular by Willow Creek has the following elements: You may be seeker-focused, seeker-friendly, seeker-neutral—or you may not even like the term seeker.

You may be traditional, contemporary, or somewhere in between. You may be mainline, evangelical, fundamentalist, denominational, independent, conservative, progressive, or one of a hundred other labels. The answer is the following vision: We see friends bringing friends to a Sunday morning seeker-focused service because they will hear the Good News presented clearly and creatively in an atmosphere of acceptance.

Restoring Integrity in Baptist Churches Most seeker-focused churches do not practice church discipline. Few things could be less seeker-oriented than the act of publicly disciplining a member for improper behavior. As the community changed, more and more people in the church were leaving and heading for the new, seeker-focused churches springing up in the expanding suburbs. Steps were carefully taken to convert its ministry, based upon a traditional service format geared to churched people, into the type of seeker-oriented, contemporary ministry that has made Willow Creek so famous.

Some people had caught the vision for reaching their nonchurched friends and felt comfortable about bringing them to the contemporary worship service at 9: Some churches make a mistake in thinking that by adding contemporary Christian music and new musical instruments, such as guitars and drums, they are becoming more seeker-oriented. Although they may be drawing closer culturally to the seekers in their community, they are more likely to attract fellow believers who have a different taste in music or in style of worship.

Inviting friends to seeker-oriented outreach events not only encourages them to attend; it can also raise spiritual topics of discussion. How to Create Contemporary Worship Because these [Sunday] services focus on guests, seeker-oriented congregations often offer a believer-oriented, highly participational service during the week, perhaps on Sunday or Wednesday night. Because the unchurched set the agenda for the Sunday morning services, a believer-driven service becomes essential.

Congregations and Family Ministry Seeker-oriented megachurches consider even … understated Christian iconography to be potentially off-putting to the unchurched visitor. Public Religion and Urban Transformation: Faith in the City The most influential megachurch model: Glorifying and Enjoying God Frequently, the seeker-oriented churches use high-tech electronic systems to project slides or videos, and employ sophisticated sound systems.

Approaches to worship in these new congregations vary, of course, but in many cases those assembled remain a largely passive audience. To do so might make unbelievers not to mention many believers uncomfortable, and is therefore avoided as poor marketing strategy. Some of the more seeker-oriented Boomer churches value anonymity, because they realized that many seekers from the Builder and Boomer generations preferred to be left alone to consider the claims of Christ without having to stand and introduce themselves or interact with the people sitting near them.

Clergy in American Politics at the Advent of the Millennium Willow Creek Community Church … is best known as the preeminent seeker-oriented congregation, which is one version of the new-paradigm, nondenominational churches Sargeant Its core ministry is the seeker-directed weekend worship services … designed specifically to appeal to people turned off by organized religion. Parishioners Tell Their Stories Emmanuel was known as the big church in the area, the one that pulled in lots of new Christians, and I thought it was probably more of a seeker-oriented place than I was looking for, the kind of Southern California wannabe mega-church that was more about the show than the gospel, more about the numbers attending than the authenticity of the word that was coming from its pulpit.

Services often include skits or other dramatic presentations along with the sermon, which is directed toward practical implications of biblical texts and principles. Conversations with Effective Practitioners Like a lot of seeker-oriented churches, we had minimized money. So we downplayed that subject. Letting the Gospel Shape Our Practice The InterVarsity chapter at the College of DuPage is holding a three-week series of seeker-targeted large-group meetings this week and next. Pray that students invite many non-Christian friends to come.

Hundreds of churches … have adopted a Willow Creek style seeker service designed for the unchurched. Proclaiming Christ to a Postmodern World I have heard of some seeker-targeted churches—some, not all—that have removed all vestiges of the cross, both physical and verbal, from their gatherings. Empowering Student Leadership in Youth Evangelism Action Plans for Touching Your Community These are the hyphenated churches.

The seeker-targeted, purpose-driven, spirit-empowered, revival-expecting Church of Whatever. An effective seeker-targeted ministry is in place. The organ is gone. No one sings in robes. Contemporary music, multimedia, drama, and video have become important components of worship. Creating Moments of Transformation and Wonder To the muscular Christians, improvement of individual bodies was a key to both individual and social salvation.

See Green, Fit for America, For a broader examination of the role of individualism in evangelical Christianity, see Hollinger , Dennis P.

What is a Seeker Sensitive Church?

An Evangelical Syncretism Lanham, Md. University Press of America , I have not noticed that Christian fighters are disproportionately white, but churches that host MMA events or use the rhetoric in sermons seem to have largely white congregations. Princeton University Press , , 5. Luhrmann, When God Talks Back , Hoffman , Shirl J. Human Kinetics Books , , If the preaching of modern muscular Christians resembles pop psychology, perhaps past preaching did, as well.

Quoted in Prothero, American Jesus , Bartkowski, The Promise Keepers , Roof, A Generation of Seekers , David Lyon suggests that the shift in focus from mind to body and an interest in identity and experience are characteristic of the postmodern era Jesus in Disneyland: Religion in Postmodern Times [Cambridge: Polity Press, ], 47, The study of religion and the body is becoming an everricher theoretical, sociological, and anthropological field. Some texts that have particularly helped shape my thinking on this subject include: Lester , Rebecca J. Embodying Modernity in a Mexican Convent Berkeley: Selected Essays New York: Orsi, Between Heaven and Earth , Chandler , Timothy J.

Sport in the Service of Religion , ed. Magdalinski , Tara and Chandler , Timothy J. Spencer , Dale C. Routledge , , 8. See also Holthuysen, chap. Observing Modern Religious Lives , Danny White, profile page, Anointed Fighter, n. The particular video I am referencing can be found at: When athletes praise God for victory, they suggest a connection between belief and victory. I believe in God. And that is the reason why I am successful. However, fighters realize that believers are not guaranteed victory and do not seem to see losing as a sign of moral failure.

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Vitor Belfort, I Am Second website, http: All posts appear on the Anointed Fighter blog in August , http: Hughes, The Manliness of Christ , Josiah Strong, quoted in Putney, Muscular Christianity , Maybe the need to make Christ a better man—that is, to emphasize his heteronormative manliness—is partially because these groups also emphasize the need for Christian men to be good fathers, a task that some might see as less than manly due to its association with caretaking and children.

By talking about becoming a better father and stronger man together, evangelicals are able to promote a worldview that is both family oriented and male headed. Quoted in Kimmel, Manhood in America , University of California Press , , Pastors and MMA fighters frequently reference David: Email your librarian or administrator to recommend adding this journal to your organisation's collection. This data will be updated every 24 hours.

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