It is deeply encouraging to see a church as influential as Willow Creek turn toward building disciples, rather than limiting the church’s mission to winning converts. Yet while the changes are clearly positive, they don’t quite go far enough.
Fundamentally, seeker sensitive churches are built on the premise that the mission of the church is to win new converts. By subordinating all discipleship and church activity to this end, seeker-sensitive churches fail to acknowledge the intrinsic goodness of the fellowship of the people of God. In other words, they miss out on the eschatological character of the Church–there is no “Church triumphant” in the seeker-sensitive ecclesiology, as the Church exists fundamentally to win converts rather than to encounter and worship the Living God.
The difference is, I think, crucial. If the ultimate end of the church is saving people, then the only adequate basis for those activities that do not immediately result in salvation–and here I think of the creation and promotion of art–is the salvation of lost souls. However, if the goal of the church is to experience Holy Communion–that is, to dwell in the presence of Jesus Christ, through his Spirit, as His body–then art, music, dance, business, etc. need no further justification for their existence. The church can engage in them because they are human activities and intrinsically worthwhile.
This is, I think, the chief deficiency of a seeker-sensitive ecclesiology, and many evangelical ecclesiologies. When non-believers become Christians, what type of life have they been saved to? A life of saving other non-believers is good, but ultimately insufficient, for it is not the sort of life that one can–or will–live in heaven.
