The Fruit of Purpose-Driven / Seeker-Sensitive Methods

Granger Community Church is considered to be one the brightest stars in the Purpose-Driven Church universe and is the 6th most influential church in America. Thousands of churches have purchased, downloaded and preached Granger's sermons. Past and present pastors from Granger are considered 'rock stars' and thought leaders in purpose-driven / seeker-sensitive circles.

But how effective are these Purpose-Driven / Seeker-Sensitive methods at making true converts and true Christian disciples?

Well, Granger just released the results of their Reveal Now survey and the data is bleak. In fact, Granger and their 'pastoral' staff get an F. Here are some of the low lights.

47% of those attending Granger DO NOT believe in salvation by grace. (This means they are NOT Christians, regardless of whether or not they identify themselves as those who are 'Growing in Christ' or 'Christ Centered')

57% of those attending Granger DO NOT believe in the authority of the Bible.

56% of those attending Granger DO NOT believe Jesus is the only way to eternal life.

This is exactly what we should expect from churches that spend their time trying to be 'relevant' and scratch itching ears rather than preaching and teaching God's Word in season and out of season. Or to put it another way, Christless Christianity is completely impotent when it comes to making Christians and Christian Disciples. These survey results prove that beyond a shadow of a doubt.

These results are a complete train wreck and highlight the fact that it is time to abandon the circus church approach once and for all and get back to the 'boring' and 'irrelevant' work of preaching and teaching God's Word, the Lord's Supper and proclaiming Jesus Christ as crucified for our sins.

Comments

[Steve Newell]

I have been leading a Sunday adult bible study at my church were we are studying Paul's letter to Titus. Paul instructs Titus to "teach what is in accord with sound doctrine" (Titus 2:1). This is the responsibility of each pastor in his parish. If a pastor is teaching sound doctrine, he will not have the issues that many churches have seen.

[Nathan W. Bingham]

Chris:

This is truly horrifying, but serves only to confirm what the Scriptures say occurs when sound doctrine is forsaken.

Do you know how Granger views these stats? Have they put a spin on it all, or do they consider negative answers to the above questions a significant issue?

My prayer is the same as yours, that they would return to / begin "preaching and teaching God's Word, the Lord's Supper and proclaiming Jesus Christ as crucified for our sins."

[Chris Rosebrough]

Nathan,

Pastor Mark Beeson is currently unveiling the changes that will be taking place at Granger in order to address these serious short-comings. I am encouraged by the fact that Beeson believes the solution is to feed people the word of God. This is a far better solution than Hybel's solution which was to teach people how to become 'self-feeders'.

My concern about the changes is that Granger appears to be centering their changes on the Law and spiritual disciplines rather than the Gospel.

I discuss those changes on my August 15th edition of Fighting for the Faith

http://www.fightingforthefaith.com/2008/08/the-details-of.html

[John T Meche III]

I think I am missing something. Why are the percentages in the pictures different from the ones you are mentioning?

[Nathan W. Bingham]

Chris:

Thanks for the response. I felt the fool after commenting as I then noticed the topic of your latest podcast.

Time will tell exactly what changes are implemented, but you're correct, it appears to be heading in a better direction than Hybel's solution.

[Nathan W. Bingham]

John:

I think the confusion is where you are looking for the stats. Chris has placed the stats above each picture.

[Bill]

Not sure what's the surprise is with the poll results. If you are seeker sensitive you should be happy about it since church attendance should not be 100% christian. Having 50% or more unbelievers in your church service is what being seeker sensitive is all about. From my perspective the seeker sensitive movement has no biblical basis, that said the results of this poll should be cause of celebration for any seeker sensitive church leader.

[room2blog]

A little more info on the stats would be helpful for interpretation. These numbers for themselves prove very little to nothing (and they're in no way "undeniable proof" as some other bloggers were gloating). How are these numbers and the duration of church attendance at GCC correlated? How many people leave GCC before they "become Christians" and for what reasons?
Where's the source for the numbers you're citing?

[bdaniels]

The source is the audio of the pastor reporting the information to the church. You'll need to listen to the audio.

[room2blog]

I didn't find the link in the article. The source is actually more of a formality, what's more important to me is the correlation I asked for. Without this correlation you're just citing three isolated numbers that don't prove anything.

[Steve Newell]

Room,

Did you listen to the audio stream? The pastor at GCC quoted these results. It appears that you didn't listen.

[room2blog]

I didn't listen to the audio. Are you referring to the pirate radio podcast? Does the audio make mention of the numbers I was asking for or do they simply not exist?

[room2blog]

Is there a script of the audio? This is >70 min and I'm not very enthused about listening to it (the blues track is cool, though).

[Steve Newell]

Room2blog,

If you would take the time to listen to the podcast, you would hear the number from the pastor at GCC not from Chris. Also, if you would hear the podcast, you would hear the comments by both Chris and the pastor on these numbers.

[room2blog]

As I stated before: the source is a mere formality. I have enough trust to believe Chris, that he doesn't make those numbers up. I skipped through the podcast but couldn't find the spot where the pastor says those numbers, though.

What's more important: The fact, that 47% of GCC's attendance don't believe in salvation by grace does NOT prove, that GCC is making false converts (as troubling as this number might be at first glance). If you want to use statistics to make a point you should take care to do it right.

Here's a little (arbitrary) play in numbers to illustrate what these 47% could mean (i'm rounding 47 down to 45 to make the mathematics simpler):

Take a random church, let's say it has 100 members that have attended the church for more than 6 months. 80% of the members of the church believe in a certain dogma (in our case "salvation by grace" alone).

Our exemplary church focuses on outreach and therefore a lot of nonchristian come by to see the worship service on sundays. Some stay, some don't, let's assume the (once again arbitrary) number of _70 people in 6 months_ (they don't believe in salvation by grace).

The church is also attractive to people who already believe, but are unsatisfied with their church or have just moved and are looking for a new place. For a healthy church growth the number of church switchers should be little and there should be less church switchers than seeking non-believers who join a church (I'm very well aware, that this is often not the case).

Let's assume 30 people switch to our exemplary church every 6 months (they believe in salvation by grace), so we have a total of 100 new attendees and a total of 200 attendees.

This church may very well be a healthy and "doctrinally sound" place. Now calculate the percentage of people in the church who don't believe in salvation by grace (I'm doing the maths for you): (20+70)/(200) = 0.45

Conclusion: The number 47% means very little without further information: How many people who attend GCC for more than let's say a year believe in salvation by grace (we want the percentage to be high) and how many people who are new at GCC believe in salvation by grace (we would the percentage to be low).

BTW: the percentage in the pictures seems very low: what church are the pictures from?

[Steve Newell]

You're missing the point. If a person does not believe in Salvation by Grace alone, then they cannot be a Christian. This is the key issue. The fact is that a large number of members of GCC have a view of salvation that is not based on Grace alone but on something else is a huge problem. If.

If a person claims to be a Christian, but rejects Grace Alone, then are they really saved? I would say no. We are saved by Grace alone, by Faith alone for Christ's sake along.

[Akira Kurosawa]

Actually Steve, room2 is dead on the money and seems to have a very good understanding of math and statistics. As Mark Twain said, there are lies, damn lies and statistics.

Room2 is simply asking for a clarification of the numbers and where they come from... he is being discerning, instead of just jumping on the bash the GCC band wagon. The way those numbers were achieved determines what information they contain and what steps should be taken to solve the problem...

Statistics are used in many places to prove the agenda of the people who recorded them, so anytime statistics are trotted out, I immediately want to know where they come from and to see demographics and such.

At least I think that is what Room2 is saying. If I am mistaken, I hope he will correct me.

[room2blog]

> If a person does not believe in Salvation by Grace alone, then they cannot be a Christian. [...] We are saved by Grace alone, by Faith alone for Christ's sake along.

So you say. Amen to that grace alone thing, but I'd draw a fuzzier boundary on my definition of a Christian. Anyway: IMHO that is not the point of the post! It's an axiomatic assumption the post is based on.

Please elaborate on why exactly it is bad if 50% of the people who attend a church's worship service are not Christian (yet)? Maybe the church is simply attracting a good deal of Seekers who will come to know salvation by grace in due time. But until they come to know this, they're "distorting" the stats. That's why I was asking if there were numbers for people who attended Granger for a longer period of time.
(I agree that it sounds more probable that something is off balance at Granger but please be careful what kind of conclusions you draw from numbers).

[Steve Newell]

Please don't lecture me on stats. I have an MBA from a top twenty university and I understand stats and I use stats. This is a survey and not a poll. There is a difference. The survey is of members of GCC, not a random sampling of people who happen to be attending a church service.

You cannot tell me that 50% of those attending over the course of the survey are not Christians. If 25% of those attending are non-Christians, the percentage is still an issue. For member of a Christian Church, the percentage should be much higher.

If you don't hear grace alone from the pastor and it is not taught in small groups, then this result should not surprise anyone. The pastor at GCC believes that stats since GCC will be adding bible studies to deal with this and other issues.

[room2blog]

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to lecture you on stats. I don't have a degree yet, but I'm still studying mathematics so I'm kinda sensitized to "number abuse".

The numbers Chris quotes do indicate a problem and GCC acknowledges that, too. Unfortunately I don't see them justifying a measure of GCC's effectiveness of methods. If 90% of the nonchristian attendees become Christians in the course of a few months that's effective and the ratio of 47% nonbelievers would be no problem, if 90% of them leave the Church, that's not so effective, if 90% don't convert but stay and become members: That's a problem

I agree on one thing: 50% nonchristians members is too much! But I'd think there is a difference between a member and an attendee (at least that's how it's usually like in Germany). A member of a church has to agree to the Church's statement of faith (which should include "salvation by grace alone"). An attendee does not.

[CS]

room2blog:

"Please elaborate on why exactly it is bad if 50% of the people who attend a church's worship service are not Christian (yet)?"

This will probably sound a little rude, I realize, but here's the catch: church worship services should be designed with _Christians_ in mind, and not people who are not saved. Church worship is supposed to be for the assembling of the saints for the worship of God through teaching, preaching, music, prayer, and fellowship.

There are instances in the Bible that are described for situations when unbelievers may enter into a worship service (1 Corinthians 14:23-27). But the primary purpose of worship is not evangelism. And if evangelism is taking place, people are usually convicted of their sins and wish to become believers, or reject what is being said. We shouldn't see a place where people are so comfortable where they can continue abiding in a lifestyle of sin, whether they profess to be Christians or not.

So, even outside of any context of people coming into or out of churches for whatever reasons, we should see more people who are true believers in churches than a 50% margin.

--
CS

[Douglas]

Old Truth.com has some excellent reviews and analysis of the methods and messages of Granger Community Church.

It is heartbreaking some of the things they have been up to at Granger. But many professing churches are in much the same boat these days, tickling the ears, scratching itching ears.

[Charles E. Whisnant]

Okay, you say, that Rick Warren's method does not work. I think that is what you are saying. I know about dozens of churches that do not use any of those method and have failed 100%. I would say most of the stated converts in these churches are not born again.

I have used the principles in the book in a fundamental church, and I can tell you, if you use it right, you will see result that are biblical.

Charles

[Charles E. Whisnant]

Okay, you say, that Rick Warren's method does not work. I think that is what you are saying. I know about dozens of churches that do not use any of those method and have failed 100%. I would say most of the stated converts in these churches are not born again.

I have used the principles in the book in a fundamental church, and I can tell you, if you use it right, you will see result that are biblical.

Charles