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May 24, 2021 08:00am

Seekers Part Four: Discipleship and the Church

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In this series of posts, we have explored God’s mission in seeking sinners and the church’s role in evangelism. The church’s approach to evangelizing the lost is just as important as who we and why we evangelize.

How Should the Church Perform its Role of Evangelization?

No college athletic program can survive by merely collecting players. Nor can the church fulfill its purpose by merely sharing the gospel with the lost.

We must make disciples who will be conformed to the image of Christ and magnify His glory to the ends of the earth!

But if all of our efforts are focused on drawing crowds through any means necessary – to the point that even our corporate worship services, Sunday school classes, small groups, and other activities are all planned around lost people – when will we ever feed the flock and make disciples?

College coaches never quit holding practices, meetings, and workouts for the sake of recruiting. In fact, when recruits visit campus, they often watch the team practice or play. Players are never neglected for the sake of recruits.

One temptation of seeker-driven churches is to view evangelism as the primary task of the church. I respectfully disagree with this idea. The church is to exalt Christ by obeying His command to make disciples of all nations, which includes evangelizing the lost. In other words, we evangelize the world in order to make disciples of all nations so the churches produced will exalt Christ for the global glory of God!

Evangelism is not the ends for which God created the world. Instead, it is a means to that end. Seeker-driven churches are tempted to reverse the order of priority.

The church that is recruiting with gimmicks, to the neglect of training disciples, feeding the flock, and challenging the congregation will never be mature. At best, they will have a massive collection of immature converts who believe the Christian life is all about recruiting more immature converts, and God’s Word will be reduced to passages that recruit the best. It is demeaning to Scripture and demonstrates little faith in the sufficiency of Scripture.

Unless something interrupts the trend, this kind of church becomes no more than a club for morality, community, and service projects.

Christ’s church is called to something greater.

How a church approaches the concept of seekers will shape every part of the church’s ministry including the Sunday service, discipleship strategy, evangelism efforts, community involvements, and membership process.

Takeaways:

Christ is the ultimate seeker. He seeks and saves the lost.
Unbelievers seek God because He seeks them first.
The church’s approach to seekers must be consistent with Christ’s seeking.
The church must be Christ-driven and seeker-sensitive.
Seeking seekers must not take the place of feeding the flock.