We've seem it numerous times, and it's still happening. Churches are adopting "seeker friendly" policies. Without exception, this decision leads to disaster for the church and its people. It starts with making people feel comfortable. It continues with restraining the movement of the Spirit of God. It completes with compromising even basic Biblical doctrine.

The world around us, this American culture, is becoming more pagan, anti-Christian. It shows up in statistics as the "unchurched". (I won't debate this idiotic classification here, but I'd love to.) Pastors and church leaders drool with the growing opportunities for evangelism. And then it happens: obedience to God is subtly replaced with the evangelism itself. And it goes downhill from there. To get these "unchurched" into our church--why ours? why not the one down the street? what arrogance!--their comfort is made a priority. The "churched" are asked to sacrifice for the sake of the comfort of the "unchurched".

The Spirit is gradually suppressed. After all, healings, tongues, and prophecies can scare the hell out of unbelievers, and we wouldn't want them running off. Foreign languages may be introduced (e.g., Spanish), sometimes without native interpretation (English in our case)--a direct violation of Scriptures--all to attract a new demographic. Differing styles of worship, like hand-raising or tamborine-playing or flag-waving or dancing, are discouraged or forbidden.

The unpleasant portions of Scriptures, the vast majority of it that challenges us to grow up, are quietly overlooked, put off, or ignored. If all of Scriptures were preached, the ignorant might be offended and leave, and the leadership doesn't want that. The ungodly justification is that we can't reach them if they're not in church. (Another debate for another time is this: you don't evangelize by attracting people to church; it's one-on-one, sincere, and often lasting relationships that bring people to the Lord, something that can't be turned into a church program.)

Why church leaders can't see this coming is beyond me. I've seen it more than a half-dozen times firsthand, and ten times that secondhand. We have yet to regularly attend a church that doesn't eventually fall into this sin. (Those already fallen, of course, have compromised the Word so much, we're not inclined to visit more than once.) And once fallen, the church withers and dies. It either closes its doors, or more often, sticks to preaching a non-Christian doctrine designed to cater to the democratic demographic. The Lord is no longer present or wanted.

It's happening to our present church. Right now, our Pentecostal church is losing touch with the Spirit of God--it's certainly no longer Pentecostal. We're still near the top of this cliff, but quickly sliding down, with apparent jubilance and enthusiasm.

Strangely, this "seeker friendly" phenomenon is also happening to our homeschool core curriculum provider, formerly a Christian family-owned business with Christ-centered curricula. They're rebranding themselves to grow their business, and in this new [albeit additional] brand, they're ripping out anything Christian. Their reasoning: reach people who otherwise wouldn't feel comfortable purchasing overtly Christian material (even if basically just a classical education from a Christian perspective). How this exposes people to the Christian message escapes me. It seems like nothing more than the secularization of a once-Christian business.

In contrast, a Christian dance company was asked to consider removing the crucifixion scene in their performance because it was deemed offensive to children. (It should be noted this was the first such complaint in its 8+ year run.) The leadership overwhelmingly defended the Scriptures without hesitation, the suggestion rejected.

There are pockets of faithful disciples remaining, but they seem to be few and far between, especially among organizational leaders. If we remain true to the Lord and His Word, He will bring into His kingdom those whom He chooses. Similarly, such faithfulness is a powerful witness to true seekers, even if it makes them a bit uncomfortable.