SEEKER-SENSITIVE CHURCH HAVING SECOND THOUGHTS

For most of a generation evangelicals have been enamored with the "seeker-sensitive" movement promoted by pastor Bill Hybels (left) and his Willow Creek Community Church in Chicago. Now Willow Creek has released a long-term study on the effectiveness of their programs and ministry. The report reveals that most of what they have been doing and what they have taught millions of others to do is not producing solid Christian disciples. There has been numerical but not spiritual growth.

Hybels laments: "Some of the stuff that we have put millions of dollars into thinking it would really help our people grow and develop spiritually; when the data actually came back it wasn't helping people that much. Other things that we didn't put that much money [or staff] into…our people are crying out for."

The "seeker-sensitive" model seems to produce a crowd but not mature followers of Christ. Hybels admits: "We made a mistake. What we should have done when people crossed the line of faith and become Christians, we should have started…teaching people that they have to take responsibility to become 'self-feeders.' We should have taught people how to read their Bible between services, how to do the spiritual practices much more aggressively on their own."

 

The Golden Compass, a new fantasy film for children, is causing some concern among Christians. Those expecting a Narnian tale or a saga similar to Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings will be shocked. The movie is based on the first book of the trilogy His Dark Materials by atheist Philip Pullman. The evil antagonists of the story are called "the Magisterium," the name of the teaching body of the Roman Catholic Church. In the final book, The Amber Spyglass, two children, Will and Lyra, kill God so they can do as they please. Pullman left little doubt about his intentions when he said in an interview in 2003 that "My books are about killing God." Book critic David Pickering in reviewing The Amber Spyglass for Amazon notes: “The author's beliefs also come more into the open, and with them a polemic[al], anti-religious theme that will please some readers and alienate others.”

Publishers Weekly describes Spyglass as “the most provocative installment yet” in which Lyra finds herself “at the center of what is to be the final battle between good and evil; she is a target for the Church, which sees her as a threat….Throughout, Pullman challenges Christianity and God (who is a craggy old man here, very different from the usual biblical depiction), asking readers to examine the ideas of organized religion.”

Some Christians fear that the watered-down film version of The Golden Compass may encourage many unsuspecting parents to buy all three books for their children for Christmas. (The sequel is The Subtle Knife.) The Golden Compass will be released Dec. 7.

 Photo: Sue Careless

On Oct. 29 Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori announced that the Very Rev. Mark Lawrence (left) had received the consents needed for him to become the next bishop of South Carolina. (In the Episcopal Church it is not enough to be elected by members of your own diocese. The election must be approved by a majority of both bishops and standing committees in the national church.)

Lawrence, 51, who is currently a priest in California, was the only candidate in the Aug. 4 election. He had first been elected in September 2006. In March, however, Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori had declared Lawrence's election "null and void," citing that some of the votes were electronically submitted and did not have the required handwritten signatures attached. It was the first time in over 70 years that consents for the consecration of a bishop were denied.

The rejection outraged conservative Anglicans who felt Lawrence clearly met the standards to lead the diocese. He twice assured The Episcopal Church that he would not split from the U.S.-based church body over disputes on Scripture and homosexuality.

(Staff) Only one out of three Episcopalians attends a parish church on a weekly basis, according to statistics presented to the Executive Council by Kirk Hadaway, the Episcopal Church's director of research.

Membership in all 110 dioceses of the Episcopal Church totaled 2,320,506 in 2006, down 2.2%, or 51,502, from 2,372,008 in 2005. That's the equivalent of almost 1,000 Episcopalians walking away from the Episcopal Church each week.

And there is no indication the trend will reverse.

Average Sunday attendance for 2006 was reported at 804,688, down 2.6%, or 21,856, from 826,544 in 2005. That's approximately 420 active parishioners or the equivalent of six parishes (average size 70) closing across the United States each week.

Most mainline Protestant denominations in America are experiencing an overall downturn in Sunday-morning attendance -- owing in part to declining birth rates, aging membership and weekend work. But the dropout rates increased further in the Episcopal Church after Gene Robinson, a practicing homosexual, was consecrated bishop of New Hampshire in 2003.

The Economist reports that Hispanic immigration is driving the growth of the Catholic church in America. According to an April 2007 report from the Pew Hispanic Centre, a third of Catholics in America are Hispanic. 

In mid-November the Church of England announced that weekly attendance at Sunday services had dropped below one million worshippers. The population of England is close to 51 million.