Alabama Baptist churches have become skilled at reaching the lost and raising attendance through creative events and ministries and changes in church culture like emphasizing casual dress and incorporating more contemporary worship styles as a result of the so-called “seeker” movement.
In 2007, seeker movement leader Bill Hybels announced the high-level seeker model he used at Willow Creek Community Church near Chicago was not working in terms of producing mature believers, and now church strategists are citing the onset of a “post-seeker” era. So some Alabama Baptist church leaders might wonder, “What now?”
The future of ministry is clear, however, for Garry Ragsdale, pastor of Mount Zion Baptist Church, Alexandria, in Calhoun Baptist Association.
While church leaders may find it helpful to look at some seeker or post-seeker models of ministry, Ragsdale said the key is “that we never compromise the Word of God. And we don’t have to in order to reach people.”
People of the post-seeker, or “postmodern,” era are said to embrace spirituality but are hostile or indifferent to religion and the church. According to James L. Wilson, Baptist pastor and author of “Future Church: Ministry in a Post-Seeker Age,” “postmoderns are willing to admit they need help” but have discovered education, technology and philosophy will not solve their problems.
In an article he wrote for Rev! Magazine, Wilson noted postmoderns are turning to spirituality, but in the United States, they are “as likely to attend a pagoda, temple or mosque as a church.”
Although a post-seeker world can seem daunting to the church, there is reason for optimism, said Sammy Gilbreath, director of the office of evangelism for the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions (SBOM).
In a recent survey, “80 percent of people in the U.S. said they had at least one friend who called themselves a Christian,” Gilbreath noted. “Seventy percent of those said if that friend wanted to talk to them about their faith, they would listen.”
He said his office is swamped with requests from churches across the state interested in help with evangelistic events. And churches like the 21 in Judson Baptist Association are finding postmodernism to be a good soil for gospel seeds with people coming to Christ as a result of these events.
Balkum Baptist Church, Headland, recently hosted Judson Association’s outdoor sportsman’s challenge. Gary Clements, event coordinator and volunteer associational men’s director, said two people expressed interest in accepting Christ after a lunchtime devotion.
But there are literally millions more who need to be sought after in Alabama alone.
“Forty-six percent of Alabamians are unchurched. What if those 2 million never seek?” asked Matt Brooks, the 29-year-old pastor of LifePoint Church, Albertville, in Marshall Baptist Association.
Brooks is taking action to reach his generation with a post-seeker approach at his church, which he says is “outsider focused” and emphasizes “marketplace missions.”
“We’ve got to put people in the middle of the marketplace ready to invest in people’s lives and invite them to Christ, not as targets but because they are people like us,” Brooks said.
And his philosophy seems to be working at LifePoint. The church began meeting in June 2006 with 36 in attendance. Today Sunday services average 550, many of whom come for Celebrate Recovery for recovering addicts on Sunday nights.
Matt Filteau can bear witness to the importance of discipleship. He and his wife came to Christ a year ago through the ministry of LifePoint.
“Before I got saved, my marriage was pretty rough, but … I have really grown in small group,” Filteau said of the church’s home-based small group discipleship with book and verse-by-verse Bible studies.
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