However, my concern is not all the 'modern' churches in America or how this mentality has moved into their pulpits and classrooms and pews and into their homes.  What disturbs me is that I see this EXACT marketing movement now coming from the pulpits of our King James Bible Believing churches.  These are the ones who are suddenly 'growing' when these are truly the days of apostasy!

I have typed in some quotes here from the article but in the audio, I comment on these same quotes as to how what is said here about Willow Creek and the Purpose Driven and Marketed church movement is truly affecting our local Bible believing churches.  I suggest that you listen to the audio portion of the sermon as you read through these quotes.

If you are or have been involved in a church that seems to have thrown out some of the old KJV stuff, here are the marketing techniques your pastor has more than likely fallen into.  Contrary to the visual 'growth' that looks so good, it is totally against the scriptures.  You already knew that - the Holy Spirit has been telling you that all along, but maybe you just couldn't put the finger on it.

Now you can know.  Our Bible Believing churches are throwing out the Scriptures so that they can grow in numbers!  If you don't believe that or understand that, remember this:  the Laodicean church is a growing church in the last days and yet, according to the Book, they make God sick!  Just keep that in mind... you will see the light as you look into God's Light!

1)  empowering leadership
2)  gift-oriented ministry
3)  passionate spirituality
4)  functional structures
5)  inspiring worship
6)  holistic small groups
7)  need-oriented evangelism
8)  loving relationships

Be sure to look 'past' those deceptive descriptions.  They seem fine, but...

I must also ask, where is righteousness, whether it be of God or even in their walk?
Where are the 'battles?'
Where are the challenges?
Where are the trials?
Where are the sufferings?
Where is the truth?
Where does the 'new man' coming in to the picture?
When do the old things of one's past go away?
Where is 'believing' & 'walking' against what the world does and speaks fit in, etc?
When does the preaching of the godly walk start?

Growing churches are creating an atmosphere, an environment of fun. So fun has replaced holiness as the church's goal. Having a good time has become the criterion of an excellent, growing church, since fun and entertainment is what church consumers want. Yet Scripture references encouraging churches to become havens of fun are, as one may suspect, sadly lacking.

(Personally, as I read the Scriptures, I tend to 'wonder' if many are really getting saved - this whole marketing thing fails the 'big test' in I John 4:1-3 and a major characteristic of the 'last days' is folks not being saved but yet they think they are)

Willow Creekers know Harry's interests and passions, his goals and his hang-ups. They understand how his mind works and are doing all they can to make Christianity relevant. Churches that are growing are doing so primarily because they are focusing attention on the lost and visitors. Having detoured around the Bible, the new churches often look to other sources than the Bible to develop their systems.

In other words, activities such as "advertising, public relations, strategic planning, audience research, product distribution, fund-raising and product pricing, developing a vision statement, and customer service are all elements of marketing. When these elements are combined in a transaction in which the parties involved exchange items of equivalent worth, the marketing act has been consummated" (p. 19).  Whoa, EQUIVALENT WORTH?  You mean, it was a balanced trade with Christ and what we got from Him for what we gave Him?  Are they kidding.  Are WE kidding, Bible Believers?

Barna assures us that churches sell (or market) their product the same way Wal-Mart sells shoes and Sears sells tools.

But what is the church's product? What are we trying to peddle to consumers? This has to be thought through carefully, for unlike shoes and tools that have great attraction for some consumers, the gospel is repulsive, foolishness, to the unsaved (I Corinthians 1:18-23).  and it really can't nor is it supposed to be marketed, anyway!!!!!!!!!!!

Note the subtle bait and switch in Barns philosophy... By repackaging ministry, including the gospel message, as we will see, Barna has made it attractive. If we can convince people that Christ died to meet their needs, they will line up at our doors to buy our product.

David Wells bemoans concerning the new marketed church, "Much of it is replete with tricks, gadgets, gimmicks, and marketing ploys as it shamelessly adapts itself to our emptied-out, blinded, postmodern world. … There is too little about it that bespeaks the holiness of God. And without the vision for any reality of this holiness, the gospel becomes trivialized, life loses its depth, God becomes transformed into a product to be sold, faith into a recreational activity to be done, and the Church into a club for the like-minded" (Losing Our Virtue, by David Wells, p. 180).

Barna defines marketing as "a broad term that encompasses all of the activities that lead to an exchange of equally valued goods between consenting parties."

What?  They can't be serious.  Consider this:  The gospel is offered by grace (undeserved favor) and received by faith. In the exchange God gets us, we get Him (equally valued goods?).   In the exchange we receive the righteousness of Christ, He takes our sins upon Himself (equally valued goods?).

This market process breaks down in its very definition when the "product" is Christ.

Answer:  The gospel is not bringing people to Christ in order to meet their felt-needs! According to Scripture the gospel is the good news that lost sinners can be forgiven of their sins and receive the righteousness of Christ in exchange. This is the real need of humanity, the need for which Christ died.

The new church would have no problem agreeing that Harry's true need is salvation from sin. But they do not believe that Harry will respond to such a gospel unless we dress it up with other enticing offers. Felt-needs is the porthole, they believe, through which Harry is reached in order that his true spiritual need is met.

According to their marketing research Harry is not interested in truth therefore, he does not react well to "Thus sayeth the Lord." And Harry is also not interested in the future (including heaven); therefore reaching him through concern for his eternal destiny is futile.

What Harry is interested in is feeling better about himself. He is asking, "What can help me deal with my pain?"  He is more interested in "his marriage, his friendships, his career, his recovery from past pain and so on."

And what about "unchurched Mary?"  She is attracted to churches, "Where women have access to leadership and influence."  The marketing preacher says that if we are to reach this generation we must then "market" the gospel as something that works (i.e. relieves pain and provides happiness).

The gospel is not about helping Harry feel better about himself and his circumstances; it is about his rebelliousness against a holy God who will ultimately condemn him to hell if he does not repent and trust in Christ for the forgiveness of his sins. The distinction between the market-driven approach and the biblical approach lies largely in understanding this fundamental difference.

Since unsaved consumers do not desire God, or the things of God, they have to be enticed by something else. Thus the temptation then arises for a church to change, or at least hide, who they are so that they appeal to Unchurched Harry.

Additionally, the church is tempted to alter its message to correspond with what Harry wants to hear and thinks he needs. The end result is a felt-need gospel that appeals to Harry's fallen nature in an effort to entice him to come to Christ, the ultimate felt-need supplier, so that he is fulfilled and feels better about himself.

Rick Warren is so committed to this approach that written into the bylaws of Saddleback is this sentence, "This church exists to benefit the residents of the Saddleback Valley by providing for their spiritual, physical, emotional, intellectual and social needs."

"Find a need and meet it, find a hurt and heal it" has become the unofficial motto.  Unfortunately, the marketed Bible Believer church doesn't truly meet their real need, and doesn't heal their hurts!

What has happened, I believe, is that the evangelical church has become a reflector of our times rather than a revealer. "The problem is not that Christians have disappeared, but that Christian faith has become so deformed. Under the influence of modernity, we modern Christians are literally capable of winning the world while losing our own souls" (Guinness, p. 43).

Believing that expository preaching is a waste of time, and borrowing the philosophy of his mentor Norman Vincent Peale, Schuller "began to communicate a message of Christianity that focused on meeting the emotional and psychological needs of people."  Schuller laid out his philosophy of ministry in his 1982 book Self Esteem: The New Reformation, in which he called for a radical shift in the church's focus from God to human needs. The most important issue before Schuller was to determine through some means what was the deepest human need upon which the church should focus. He decided that mankind's deepest need was self-esteem, a "need," by the way, nowhere mentioned, alluded to or even hinted at in the Scriptures.

Originally Schuller’s church growth philosophy met with scorn and denunciation by conservative Christians everywhere. But while Christian leaders held the theological front against need-oriented Christianity they were out-flanked. It just so happened that Schuller’s methodology worked, and those who employed it were seeing exponential numerical growth in their churches.

If Robert Schuller was the architect of the user-friendly church, then Bill Hybels, pastor of Willow Creek Community church, became the contractor. Working from the premise that, "The most effective messages for seekers are those that address their felt need," it remained for Hybels and company to determine which felt needs most needed attention. Leading the pack, Hybels decided it was not self-esteem, although he did not reject it, but rather personal fulfillment (or the pursuit of happiness) followed by identity, companionship, marriage, family, relief of stress, meaning and morality. To Hybels, fulfillment was the felt need that encompassed and defined all others.

According to the research book Willow Creek Seeker Services by G. A. Pritchard, the canon within the canon at Willow Creek is that human beings can be fulfilled. Fulfillment permeates every venue at Willow Creek, even leading to a redefinement of sin. "Instead of only portraying sin as selfishness and a rebellion against God, Hybels also describes it as a flawed strategy to gain fulfillment."

There is a time for fun in the church but surely, "the purpose of worship is clearly to express the greatness of God and not simply to find inward release or, still less, amusement. Worship is theological rather than psychological" (Losing Our Virtue, p. 40).

"I fear that the seeds of a full-blown liberalism have now been sown, and in the next generation they will surely come to maturity" (ibid., p. 205).

The gospel message in a nutshell is this: "Unchurched Harry" is a sinner, in full-blown rebellion against God (Romans 3:23; 5:1-12). While some Harrys are outwardly religious and some even desire the gifts and benefits that God can supply, no Harrys truly seek after God or desire Him (Romans 3:10-18). As a result of Harry's sinfulness he is under the wrath of God (Romans 1:18), faces future judgment (Hebrews 9:27), will die both physically and spiritually (Romans 6:23) and will spend eternity in hell (Revelation 20:11-15).

It is because of Harry's hopeless plight, and the fact that he can do nothing to redeem himself in God's eyes (Titus 3:5), that Jesus Christ (through grace alone, not because of Harry's value and worth, Ephesians 2:8) became a man, died on the cross (Romans 5:8) (thus taking Harry's sin upon Himself and satisfying the wrath of God, Hebrews 2:17) and resurrected from the dead in order that Harry could be saved from his sin and be given the righteousness of Christ (Romans 4). While all of this is a gift from God, Harry obtains that gift through the exercise of faith (Ephesians 2:8,9) – purely taking God at his word, trusting that God will save him if only he truly believes.

Unchurched Harry is being told that he is so valuable to God that He sent His Son to die for him. Harry is being told that if he will come to Christ, Christ will meet all of his felt needs and that will lead to personal fulfillment. Harry is then being asked to trust in Christ, the great "Needs-Meeter," who will end his search for a life of happiness and fulfillment.

This is not the gospel at all, but the "Gospel of Me", the "Gospel of self-fulfillment," the "New Gospel." "We must never confuse our desire for people to accept the Gospel," Oswald Chambers warned long ago, "with creating a Gospel that is acceptable to people."

They have the misconception that to win the world to Christ they must first win the world's favor. If they can get the world to like them, they will embrace the Savior. The expressed design of the user-friendly philosophy is to make unconverted sinners feel comfortable with the Christian message.

It views Harry as attracted, even friendly with God, but turned off by the out-dated methods of the church. Once that premise is accepted the methodologies of the user-friendly church are logical. All that remains is to discover what Harry wants in a church, and in a God, and give it to him in an attractive package.

Now that the marketed church people know that Harry is not motivated by the commands of God, nor is he all that interested in truth, apparently they can abandon the direct approach. And since he is looking for something that will help him reach his goals in life and to feel good in the process, they are ready to package the gospel to draw his attention. The new marketed church does this by focusing on the gospel of felt need.

"The Church's problem today is simply that it does not believe that, without tinkering, the Gospel will be all that interesting to modern people." And so, tinker it must!

But the marketed church sees it differently. Strobel writes, "Our challenge, then, is to help this new generation of Unchurched Harry's understand that Christianity does work, that is, that the God of the Bible offers us supernatural wisdom and assistance in our struggles, difficulties, and recovery from past hurts."
 
 

So now Jesus Christ can be offered as the big thrill, the ultimate in excitement!!
 

Hybels’ believes that Harry's most important concern is for his personal fulfillment…. Hybels teaches that Christianity will satisfy Harry's felt needs and provide fulfillment…. Hybels and the other speakers do not condemn the search for fulfillment. Rather they argue that Harry has not searched in the right place.

The question remains the same, but the answer has been changed. Harry asks, ‘How can I be happy?’ ‘Accept Jesus, answers Hybels’" (Willow Creek Seeker Services by G. A. Pritchard, p. 250).

In this context it is a great temptation for American evangelicals to argue that Christianity is a means to fulfillment and the church becomes another place that promises to satisfy emotional desires…. To argue for Christianity primarily by pointing to its usefulness in satisfying felt needs is to ultimately undercut it.

To teach Christianity as a "means" eventually teaches that it is superfluous. If someone is able to satisfy his or her felt needs without Christ, the message of Christianity can be discarded…. The bottom line why individuals should repent and worship God is because God deserves it and demands it!

Fulfillment theology does not reflect the teaching of the Bible. We find in Scripture vast evidence that Christianity is often not "fulfilling," Jesus promises his disciples that "in this world you will have trouble."… The Lord did not promise fulfillment, or even relief, in this world, but only in the next… .

The new gospel is a liberation from low self-esteem, a freedom from emptiness and loneliness, a means of fulfillment and excitement, a way to receive your heart's desires, a means of meeting our needs.

Many are flocking to the new gospel but it is altogether questionable how many are actually being saved.

"Nothing in Scripture indicates the church should lure people to Christ by presenting Christianity as an attractive option….

The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing (I Corinthians 1:18).

There is no way to make it otherwise and be faithful to the message….

The gospel itself is disagreeable, unattractive, repulsive, and alarming to the world. It exposes sin, condemns pride, convicts the unbelieving heart, and shows human righteousness – even the best, most appealing aspects of human nature – to be worthless, defiled, filthy rags (cf. Isaiah 64:6)

Spurgeon warned his day that, "When the old faith is gone, and enthusiasm for the gospel is extinct, it is no wonder that people seek something else in the way of delight. Lacking bread, they feed on ashes; rejecting the way of the Lord, they run greedily in the path of folly"