In 1996, Atlantic Monthly ran a story on the most recent novelty within American Christianity: the so-called "megachurch movement". Here is part of what caught the Atlantic reporter's eye and explains the popularity of such churches: "No spires. No crosses.
No robes. No clerical collars. No hard pews. No kneelers. No biblical gobbledygook. No prayerly rote. No fire, no brimstone. No pipe organs. No dreary eighteenth-century hymns. No forced solemnity. No Sunday finery. No collection plates." The logic behind the megachurch movement, inspired dramatically by the success of Willow Creek Community Church, located in the Chicago suburbs, is that of evangelism. By abandoning the trappings of traditional Protestantism that are foreign to unchurched men and women, megachurches attempt, in the words of the Atlantic story, to provide "new, contemporary forms of worship and belonging."
One of the first scholarly treatments of this phenomenon was Donald Miller's Reinventing American Protestantism: Christianity in the New Millennium, a 1997 book on what the author called "new paradigm churches." In Miller's case, he examined what was close by, the churches of Calvary Chapel and the Vineyard movements that emerged in southern California near where he taught at the University of Southern California (USC). But he did place Willow Creek at the forefront of "seeker sensitive churches" that are "attempting to design worship services that appeal to those who do not usually attend church." Miller went so far as to claim that the seeker churches had begun a "Second Reformation" by launching a new way of worship, restructuring the organizational aspects of church life, and carrying forward the first Reformation's teaching on the priesthood of all believers. So impressed by these new congregations was the USC professor that he believed that mainline Protestantism, the faith with which he identified, would survive only by following the lead of seeker churches and returning the ministry to the people while facilitating experiences of God in "life-changing ways."
Kimon Howland Sargeant adds to Miller's study and nuances it in important ways with his own detailed investigation of Willow Creek in Seeker Churches: Promoting Traditional Religion in a Nontraditional Way. The subtitle of the book is at the heart of the author's concern and actually functions more like a question than a description: Is it possible for these churches, that claim to represent traditional Christianity, to promote a traditional faith in a nontraditional way? Although Sargeant's study is based upon his dissertation in sociology at Princeton University, it does not avoid answering this question by hiding behind academic objectivity. In fact, the book demonstrates that critical scholarship does sometimes lend support to religious truths. What is especially revealing about Sargeant's research is a survey he conducted with ministers linked to the Willow Creek Association, a sample that included 600 responses.
Although the form of worship practiced by these seeker churches has often drawn the most attention, both from critics and emulators, Sargeant's study shows that Willow Creek's model of ministry is far more significant than what its "seeker-sensitive worship" does to traditional Protestant forms. One significant problem that the Willow Creek paradigm has created concerns the best way to preach to the unchurched. For instance, Sargeant quotes a sermon from Rev. Bill Hybels on divorce where he says "there is not an ounce of judgment in my spirit for those who are going through or who are recovering from a divorce" (104). What is interesting to see, according to Sargeant, is not so much whether Willow Creek and its models preach law or gospel-an important concern, to be sure-but whether the seeker model itself, by appealing to the choices and self-expression of unchurched, cannot "create unambiguous moral boundaries for the purposes of judging people's behavior" (105). This means that it is very difficult for seeker churches to establish an identity for believers that is at odds with modern expectations for self-fulfillment. As such, following Christ comes with few costs.
One explicit theme of Sargeant's book is how the methods of seeker churches like Willow Creek end up dictating the content of ministry. He concedes that this is not the intention. Bill Hybels and those who follow him think of themselves as both evangelical and conservative; they are committed to historic Christianity. But as Sargeant observes in the chapter on small groups, a point that also speaks volumes about the seeker-church model in general, "The innovative forms of the seeker church are not simply neutral containers into which the Gospel message is poured; these forms also shape the content of what is taught. In other words, how Christianity is conveyed may influence what kind of Christianity is developed" (181-82). Another way of putting this is to say that methods of church growth beg questions. In this specific case, Willow Creek's rendering of the church as a shopping mall carries the assumptions of efficiency and rationality, presuppositions that affect the message. "The seeker church movement," he writes, "recognizes that forms make a difference-that is why the movement has developed new forms-but may underestimate other effects of changing forms. Changing the method cannot only change your results; it can also change your message" (130-31, italics his).
The net effect of Sargeant's compelling study is to answer the subtitle in the negative. The book gives the clear impression that nontraditional ways end up promoting a religion that is not traditional. As is often the case with sociology, common sense usually precedes the efforts of sociologists to quantify and analyze. But in Sargeant's case, his support for the intuition that something is seriously awry with the seeker church is a welcome addition to the study of contemporary evangelicalism. His scholarship may not prove that traditional ways are best. However, Sargeant's expertise does raise questions about nontraditional Protestantism that church growth experts will need to answer.
