Fusion: Exploring Biblical Ecclesiology and How to Connect Guests (Part I)
“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. ”
How much time, energy, effort, and resourcing should a church spend on connecting with guests?
The book Fusion, authored by Nelson Searcy with writing assistance from Jennifer Henson, is all about how to turn first-time guests into fully engaged church members. To give you a little insight into Nelson, he is the lead Pastor for the Journey Church in New York City as well as the founder of ChurchLeaderInsights.com and the Renegade Pastors Network.
I started reading Fusion to help think through the church’s responsibility toward guests and how to execute that responsibility faithfully. Like many of you, I have been to churches that greet newcomers obnoxiously, and then others where I have wondered if anyone even noticed I was present. Certainly, there is a biblically faithful practice somewhere between seeker-sensitive and religious exclusive that is rooted in orthodox ecclesiology. Unfortunately, this logic appears absent in Fusion.
Experiential Pragmatism vs. Theological Conviction
In his introduction, Searcy begins with the pragmatic statistic that each week millions of first-time guests will visit churches around the world. Searcy calls these first-timers blessings from God. He then poses this question, “are you and I doing all that we can to accept and honor His blessing?” A little later he suggests that if churches will honor God by valuing guests, God will honor them by showing up in mighty ways (p. 34). He continues by stating that God wants us to demonstrate with our actions that we can be trusted with guests, and when we do so he will bless us with more guests (p. 47).
Searcy points to commercial companies like the Ritz Carlton, concluding if they can get hospitality right for monetary profit, the church should seek to meet or exceed their pragmatic process for people’s eternal state. But there is a problem.
The problem is Searcy’s argument is founded upon secular pragmatism. How does he know (and I say know loosely because the empirical evidence is questionable) that God blesses churches that refine their processes for welcoming and connecting guests? Well, he knows because more guests tend to show up to these types of churches—and it happens in the business world. But even if that is true, that more guests come, is the increasing number of guests a function of God’s blessing or a result of a consumeristic and individualistic culture that is drawn toward self-priority experiences? The church should not confuse God’s blessing with pragmatic functions to illicit favorable cultural responses.
If the church is going to make an argument for spending time, energy, effort, and resourcing on connecting with guests, it must be founded on the theological conviction that starts with the church.
The Church: The Community of Believers that Worships, Disciples, and Evangelizes
Dr. Wayne Grudem, Research Professor of Theology and Biblical Studies at Phoenix Seminary and author of Systematic Theology, rightly states that the church is the community of all true believers for all time (See article). Grudem argues that the church’s purpose is manifested in three principal ministries: [1] Ministry to God through worship (Col. 3:16), [2] Ministry to believers through nurture—or as I classify, mutual discipleship, (Eph. 4:11-13), [3] Ministry to the world through evangelism and mercy ministries (Luke 6:35-36, James 1:27).
The Church Worships
The first thing that Searcy should have discussed is that the church is not the gathering of believers to attract, welcome, and connect with guests—but principally gathers for the glory of God. Acts 2:42 states that the church gathers for the teaching of the Word, fellowship among believers, breaking bread, and prayer. True believers in Jesus Christ gather to worship God together.
Colossians 3:16-17 says, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”
The true church proclaims and celebrates the truth of Christ regardless of public perception or negative reaction. After Stephen was stoned, Acts 8:1-3 records great persecution against the church in Jerusalem. The church that was being persecuted were committed believers in Jesus Christ ready to experience relocation and rejection for the sake of Christ. And we might argue inversely that those who were unwilling to experience relocation and rejection for Christ were not a part of the church. Jesus is clear in Matthew 10:33, “whoever denies me before men, I will also deny before my Father who is in heaven.”
The Church Disciples
Searcy touches on discipleship in his introduction as the reason why an assimilation and connection process is critical for first-time guests. But from the beginning his language around discipleship and guests is non-specific. He fails to delineate discipleship language between guests who are professing believers and those who are unbelievers. This is a much larger discussion that I cover in SOLD: Marks of a True Disciple, but to state it plainly; a Christian cannot disciple an unbeliever. Unbelievers are evangelized, not discipled. Discipleship begins at the time of conversion and is central to the purpose of the church.
The church gathers as a community to spur each other on toward deeper discipleship of Jesus Christ. True discipleship looks antithetical to the world. Jesus’ high priestly prayers states, “I have given them your word and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.” 1 John 3:1b says, “the reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.” Unbelievers who enter the gathering of the church will naturally feel uncomfortable and out of place because they do not know Christ.
The church is designed to be a community of discipleship. Disciples help disciples by bearing one another’s burdens (Gal. 6:4), loving one another like Christ (John 13:34-35), submitting to biblical authority (Heb. 13:17), holding each other accountable to scripture (Matt. 18:17), rightly judging each other (1 Cor. 5:12), and building each other up (1 Thess. 5:11). The church gathers for the mutual edification and growing sanctification of all members.
Simply put, the church is meant to look, feel, and act differently than the world. As a result, the church will not, and I could argue, should not be naturally attractive to unbelievers. 1 John 2:15-16 says, “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world.”
And yet, while the church should not seek to cater to the perceptions, desires, and preferences of those outside the church; the church is called to love, evangelize, and sacrificially serve the lost.
The Church Evangelizes & Serves
In Matthew 28:18-20 Jesus says to the disciples, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
A person is made into a disciple of Christ when they confess their sin, believe in Jesus Christ and submit to him as Lord. And as Paul says in Romans 10:14-15, “How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent?”
While people may be evangelized by coming into the gathered church, evangelism is principally the activity of the church going out to engage the world with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Again, the gathered church is not meant to come in but rather go out to proclaim the good news to those living in darkness. And one of the ways the church practically demonstrates God's grace is through sacrificially serving hurting communities. These acts of mercy ministries are meant to be a physical display of the gospel. For even Jesus did not come to be served, but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many (Mark 10:45).
Conclusion: Part I
The church is a community that worships, disciples, evangelizes and sacrificially serves. Within this community, the principal purpose for gathering is not for guests, but for the church. Therefore, when answering the question of how much time, energy, effort, and resources should the church spend on connecting with guests, we can confidently answer—it depends. I know, that answer is frustrating and demoralizing, but it is honest because it depends on the motivation and biblical reasoning for connecting with guests in the first place. And it will have to be an answer that I flush out in Part II, because this review is already long enough!
In my attempt to provide an initial critique for Fusion, Nelson Searcy should have more closely based his reasoning and construction of his assimilation process in biblical ecclesiology. Without clear biblical reasoning and articulation, Searcy simply provides a process for people to join an organization—not a church.
