Christ’s Prophets or Culture’s Pollsters: To Whom Do We Turn? by Peter Lumpkins

    Typically argued by church-growth gurus a half-generation ago was for the 20th Century church to stop using 19th century methods to reach a 20th century audience.   Remember this book?   Among the many culprits often indicted was the "boring" church which ignored the sharpened sensory tastes of a media-driven society soaked in the tub of cutting edge video, graphics, and the ever-ready, almighty microchip.  The stats were in...

  young people spent about 15-20 hours a week absorbing this new, very powerful venue.

Hence, the church which did not reach kids through this new technology was the church that would not make it through Y2K.  Kids, they confidently assured, were visually stimulated and therefore the church must visually stimulate them (toward the gospel, of course), or risk losing an entire generation to the world.  So the church--at least portions of it--bowed its knees, gave its blood, offered its allegiance, and bought into the strategies of the new, very powerful visual stimulation. Boredom out, groovy...ur, ummm, I mean kick_ _ _ in!

The founding prophet of marketeering the church to the masses, George Barna, who made his fortune peddling the boring failures of a fallen church, now sounds the alarm again, only this time rather than spanking the traditional church stuck in the 19th century, his latest prophetic utterance comes as more of a caution to them.  For Barna, the visual, media-crazed culture is now a media-overexposed culture, suffering from what Barna calls an authentic addiction. Among other things about which Barna is rightly concerned stands the incredible increase of media influence among our young. 

Interesting. 

When Barna first put the "boring" church under his polling microscope, offering to evangelicals a new and improved congregation, socially-engineered with the latest marketing techniques--techniques designed to draw crowds and infuse relevance into a mostly marginalized, 19th century-like church--our young spent a mere 15-20 hours a week absorbing media-driven stimuli. Things now are different, however.  According to the latest figures, media-exposure has "nearly tripled to almost 60 hours per week."  In fact, Barna says the average child under 18 devotes more time to media than to anything other than sleep.

Now that's worth a pause to reflect--more time to media than to anything other than sleep.       

No wonder Barna strongly asserts in his latest blog:

"I do a lot of research. The facts and figures from Barna surveys lead to a lot of conclusions, some of which are predictable, some of which are surprising, a few of which become controversial. One of the latter conclusions is this: media exposure has become America’s most widespread and serious addiction"(emphasis original; //link).

And, after offering several reasons for his latest prophetic, statistical hypothesis, Barna concludes, "Media use has run the gamut, going from an oddity to a common practice to a habit to an obsession to an addiction in America. What can we do about it? What will you do?" (emphasis original).

Personally, I think for starters we can put pollsters like Barna back in their proper place. Our first mistake was substituting statistical data for sound Scriptural doctrine; empowering a pollster to not only ask questions about culture but also insist on specific answers for the church.  The former need only skill to accomplish.  The latter, however, require anointing to accomplish.  The first may be effectively produced by even the most secular pollster.  The latter must be under authority of God. Again, the pollster needs but a grant to operate.  The Prophet is commissioned by Jesus Christ, Lord of the Church.     

Twenty years ago, Barna and other church-growth gurus were condemning the tired, old traditional church for not being relevant, not "marketing" itself well, encouraging the church to exploit the entertainment mediums, become "high tech" because kids were used to it, yea even demanded it.  And since they were used to so much visual stimuli during the week, if the church was to reach them on Sunday, it had to match visuals--graphic for graphic--with the world.

To compound the issue presently, the unfortunate reality is, the church itself appears just as much addicted to visual stimuli as is the culture surrounding it. What "contemporary" service now does not have a fog machine to visually stimulate the worshiper?  Or, flashing lights, stunning graphics, moving screens, and fast-paced infomercials to visually stimulate an on-looking audience?

And even more troubling, now that it's apparently official: media exposure has become America’s most widespread and serious addiction, what are we to make of a church which feeds the addict precisely what is allegedly killing the addict? 

What hospital intentionally re-infects a patient with the same disease concerning which he or she entered the hospital to cure? What counselor offers as wisdom to the depressed instructions to do even more depressing things, or think even more depressing thoughts? What wife whose husband is addicted to gambling would suggest he apply for a job at Kentucky Downs? The cultural paradox in which the church presently appears trapped is frightening.  The culture ails with media-addiction, and now--in part thanks to pollster-propheteers like Barna--when culture shows up for church, the church not only pours their cup full of even more media-mania, but sits and guzzles right along beside them!   

Hence, how is it, if Barna is correct, that the evangelical church today can, for the sake of "relevance," fan the flames of an already media-overexposed culture by indulging them in a similar media-driven ministry?  Barna may know the answer; he just does not say. Instead, he mostly lays the blame at our feet, forfeiting any responsibility for taking the prophetic mantle—a mantle he had no business touching—and crusading around the country, fattening himself and his organization with loads of evangelical bounty,  predicting the demise of the church if the church did not act on his solutions—sure-fire, expert solutions built on sociological data. Test tube stats replaced the doctor’s prognosis..  Pollster became Prophet. We said nothing. In fact, we strangely wanted more.   

From my perspective, here's the deal:  While pollsters may offer the church some valuable insights into the cultural psyche, the pollster should not--indeed must not--become the church's Prophet.  In short, while pollsters may tell us what is, pollsters must never tell us what ought to be, anymore than a laboratory that runs tests for the physician tells the physician what ought to be.  The scientist in the lab may reveal some key facts for the doctor to consider.  However, both the diagnosis and treatment for the patient rightly belong to the prevailing physician not the test tube technician.

Similarly, while pollsters can offer us some assistance, revealing to us the way the cultural winds may be blowing, Prophets get their prognosis and prescription from a higher source than a sociological test tube. The Word of God correctly and authoritatively directs us to the Wind blowing on God's church. Pollsters may utter what is; Prophets utter what ought to be.

With that, I am...

Peter         

Comments

[Tim G]

"Pollsters may utter what is; Prophets utter what ought to be."

Peter that is a great statement!

[Rick]

Peter,
While the results at this point in time are preliminary and unofficial, it appears that 100% of the Southern Baptist Pastors who have commented on this article are in complete agreement with you, while 0% believe in the inerrancy of Barna's statistical research and proposed solutions. (Or Stetzer's either, for that matter.) Most of us rail against politicians who lead based on the latest polls rather than personal conviction, yet we ourselves fall under the powerful sway of the so-called knowledge that is based on statistical studies whose findings we too seldom question.