Willow Creek is abandoning its famous seeker services after nearly 30 years of running weekend services tailored explicitly to the unbeliever. The American megachurch now plans to gear its weekend services towards more mature believers seeking to grow in their faith (Christianity Today, June 2008).

Apparently the church decided it had gone too far towards making church relevant to its target community and not enough towards building up the integrity and strength of the Christian faith internally.

The tension between relevance and integrity very much lies with us here in Sydney. One thing I really love about our clergy and people is that so many are so committed to making our churches good places for non-believers to attend and be attracted to.

The trouble is, some of the efforts have been counterproductive. Too often, a lack of discipline and thoughtfulness have led to "do-it-yourself' services that are unthought-out, sloppy and incoherent, rather than friendly and warm.

There has been enough attempts to rewrite creeds and improve the sacraments. Trying to improve these crucial elements is a bit like me trying to improve my high-tech motor car by fiddling with the engine. Almost certainly I will be degrading its performance.

And what's with the growing reluctance to have a clear assurance of forgiveness after a confession of sins?

"Has God forgiven us? Not sure, here come the announcements." Utterly contrary to evangelical assurance.

There is no simple solution to the tension between relevance and integrity. But just as Willow Creek have had to think again about the long-term effects on their own people of the kind of services they have been running, we too need to be very mindful of what we are doing long-term in our own Christian faith.

I will always remember a phrase by Karl Barth, the great German theologian of last century, writing of attempts to make the Christian faith more relevant in the 19th century: "Man in the 19th century might have taken the theologians more seriously if they themselves had not taken him so seriously" (Evangelical Theology of the Nineteenth Century).