Thursday 2 January 2014

Anonymous Survey: Seeking Information About Seekers

I made another 10 question survey.  This one has only one short answer question, though all questions can be answered in your own words if you like.  This one is designed to have a look at something that's a bit of an unknown.  Some people leave churches because they don't care that much about God.  Others leave because they're not getting what they need, as to God, from that church setting.  Some people are always trying to find a Christian community that will support their own seeking after God, and others have given up on involving other Christians in that much at all, because it actually means too much to them.
    I'm interested in what it means to be that latter someone.  Someone who can't settle into a typical Christian setting, and seems driven to get "better answers" than what increasingly start to sound like empty cliches that don't cut it anymore.  Someone who's not there just to feel good.  Someone serious, maybe even a bit obsessive.  Someone who finds feelgood stuff perhaps a little annoying.
   Confusingly, some churches use the term "seeker" to mean newbies.  Anyone who has little experience of church life, and is interested (church curious, as it were) and so is likely to show up at church to check out what church is like.
   I'm using the term to mean what my friend Caryl does: a Christian person who has "done" church, but is still seeking for something more.  Someone who feels like s/he needs more, or better or deeper answers than s/he's been given so far.  Someone who's tried the church thing, and instead of being satisfied, feels like something's missing. The sort of person who hears a sermon at a church and thinks it all sounds too familiar, and doesn't really get to the root of anything.  The sort of person who has bible discussions with people, and finds the other people don't seem to be looking for what they're looking for, but rather, seem to think they have found or already have what they want.

Anyway, I hope some people answer this one.  If I get lots of responses, I will post an analysis of what was said (I figured out how to post it right here on the page:

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