My leanings toward reformed theology make me reject the terminology of a “seeker” church. We don’t seek God; He seeks us. Nonetheless, you know what I mean when I use the label. So, allow me to say that I attend a seeker church. I don’t want to be in a seeker church, but it seems clear to my wife and me that God has directed us to this church. So, we’re staying (for now, knowing that God directs our steps while we can’t always understand the journey – Proverbs 20:24).

I take some solace in the fact that I’m not sure the church wants to be seekerish. I detect evidence of schizophrenia. It wants to go deeper, but I think it feels that it needs to be more seeker-oriented to be perceived as hip and culturally relevant up here in the Pacific Northwest – apparently the most “unchurched” region in the U.S.

So, I’ve been sitting in the sanctuary the last few month’s staring at the church motto that is emblazoned on the proscenium arch: Be, Belong, Believe . . . Become. I don’t agree with the sequence of the words; I think the “Belong” should come after the “Believe.” But here is how the church explains it:

BE: We come to Christ just as we are. Flaws and all. We don’t have to “clean up our act” first. We can come as broken, damaged individuals. No games. No pretending to be something we are not. (“God loved us while we were yet sinners,” to say it in King James phraseology.)

BELONG: As a church, we don’t want to impose any obstacles to someone getting to know Christ. So, we want the non-Christian to feel comfortable in our services. We don’t require anything of these seekers. They can attend as infrequently as they want; no pressure to attend regularly; no “new members” class forced on them; no pressure to plop a few bucks in the offering bucket. (Yes, we use actual galvanized buckets, and sometimes muffin baskets. But I digress.) In other words, if a seeker on a spiritual journey is looking for a spiritually-minded group, we want such seekers to feel like they are welcome, accepted and belong in our church family. We respect that they have questions and aren’t yet at a place of making a decision. What better place than our church to continue on the journey.

BELIEVE: Ideally, the sense of “belonging” will provide connections that keep the seeker returning to our church, and this continued exposure to the Gospel message will result in the seeker’s salvation.

BECOME: Paul calls it the “prize” or the “goal.” The seminary guys call it sanctification. Simply put, it is the process by which we move toward becoming more Christ-like.

In all areas of my life, I have answers for questions that no one is asking me. Church isn’t any different. So, on the subject of the church motto, if I had been asked, I would have said that “Belong” goes after “Believe” -- because it is only after you believe that you belong to the family of God as a child of God. But since they didn’t ask me, I’m forced to concede to the church’s interpretation by which “Belong” precedes “Believe.”

But here is the problem. When the “Belong” is before the “Believe,” there is no accountability required of the seeker. Christ’s mandate of Matthew 22:37 to “love God and love others” applies to those who desire to follow Him. Until the seeker makes this commitment, the seeker is excused from the sacrificial behavior that is appropriate for disciples of Christ. And because we don’t want to scare the seeker out of the pew, we seldom talk about the high cost of following Christ, as in “deny yourself and pick up your cross daily” (Luke 9:23).

So, there is a danger that the seeker will think that the minimal commitment of an occasional visit to church may be all that is necessary as one enters the “Believe” stage. If that happens, we’re guilty of false advertising because you can’t get to “Become” if you enter at “Believe” with the expectation and intention that minimal commitment is all that is required.

Why am I uncomfortable with all of this? Because God is making me squirm in my seat as I feel the weight of my own guilt for moving toward a convenient Christianity. I'm in the process of "becoming," but only in the sense of "becoming a complacent Christian." I find that I've morphed my Christianity into one that fits comfortably into my schedule and circumstances. One that doesn’t require too much of me, yet just enough where I feel spiritual.

I’ve got to stop worrying about how the church motto might mislead seekers, and pay more attention to how I’ve been misleading myself. I’ve got to abandon my rants at the sequence of “Belong” and “Believe.” Instead, I need to focus on the ellipsis in the church motto – those three dots that precede “Become.” That’s the place where I am living, smack dab at the “. . .” of Be, Belong, Believe . . . Become. I’ve passed through the other stages (regardless of whether you put “Belong” or the left or right side of “Believe”). I’m living in the dots.

Although I know the theology behind the dots that represent the process of sanctification, maybe I need something more blatant. Maybe I should ask my church to slightly modify the motto on the proscenium arch. They can keep the sequence of the words according to their established preference, but for my benefit perhaps the ellipsis could be translated into something more definitive. Something like: Be, Belong, Believe, Deny Yourself, Become. It loses the alliteration, but it is a better reminder for me than “. . .”