I have been with this church for almost 5 years now. Don't get me wrong, I believe that the church itself is great. The staff here has a genuine love for the Lord, they try their best to make sure that the "un-churched" feel as welcome as possible, and Andy Stanley and the other speakers give the most genuine sermons to help us get close with God within all aspects of our life. I give them major props for that.
However, I believe the problem has to do more with the community.
The problem is, they seem to worship Athens Church than they do with the Lord.
Most of the members that you see at Athens Church would represent with merchandise which says "Athens, I Love You." on their shirts, car stickers, etc. (What is that suppose to mean anyway?), and whenever they make an Instagram post, it's about how much the church has changed their life because it gave them friends and makes them happy. Not to mention that almost 90% of the time I hear a testimony of someone before they get baptized, I hear more about how everything has changed once that person started going to Athens Church, but God wasn't really mentioned much.
Most of these people always come to Athens Church every Sunday and are very active within the church as well. However, outside of that, they don't seem to glorify the Lord in any way.
This is completely missing the point of Athens Church. Sure, the Athens Church administration say that they want Athens Church to be a church that the "un-churched" people love to attend, and they got that out of the park. However, whenever the church plays that video montage 10 minutes before the service, they mention that Athens Church's mission is "to lead people to a growing relationship with Jesus Christ". For the most part, that mission is not being fulfilled.
I believe that we are trying so hard to make sure that the "un-churched" people love to attend Athens Church, we start to make Athens Church just a cool hang-out spot or just something to do on a Sunday morning. We make the building and the stage as huge as possible, when the praise band comes on stage we add in all of these effects, we make sure that our visitors are being served with Jittery Joe's Coffee and Krispy Kreme donuts, and so on. Of course, we wanted the "un-churched" to feel comfortable and welcome since they may feel out of place in a traditional church, but does that mean we need to take Jesus out of everything except for the sermon itself? Even if we do put Jesus in our sermons (as we obviously should) are the audience really taking the message home so they can have a growing relationship with Jesus Christ? Is it possible that we are neglecting our mission statement, just so we can raise our numbers?
Romans 1:16 says "For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek."For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.”
This verse is basically saying that we should not be ashamed of the gospel if we want to reach out to the lost. Now, I am not saying that Athens Church is ashamed of Jesus Christ at all whatsoever. Athens Church is doing enough to show that they do indeed love the Lord. However, the bible also says in 1 Corinthians 10:31 "...whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. With that being said, I do feel like in a way, we do take away God and the gospel, and forget to do things for the glory of God, or to serve the lost. Because if we show too much Jesus, then our "un-churched" members will feel uncomfortable, and leave. Instead, we do it for the glory of Athens Church, and make sure our members stay, and bring more people.
I do believe that there are indeed a lot of people who grow with Jesus Christ and glorify Him at Athens Church, but I also believe that the larger percentage only cares about the church as a business. I hope that one day the administration will one day come to understand this, and do something about it. I hope that they can do more to glorify the Lord and teach more about the wonderful things that Jesus does and wants for us, and not promote their own business.
