My problem with the missional church is that it is attractional.
For this post you can think of the missional church as the same as the emerging church. The difference is mostly just semantics.
For the past few years it has been a common discussion to look at the expressions of the missional church and the attraction church. You could say that the missional church desires to go to people, and invites people to be part of a community of people. Typically missional churches are comprised of smaller congregations. The attractional church pushes people toward a big gathering on the weekend with concert-like music and a convicting message from good communicators. They are also typically called mega-churches.
Obviously my distinctions here are way overly generalized and probably somewhat unfair. Don’t let those hold you back from where my thoughts are going, they aren’t the point.
The missional church desires to reach people for Jesus just as much as the attractional church. Essentially they want to ‘attract’ people to Jesus. Granted, the expression for how church is done is different, but it is still an expression that desires to have people attracted to Jesus.
My problem therefore is this: the missional and attractional church are doing the same thing: trying to attract people to Jesus.
Beyond this, I would say all churches need to have some focus on being attractional. Why else should churches exist other than attracting others to Jesus and helping believers to come closer to Jesus? Jesus has called believers to go into all the world and make disciples. In other words, tell people about Jesus and attract people to Jesus. All church models and expressions start there.
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