My Problem with the Missional Church
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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Tyler Braun.
um, to be frank, i think you’re “ragging” on what you call the “missional church.” both have their issues, both are important, both have good things about them. you’re acting a bit like– what you call– the “attractional” church- – is a victim.
if you’re going to distinguish “two” kinds of churches in that way- i believe that verse: “GO INto all the world and make *disciples*…” encompasses both- shrug.
*i hit submit before i finished…
last thought: that is to say- that the church is on church in the eyes of christ, not two and all people are given the same mission….so does it really matter?
Ash-
Maybe you missed the overall point, or maybe I didn’t say it very well. All churches are attractional, or at least should be. The only difference is how and what we are attracting people to.
you like the word attracting…that’s all there is to that part. again, in the eyes of christ, our command is the same- the church is one, there are not “two separate entities”….spread further the bride of christ, make disciples, reach people, love them.
i agree w/ yonas, we make too much of trying to identify “types” rather than just be…
I think you’ve missed the distinctions between the two.
The concern for attractional has been around centering on programs and services, not just Jesus. And even those programs entertain as much as disciple. This creates an immature bubble that people can’t escape from. We go inward to participate in these activities and miss that our call is to love in both the church and in the world.
Missional has been about going both out to reveal Jesus to the world and inward for discipleship. The programs (and there are programs) serve to create opportunities for people to connect and practice love in the world and with each other. Much of the criticism I have with the early dialog on missional is that some are exclusively saying its going out, which creates the same problem. It has to be both inward and outward, centering on Jesus.
There are no exclusives to both. Mega churches do missional work. Missional churches attract. The problem is when either setting creates one way for people.
Great points Jonathan. I think we pretty much agree here.
Missional churches are still attractional in that they still put a lot of focus on the weekend gathering. Attractional churches are still missional because they all have ministries that go beyond the church walls. And I also agree that churches need to be both inward and outward.
I would disagree with saying that attractional centers on more than just Jesus. The programs and services on their expression for how they center on Jesus, it isn’t any less or more focused on him.
I have a little bit of a hard time with your distinctions Tyler. The strand of missional church that I’m involved in doesn’t see the Sunday gathering as an attracting point for non-Christians, but more as a gathering for equipping the people of the church to be on mission consistently.
Sure, missional folks have to attract people to Jesus, but those I’m involved with do this in a very different way. It’s by engaging in missional activity outside of the church building that we seek to attract people to Jesus.
The great distinction for me is in how we see our mission being born out. For me that mission is much better accomplished by helping everyone see they are engaging in mission in whatever they are doing, than by operating in a way that says “you have friends that are interested in Jesus? bring them to church and we’ll do the work for you!”
I hear what you are saying. And please don’t take my post as I have a grudge against the missional church. This is to create dialogue not to point fingers.
A problem I see here is that missional churches still meet every Sunday and sing music and listen to a message. They do the same things that attractional churches do, just not as effectively most often. And they can do that because they say their focus is elsewhere.
I wouldn’t say not as effectively, because the whole purpose of having that Sunday gathering shifts.(actually I in some ways bristle at hearing not as effectively, not as polished perhaps, but effective and polished are not the same thing… further how do we judge effectiveness of a church service?) I don’t view Sunday Worship service as the primary interface with the public, and thus the emphases are different.
For at least those in my thinking group, the Sunday gathering is going to be more made up of those who are already Christian and on mission than is it going to be the first place that non-Christians encounter the church. Sure, it will be for some but the whole point of missional (in my opinion) is that we are asking the question of how we connect with people who don’t even view Christianity as a viable option and would not think of church as the place to start.
I don’t think that my view is specific to all that would fly the missional banner, as I am a part of a network that has been doing church planting in Europe for 30+ years and I wonder if being in that environment shifts some of the thinking about what missional means.
What I hear you describing is more attractional churches moving towards trying to be missional, and if I was chatting with them, I would push them that I think they haven’t gone far enough.
I just go to church, maybe play a lil music, maybe fellowship and establish some friendship..maybe a lil lunch once in a while, maybe go grab a bite after music practice with my favorite people.
I’s mind is too simple to be tawlkin’ ’bout communal, missional, or emerginal chuch ‘n stuff.
What about the Church of the New Testament?…..
http://subversive1.blogspot.com/2009/04/new-testament-church.html
Some of us have problems not with the word missional or attractional but with the word church. Most of the time I read in scripture the word church referring to all the followers of the Way in a town or city. So… everyone who follows the master in a town or city or village is part of the church in that town, city or village.
When we use the word church to attach to a congregation – be it missional or attractional we somehow elevate that structure and give it power. That power can get abused. The ‘church’ then wants to own every gathering of followers of the Way that it can – the ‘house groups’ are house groups of such and such a church… the mother and toddler group is the mother and toddler group of such and such a church. Now I know that the so called attractional churches are criticized [I have done it myself] for being programme orientated, and this is a valid criticism, but the real problem is the understanding of structure rather than dialogue.
What do I mean by that? I mean that if we truly saw the radical shift of our Lord from a special priesthood to a priesthood of all believers, everyone with direct access to our Father, then we would see structure in radically different ways. Whether missional or attractional the structure would be eclectic – there would be may different expressions of the body of Christ [which we might call the church] in our town, city or village. Those expressions would be administratively light, led not by some sort of hierarchical leadership, but by the Holy Spirit indwelling each and every follower of the Way.
What would this look like in practice? It might mean there are many house gathering of believers in a town… and members of them might go to different congregational meetings on a Sunday, or not if they don’t meet God through singing songs and listening to a talk… the congregational leaders would have a lighter job as they were responsible for what happens on a Sunday, not all the other activities of the church… the church being the sum total of all believers in that town.
Maybe too… we would see people less tied up in activities to keep some kind of Sunday Club running through the week and therefore more time to spend with those people who don’t yet love and follow our Lord. Maybe then the church in that town, city or village would be both missional and attractional.
What would you all say to the parable about the King who was having a feast and no one came so he told his servents to “Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled.” Luke 14:23
I’m interested in the word COMPEL. Doesn’t that imply being attractional? Or at least, making the feast seem attractive? If you know someone is going to hell, don’t you want to do everything possible to point them in the other direction?
[...] a friend of mine, Tyler, wrote a post entitled My problems with the missional church. The title was intentional to stir dialog and debate. But it highlighted for me how we can tend [...]