In the church world, especially that of church planting it seems we have run into all sorts of labels for the way we do things. It used to be you were “traditional” or “contemporary”. I remember when Willow first hit the scene big, it was all talk of a “contemporary” worship service. People got SO upset. lol, cracks me up.
Then the term “seeker sensitive” was introduced. People were aghast that you would have a service where you try to connect people who were lost with Jesus in a relevant and practical way. Labels crack me up because they ALL pass and a new label arises. Now we have Emerging and Emergent churches. (Which by the way I don’t know the difference between the two or what really makes you emerging or emergent) Element has been labeled an Emergent(ing)? church by people, which I don’t quite understand. If I understand what the emergent church is and where it’s going, we are a far cry from being emergent. But again, I don’t quite understand it. We have modern churches and post-modern churches. Progressive churches. Now some of the big discussion again seems to be over “missional” or “attractional”? That as a church you are either a “missional” church or “attractional”.
Missional = Being the church in your community. Serving people in a practical way. Getting/staying outside the four walls of the church. Discipling people to follow Jesus more closely. To super simplify, it is your church becoming missionaries to your community. Attractional = Placing a high priority on the Sunday morning worship experience. Large group gathering. Relevant presentation of the Gospel. Some would say the “mega church” model, although I don’t think that’s fair. To simplify, it is doing big events and having a Sunday service that “attracts” a crowd.
My question is, why not be both? Aren’t there people that will respond to both of those methods? Can’t we be missional AND attracitonal? Can’t we be sensitive to those who are seeking Jesus AND hold accountable/disciple those who are already following Him? I think we pigeon hole ourselves too many times into a “model” of ministry when God is just calling us to BE THE STINKIN’ CHURCH! The church HE wants us to be. Not the latest model. People on the missional side claim that the Acts church was a “missional” church. Was it not also “attractional”? Thousands were added in a matter of days to the church. Peter apparently preached to a “crowd”. 3,000 baptized? What the world? That’s attractional. Miracles were taking place. Sermons were being preached. Crowds were being attracted. For what it’s worth JESUS was both missional and attractional. 5,000 men (not including women) were at one of his church services. Oh, and by the way, He was missional at that attraction when he fed ALL of them. Hmmm, wonder if we could do the same.
My desire is that Element Church can be BOTH missional AND attractional. Our desire is that God would impact our CITY. To do that we MUST be missionaries, but I also believe we MUST provide an excellent and well thought out “attractional” service where people who may have been touched and tugged on through our missional efforts, can come and hear the Word about Jesus and maybe find out why we would want to be missionaries to our community in the first place. THEN when given an opportunity to accept Jesus they may just do that.
Anyway, that has been in the back of my brain and the front of my heart lately and thought I’d share my thoughts. If a church wants to truly be effective, I think you must be both missional and attractional. Why not both?
Wondering,
Jeff
