Can Attractional Churches be "Missional?"

I had a great discussion with my boss yesterday, a discussion that I've had with countless others regarding church and specifically church planting.  There has been this ongoing discussion in evangelical circles as to whether the most effective approach to doing church (which by the way I hate the phrase "doing church") is an attractional or missional one.

While I am not an expert in either an attractional or missional approach, I've had some experience with each and have read widely on both approaches.  In short the attractional model refers to creating an "attractive" church environment: building, band, lights, entertaining topical preaching whereby unchurched people will be drawn to the excellence of the church's menu and will soon give their lives to Christ.  The basic idea is that people will "come to church" if its exciting and attractive.  Now this is admittedly a gross overgeneralization of the attractional model, but I believe its still pretty accurate.

The missional model is a bit more ambiguous.  "Missional" itself has become a buzzword for many, and to be honest I think a lot of church leaders use the word to be trendy, to take a stab at being a part of the next big "thing" in church history.  In short, a missional approach is recognizing that the Church is "on mission" to share the good news of Jesus.  Perhaps the best definition I've come across for missional is that of Alan Hirsch who defines missional church as: "a community of God's people that defines itself, and organizes itself around, its real purpose of being an agent of God's mission to the world."  A missional approach is more concerned with "taking church to the people" instead of getting people to come to church.

Now this is a discussion that warrants more unpacking than I will offer here, but I want to pose a question.  Can an attractional church be missional?  In other words, is one approach more right than the other and is there room for both approaches even in the same church?

To put my cards on the table I recently moved to a new church that would definitely be lumped in the attractional box.  The lights are nice, the band is good, the children's ministry is top notch, and the preaching is mostly topical.  Yet, here's a little more of a description, next week roughly 40 of us will go and serve the poor together, a good percentage of this church are doing life together in small groups, and over the course of this church's short existence many people have begun the journey of following Jesus.

Is there room for both?  I might question some of the attractional methodologies but at the end of the day if its about preaching Christ than I'm in.  I think there is room for both.  I don't think its an either/or discussion.  I think its a both/and one.  Every church should be missional, and every church should be proclaiming the compelling, beautiful, and attractive good news of Jesus!

What are your thoughts?

Some thoughts on altar calls

Last week I was the speaker for a high school camp in Iowa.  This was my second year speaking at this camp and both times I absolutely loved it!  There's just something about being used by God to preach twice a day and have a front row seat to young people respond to the Gospel. With that said, there is something that I have often struggled with regarding worship services, camp meetings, revivals etc.  Altar Calls.

I'm not saying that I struggle with the concept of inviting people to respond to the preached word of God.  In fact, as a preacher/evangelist I find myself more and more believing that every time Jesus is preached there should be some time given for response and reflection.  As I concluded my message each evening I simply invited the campers to respond in whatever way they needed, and several of them joined the tribe and began a journey with Jesus during the week!

Yet, as a preacher I know that I have the ability to manipulate the audience to make the response I want from them, and this is a dangerous temptation and one that too many preachers succumb to all too often.  In fact just these past few days I've heard of a pastor continuing to guilt people to the altar at another camp setting, and also of a pastor during a local VBS give the classic, "If you stepped out on the street and got hit by a bus tonight do you know where you would spend eternity?"

I don't want to judge the George Whitfield's, Billy Sunday's, Charles Finney's, and Billy Graham's of our rich heritage, but I'm consistently drawn back to Acts 2.37 after Peter has preached on Pentecost and the people responded by asking, "what shall we do?"

What if we preached in such a compelling way that people were cut to the heart and simply asked, "what do we do now?"  

Hoping to get our first newsletter sent out this week.  Stay tuned!

What is Church?

How about a little ecclesiology this week?

When I first sensed that God was calling us to plant a church I knew that before I would ever think about planting a church I must first seek to define what church is and also what it is not.

The church is not a building that we go to once a week to sing some songs and hear some guy talk.

So what then is the church?  My quest lead me to a study on the book of Acts, the story of the early days of the Church.  It didn't take long in my study before the idea of church began to crystalize for me.  In Acts 1.8 Jesus tells his followers that they will be his witnesses in Jerusalem (the city they found themselves in), Judea (the surrounding area), Samaria (their hated stepbrothers) and to the ends of the earth (self-explanatory).  I knew this.  I had read it.  I had heard it.  Our mission as Jesus-followers is to be witnesses.

But witnesses of what?

Later on in the first chapter the disciples are looking for a replacement for Judas and they do what any church would do...they call a meeting.  During this meeting they lay out the criteria for being one of the apostles.  In Acts 1.22 we read that they were looking for someone to become with them a witness to Jesus' resurrection.

To be a witness is to give evidence or testimony for something.  Essentially Jesus' followers are looking for someone to join them in giving evidence for the resurrection of Jesus.  The resurrection is all about hope, all about new life.  Jesus' followers are called to give evidence with their lives to the hope that we have in Jesus.

So here's the kind of church that we hope to plant: a community of people committed to bearing witness to the resurrection of Jesus.  How about that for a working definition for the church?