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I’d like Attractional with a Side of Missional and just a dash of Organic, Please

My friend Geoff Surratt writes, "Bob Hyatt at the bob.blog recently had a post quoting an article on the missional vs attractional church model. This topic has been turning in my mind a lot over the past few weeks and I thought I’d take a few minutes over lunch (corned beef Rueben on wheat, side of pasta salad and a Diet Coke) to sort through my thoughts on this topic. Feel free to disagree, agree or ignore, I’m pretty early on in my thinking on this subject."

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I’d like Attractional with a Side of Missional and just a dash of Organic, Please

First my definition of terms as I understand them:

Attractional: A model that says church should be an appealing, non-threatening environment to present the Gospel so that seekers can come and see. Relational connections flow out of these larger gatherings. Picture a large circus tent with people streaming in from every direction.

Organic: A model that says seekers will be exposed to the Gospel through relationships with members in their community. Relational connections may flow into larger gatherings. Picture a group of pup tents with a campfire in the middle.

Missional: A mindset that says the every member of the body of Christ is called as a missionary to her own culture and community. The missionary may or may not connect to a larger gathering of believers. Picture a climber pitching his tent high on Mt. Everest.

While I’m sure these definitions are incomplete and possibly way off target, they describe the discussion as I see it. Second let me share my background in commenting on the discussion:

1. I have had the privilege of connecting with many of the leaders of the best known “attractional” churches in the country such as Lakewood, Saddleback, Willow Creek, North Point, Lifechurch, Fellowship and many others. It seems that many of the people who throw rocks at the circus tents have never spent much time inside; God has given me the unique opportunity of sitting down with the lion tamers and acrobats and hearing where their passions lie.

2. I’m on staff at what from the outside would seem to be a poster child for the attractional way of doing church.

3. I’ve also had the opportunity to connect with some of the Cub Scout leaders (the ones with the pup tents), although more indirectly than with the circus people. I’ve met some of the leaders in the emerging church movement such as Doug Pagitt, Dan Kimball, Brian McClaren, Tim Celek, and John Burke. I’ve also had some great conversations with the folks at Leadership Network who pulled together most of these guys in the first place. I’m early on in my study of their campgrounds, but I feel like I have somewhat of a feel for their desire to serve God and his world.

4. I’m reading everything I can to get my arms around postmodern, emerging, missional and organic. One of my early awakenings was Reggie McNeal’s The Present Future and I’ve had the opportunity to spend some time with Reggie unpacking the concepts. Other books in my education so far include A New Kind of Christian and The Story We Find Ourselves In by McLaren, Breaking the Missional Code by Stetzer, The Organic Church by Neil Cole, The Radical Reformission and Confessions of a Reformission Rev by Driscoll, all of Donald Miller’s books and a variety of other artcles, blogs and books somewhat in the emerging genre.

None of this to say that I’m anybody (I’m not), that I’m more qualified than the next person to comment (I’m not) or that I have a good understanding of where the church is going next (I don’t). I’m simply sorting through my mental files and sharing what’s in the boxes. So here are my thoughts.

First, I’ve never seen a purely attractional church. Every church I’ve been connected with is deeply concerned with helping people become disciples of Christ. When I’ve sat down with the staff at the largest mega-churches in America they are all exerting an incredible amount of energy to discover new and better ways to help people grow in Christ. I’m sure that there are churches in America who care only about making the turnstile spin on the weekends, but I’ve never experienced one.

Second, I’ve never seen a purely missional church; every church I’ve seen has a desire to be attractive (from the Greek root “attractional") They sweep the floors, turn on the lights, set the air conditioner. They buy sound systems so the musicians and speakers can be heard, they set up chairs, they make coffee. While they may never buy a billboard or send out a mass mailer, every church I’ve seen makes an effort to be attractive to those who might attend. And the ones who do a good job grow. Bob wrote recently about experiencing so much growth he was having nightmares about having to start a video venue.

Third, every church I’ve been around is missional; they all see their members as missionaries in their communities. This whole idea started with Jesus when he told us to go into all the world and make disciples. His final instructions before he caught the last cloud back to heaven said our job was to share the good news in our neighborhood. So called attractional churches see the weekend service as an intregal part of fulfilling this missional calling. While their preference is that members share their lives and faith in their own neighborhood, they also recognize that most people need some help. Similar to the idea that parents should be able to teach their children to read and write, but we need schools to help, attractional churches see their weekend services as aid stations for their member/missionaries.

Fourth, Jesus ministry was both missional and attractional. He sent his disciples out into the communtiy with nothing but the clothes on their backs on a missional journey to share the Kingdom with the world. (I bet they smelled pretty organic after a few days on the road.) At the same time he performed many miracles which attracted large crowds to which he taught Kingdom principles. It is obvious that he wasn’t simply healing the sick, feeding the hungry or raising the dead; there was a reason why he performed the miracles he did, when and where he performed them. At least some part of the motivation behind some of the miracles was to give the Gospel a wider audience than just the twelve. If not he would not have wasted his time teaching the crowds when they came. One of the best Biblical examples of an attractional style of ministry occured when the charismatics got crazy on the day of Pentecost and thousands came to hear Peter throw down the Word. And someone took the time to count how many people connected with the church that day as though they felt big numbers were a good thing.

Finally, we are spending way too much timing criticizing everyone else’s way of doing church. I have so much to learn from how you do church, how you build biblical community, how you grow disciples that I really don’t have time to pick at your methods. God will probably lead me in a different direction than the one you are taking, but that’s ok. As long as we’re both pursuing him and bringing others along with us I think our methods are somewhat irrelevant.

So for me the ultimate church is an attractional, missional body of believers growing organically through every means possible. We seem to waste so much energy throwing rocks at other people’s tents we lose sight of the fact we have a very limited time on earth to spread the Good News and to build Kingdom community. If your church meets in a stadium, hires a rock band and is seeing people becoming disciples of Christ, that is very cool. If your church meets in a bar, features dialog rather than sermons and is seeing people becoming disciples of Christ, that is very cool as well.

And hey, Hey, HEY put down that rock!

By the way… Geoff has a great blog over at Inner Revolution. You’ll find some great posts there on everything from multi-site churches to leadership issues. Check it out!

FOR DISCUSSION: So… can I take your order? What do you think?

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This post has been viewed 944 times and was added on April 10, 2007 by Todd Rhoades.

Filed under: Leadership Issues Leadership Development

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Posted by Brent

Tuesday, April 10, 2007 at 8:30 AM

“Finally, we are spending way too much timing criticizing everyone else’s way of doing church.”

In light of the last post (TPFKATC), I needed to hear this. We shoud always evaluate and be listening, but also be very careful about our criticisms. This was a great article, thanks.
Posted by

Tuesday, April 10, 2007 at 10:16 AM

“Jesus ministry was both missional and attractional.” Often at the same time!

Great article. THANKS!
Posted by

Tuesday, April 10, 2007 at 11:10 AM

“Finally, we are spending way too much timing criticizing everyone else’s way of doing church.”

Now there’s the pearl in this article. Thank you for the reminder.
Posted by John Atkinson

Tuesday, April 10, 2007 at 12:11 PM

I posted on this same issue a couple of months ago. Nothing frustrates me more than those who criticize attractional churches as being misssionless. It’s simply not true and I know because I serve at Bay Area Fellowship in Corpus Christi Texas which is a church that would be considered attractional by any definition.
What I can tell you about this church, and many other big attractional churches I’m close to, is we have a very defined mission for Christ. We do nothing without purpose and mission.
I challenge the critics of attractional churches to spend some time in them before painting with broad brushes.
Could there be some attractional churches without a mission? I’m sure there is but I honestly don’t know any of them and I have had the opportunity to get to know a bunch. All the pastors I know who do church like we do also have a mission and plan to impact the world.
By the way I completely support a church who’s calling is to be primarily missional. It takes all kinds of churches with all kinds of callings to reach all kinds of people.
Posted by bob hyatt

Tuesday, April 10, 2007 at 2:00 PM

Here’s what I said in response to Geoff’s post:

I can’t recommend highly enough the book “The Shaping of Things to Come” by Frost and Hirsch- on many issues but particularly this one. Honorable mention to The Great Giveaway by Fitch.

Like Paul, I’m happy that in all ways and shapes the Gospel is preached. That being said, I also want to realize (like Paul) that some motivations in ministry are better than others, because I think they tend to form different things in us and in our communities.

For me, methods can’t be irrelevant because ends do not justify means. The issue isn’t purely “what will get people in the seats?” but how the way we get them there informs who they become in our community. How does our methodology spiritually form us? How will what we do as a community form those who are part of it and who are becoming part of it? I realize that all (well, most… okay, many… uh,some) churches are asking the same question. I happen to be a part of a stream that is highly sensitive to the more consumer nature of church and its impact on us as pastors and on whole communities as followers of Jesus. I wrote about this in Escape From Consumer Church(http://www.dtour.com.au/articles/article.cfm?id=89) and even The Dangers of Easter.(http://bobhyatt.typepad.com/bobblog/2007/03/the_dangers_of_.html)

So to me, “Attractional with a side of Missional” doesn’t quite get there- mainly because of (what I see) as the spiritually negative formative issues involved in the attractional model. I want to be clear- I don’t think you guys doing a more attractional model or video venues are wrong. I’m not throwing rocks. I just have concerns about long-term impacts…

But I think you are entirely correct- there’s no such thing as a purely this or purely that church. We’re all of us somehwere on the spectrum. I just think it’s important to be cogniscent of and intentional about which way we lean…

Yes- I want to be attractive. There will always be a “come and see” aspect to community. But in that, my two main hopes are:

1. I hope what people are being invited to come and see and what they are actually being drawn to is the aroma of Jesus among us, the way He lives in our community as opposed to our killer light show or cutting edge this or that.
2. That “come and see” always takes a back seat to “go and be.”

I’ve always said that if our community can’t grow by the quality of our relationships (as opposed to the quality of our advertising, kids programs, etc) we probably don’t deserve to. That doesn’t mean we pay NO attention to the quality of what we do… but we’re a lot more relaxed about a lot of things. I care about how the music sounds, but mainly so it’s not a distraction. Our real energies go into being a warm, welcoming community that’s centered on Jesus… that’s hard enough without throwing a lot of issues of production into the mix!

But even so, even our little pub church (that won’t do a video venue, but may end up doing multiple sites each with their own main teaching pastor) is still struggling with this- come and see is just so much easier.

And that should probably tell us something, since the best way is rarely the easiest.

Geoff gave a gracious reply to which I answered…

I probably should have said it more like:

“Since we both agree the issue isn’t purely ‘what will get people in the seats?’...”

You said:"The implication is that this is the primary motivation for those on the other side of the fence. My point is that I don’t know a single church leader with that perspective; its a straw man arguement. “

I know that we’re all concerned with what happens next, which is why I think we should be more concerned with what happens first…
So, I don’t know that it’s quite a straw man argument. I hear an awful lot of church growth type guys saying things like “...I think our methods are somewhat irrelevant.”

I just don’t think they are. I ‘m excited about anyone coming to Christ, any time, anywhere…
I’m also convinced that certain methodologies might have longterm impact in spiritual development, both for individuals and for communities.

In other words, I’m highly skeptical of the marriage of Christianity and American marketing techniques and consumerism. I think that when those two go hand in hand, people may still come to know Jesus, but the unintended side effects for the church as a whole may suggest we pursue other metholodologies.

To use your fishing example- we may both be fishermen, but if someone’s methods are or might be (like driftnetting) ultimately harmful, it’s not wrong for someone to ask those questions.

I hope that doesn’t sound jerky at all… I’m not saying I’ve got it figured out- we’re still very much in process...

There’s a difference between throwing rocks and asking questions about teh overall direction of the church and whether the methods we use yeild the best results, long term. I know some people have trouble doing one without doing the other, but I certainly don’t want to engage in that…

But neither do I want to see anyone who is asking questions about how we do church and the methods we use as “throwing rocks.” That kind of thing simply stifles any dissent and guarantees a status quo metality- which none of want, right?

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I'm Todd Rhoades... the MMI guy. I'm also on the team at Leadership Network (although that doesn't mean that they endorse everything I write here). In my past life, I was the founder and developer of a website named ChurchStaffing.com.


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