...
...
...
...
Back already? OK, so you probably didn't read it, but promise you'll bookmark it and read it later.
In the past month, there's been quite the conversation about the roles of attractional churches versus missional churches. Read more here and here and here.
For me, it's beyond the "form" of church, and really lies in the "function". Most of the past conversations about the nature of church focused on form: worship styles, casual dress, whatever. But, the function remained the same: attact people to a central campus, have them passively sit and listen, compare the numbers to the church across town. At first they came because they were expected to, then because we stopped wearing ties, then because we threw in some drums and U2 songs. We were cool and postmodern.
But the function remained the same.
I guess part of my thinking is based on ecclesiology (the nature of the church). I'm sold out on a missional approach and (this is a personality thing), I believe it's the best (and, for me, only) way to do it. At Resonate, the "attraction" isn't found on Sunday, although we try not to be teh suck.
There's a place for attractional churches, I'm not saying there isn't. But my fear is that missional will become a buzzword, just another program to assuage our guilt when we look around us and find that we've trapped ourselves in a church we helped to create but no longer enjoy.
So, I find myself raging against the dying of a missional mindset. I won't go softly into the "you catch 'em, I'll clean 'em" mentality. I'd rather just live among the people, sharing life and truth as it comes.
I talked about that here.
I'm really writing this for myself, just as a reminder. :)
UPDATE: One more thought. I like this question: How do the structures of your church shape and train people in discipleship and mission. This is a question for both attractional and missional. And my answer to the question is why I'm committed to missional church.
0 comments:
Post a Comment