Attractional vs. Missional: David Fitch Explains It

mcchurchDavid Fitch is a Bible professor and leader in the missional church movement. In his blog, he explains why attractional churches fail to be missional.

1. HOW DO THE STRUCTURES OF YOUR ATTRACTIONAL CHURCH SHAPE (TRAIN) YOUR PEOPLE INTO CHRISTIAN DISCIPLESHIP AND MISSION?
I’m not talking here about initiating people into four steps, or four bases, or four whatever. Rather, missional types see that the very ways people gather shapes them into what it means to be a Christian. The way we worship, the kinds of things we look at, the habits that are enforced, the way we sit, the structure of passivity, the anonymity, the filing in and out by the thousands at a specific time, the parking lot attendants rushing you out the maze: we see all of this as training the people into being in relation to God and each other in a certain way. Therefore, to attract large amounts of people into one room, and offer a directed performance of worship from the front, trains people to be passivized, observers and consumers of Christianity. And it counteracts everything of what it means to be the church for missional thinkers and practitioners.

Oww! It’s true, isn’t it? Doesn’t the traditional church push most members toward passivity? Don’t we greatly limit who gets to be active in worship? And isn’t every church burdened with a large percentage of members who are consumers only? Don’t we all struggle even to staff the nursery? And if we can’t get enough volunteers to change the diapers, how on earth are we going to have enough volunteers to change the world?

Missional types see the very life lived between three or more people as that which reveals Christ’s forgiveness, reconciliation and the gospel looks like. It is the social-linguistic context that makes possible the communication of the gospel to post Christendom people who have no context to understand the gospel at all. Attractional mega churches attract, appeal to a need, provide an attractive package and by their sheer numbers work against this kind of community that makes possible this kind of encountering of the gospel. Sure it is still possible to split people into smaller groups, but the sheer formative power of the large attractional gathering trains the habits of every believer into self selecting a comfortable community for other purposes other than mission. The sheer habit of coming to church for something and pouring untold energy and resources into this “event” removes people (who both serve and come) out of the orbit of being in the lives of non-Christian people.

And, yes, it’s true that we tend to create communities of Christians — even our small groups — that give our members social lives that remove them from the lives of non-Christian people. Indeed, ask any eldership or church staff to do more evangelism, and most will respond, truthfully, that they don’t know any non-Christians. The more committed, the more devout our members become, the less in touch with the lost they will be.

Attractional churches do well within Christendom. It’s a fact: people who have a previous knowledge and initiation into the faith in their earliest years, are better primed to receive a “more relevant” presentation of the gospel and to respond.

In post Christendom, the social patterns for people coming to church have largely disappeared. This is now mission work. The idea of attractional church assumes that everyday people would want to come to church to hear about God, that they would see the church as authoritative. “Invite your friends to a service!” Yet I have no doubt that mega churches serve Christendom well. In Korea, where there is a large Reformed Presbyrterian remnant, it makes sense that mega churches would do well. Likewise in the Southern states they will flourish. Even in parts of Chicago, Seattle and Santa Clara, there will be remnants of Christendom. Where there are those who are looking to find a relevant Christianity that they knew in their childhood, mega churches will do well.

Ah … as Hirsch said, how to do church depends on whom you want to reach. If you are going after lapsed Christians, the attractional model works well. And in some places, there are tens of thousands of lapsed Christians whose lives will be radically changed by an attractional church. There is nothing wrong with this.

But in the new cultures of post Christendom, these kinds of efforts will fall flat. How else do we explain the failure of mega churches to work in Europe, Ontario (versus Alberta where Christendom reigns), and the North Eastern United States on anywhere near the same scale they work in the Southern United States (Bible Belt) and Canadian Alberta? For sure there are a few in these places, but they do not have the overwhelming success that they do in places dominated by Christendom. Compare Nashville to Toronto Canada.

It’s a good point. If we plant a church in Boston or Toronto or Berlin, are we targeting lapsed Christians or those with no experience with Christianity? The tactics will differ. We may build a great church in Seattle or Boston purely out of Southern transplants, but what about those who are three and four generations removed from Christianity?

We should therefore evaluate the success of missional churches in the same way we have always evaluated missionary efforts where pioneer missionaries work in lands completely separated from the gospel. Here it took years (30-40-50) to produce significant fruit. But just as missional house church movements of various shapes and sizes took over large parts of communist China and Viet Nam where there could be no attractional church, we believe these missional efforts here in the Post Christendom enclaves of N America will bear fruit. But for now, missional communities must labor, as many missionaries in darkened fields of old, in daily tending, nurturing and planting of new communities that can relate to these places that have lost the gospel. …

Ironically, I think as the materialist excesses of our day come crumbling down, we might just see what Viet Nam and China have seen before us in a missional movement. At least that is what we pray for as both mega church practitioners and missional church practitioners seek to be faithful to our particular callings.

My thanks to Hirsch and Fitch for making these points and helping to clarify the thinking.

About Jay F Guin

My name is Jay Guin, and I’m a retired elder. I wrote The Holy Spirit and Revolutionary Grace about 18 years ago. I’ve spoken at the Pepperdine, Lipscomb, ACU, Harding, and Tulsa lectureships and at ElderLink. My wife’s name is Denise, and I have four sons, Chris, Jonathan, Tyler, and Philip. I have two grandchildren. And I practice law.
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3 Responses to Attractional vs. Missional: David Fitch Explains It

  1. Nic says:

    Our Christian schools train evangelizers. Elders hire these evangelizers to evangelize to those who should be evangelizers, but have been taught to be listeners, critics and pew sitters. To be faithful we must go to church, sit quietly and listen. If the hired evangelizer makes good enough speeches – easy to listen to with good pointers about how to live as better listeners – we might give a little more to the cause and even change a diaper or two.

    If we are really faithful, we stay for Bible study, where sometimes we study the Bible, but for those who have been around awhile, we might study a related topic like “The Bible’s Health Plan.” If we are lucky and have a good teacher, we have a good, sometimes interactional, session. But for the most part, we sit and listen again – as critics and class chair sitters (especially in the auditorium class, which it seems a lot of people perfer).

    In 30 plus years of sermons and Bible classes, some of which I taught, the same things are said over and over – the same questions asked, the same answers given. When first converted at 27, I was amazed that people in different churches could give the same answers to the same questions, sometimes almost word for word the same answers.

    After almost 40 years of Bible classes I wonder if I’ll ever graduate and if I do what will I graduate to? I’m a pretty good listener isn’t much of a resume.

    As leaders of autonomous churches, it seems to me elders have the freedom, nay, the responsibility to change this. If you are going to hire an evangelist, let him evangelize. You hire missionaries (trained evangelizers) to go to Africa and South America (read: Jenkins’: The Next Christendom), so then your local evangelizer should go to the local community, not inside the building to those already believing.

    Turn your building into a training center where your members are trained to change diapers and change the world. Ever heard of a curriculum? Shouldn’t a training center have a curriculum culminating in a graduation and diploma? How about advanced degrees specializing in certain areas: local evangelization (completion of this area of specialization by significant numbers may allow expansion of the local area covered – out in the county, next city, next county- [Jerusalem, Samaria….] led by your hired local evangelist); invalid care (diaper changing among other important duties); counseling (at least friendship counseling with enough knowledge to direct folks with needs to the proper professionals); Bible class teachers specializing in certain Biblical areas (Gospels, NT letters, OT law, OT prophets, theology etc.[Hey! might have to send them to one of our fine Christian Schools]), so they can provide the basic Bible knowledge for the general curriculum (not a this is what I think it means class); eldership training (including leadership training, interpersonal relationships, team training, etc.); internet missions (whatever that might be); No more preaching to the choir, no more passive attendance, no more sitting on broadening rears waiting for somebody to do something.

    What about the worship service? You mean coming in late, sitting on a pew, sleeping, yawning, thinking about lunch, playing with the baby looking back at you from the pew in front of you, hearing an excellent point that will greatly impact your life for the good of all mankind – but forgetting it during “The” Sunday afternoon nap. That worship service? Quite frankly, it’s not a Bible thing. It’s an invention to support preachers, buildings and maybe Christian Universities and to keep the masses idle and not asking too many questions. It’s what Jay said “Owww” to. It’s not worship and it’s not service. It has led to what some call “worship wars”, two words that cannot go together. If it’s a war it’s not worship and if it’s worship it’s not war.

    Think about 10, 15, 20 minutes before or after a general curriculum Bible training session spent praying, singing and talking about how what you’re studying is impacting your life, or what the Lord is doing in your life, with all 15 – 20 class members participating. Perhaps someone would prepare a short devo to be discussed by all. It’s really endless how a small group could worship together, impact spiritual growth in each other, encourage each other, love each other…. The Lord ’s Supper could be taken at each class meeting, even if it meets more than once per week, which it probably should.

    Outgrowing your building? Sunday isn’t the only day of the week. Meeting on Sunday is only traditional not mandatory. Read Acts 2:42. They were devoted, which sounds like more than once per week to me. They were devoted to the Lord’s Supper – more than once per week?

    Would this be too much trouble managing multiple day meetings? Going to Class for 90 minutes? Keeping track of members going and coming on different days and nights and early mornings? Too much trouble tracking the keys to open and close the building and organizing transportation? What a nightmare. We hardly have time to do what we do now – unless of course there is a major priority change.

    If, as a quality inspector, you are not satisfied with the end product, then break the mold and start over. Changing factory locations, workers, methods; initiating better maintenance schedules, new technology(powerpt?); or printing up new style manuals and mission statements will not change the end product, if you continue to use the same mold.

    I don’t know – attractional – missional. Do they use the same mold?

    I’m old now and get kind of picky at times. Please forgive me. Up top I said something about priorities. I think I better check mine again. Seems like this has gotten to be rather daily for me.

  2. Pingback: Attractional vs. Missional: Equipping the Members « One In Jesus.info

  3. Grizz says:

    David makes some interesting observations, but I question whether this is really part of the attractional versus missional discussion. It seems more to me like the old discussions about fixxing what we do and not really like discussiong WHY we do the things we do or WHERE we put our focus.

    And Nic’s comment started out well but seems to ultimately get drawn back into mechanics instead of getting to the depth of motivation and overall focus – the WHY and WHERE of our focus, our purpose for existing, our congregational mission statements. (Which is a lame business model reference that still gets the focus blurry.)

    To use an automotive analogy…

    We do not need a tune up. We do not even need a new car. And we do not need to hire Jeff Gordon type drivers to replace the Mario Andrettis and A.J. Foyts.

    We need a better map.

    It is not a matter of turning left all the time on the course or turning right all the time or even mixxing some left turns and some right turns.

    It is a matter of a whole different approach to the race’s destination. Is it measurable in terms of miles completed? or is it a cyclic thing that keeps going from generation to generation to generation to eternity?

    So far in this discussion on One In Jesus it feels more like a race in terms of mileages and where we end up parking the car. That is a fine discussion but it is NOT a discussion of attractional versus missional models.

    Just saying…

    Grizz

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