Tags
Related Posts
Share This
Opposing Forces: Can Attractional Be Missional?
In a comment to my post, “Is the Church Relevant?” Karen Muntzing asks a great question:
“Serving in a seeker sensitive church provides challenges to my understanding of the gospel, which tends to look more like the island of misfit toys. How do we form communities of authenticity and reality within the confines of seeker church? Is it possible? I see glimpses, but too often, protectors arise and defame what is actually gospel incarnate. At its best, it is a glimpse of heaven. At it’s worst, well…Lord, help us, and more, help us receive your help, your vision, your love!”
I am making an assumption here that from Karen’s vision of an island of misfit toys, that she is envisioning a church that is willing to embrace those in the margins – something more missional in nature. Seeker churches are generally very attractional in nature so for me the question is “Can you be “attractional – come us us” and “missional – go to them” at the same time?” Karen’s question reminded me of a question I asked Kathy Escobar recently after reading her book “Down We Go”.
Dear Kathy,
You wrote – “When we started The Refuge, we tried to mix the attractional model (come to us) with the missional model (go to others). We wanted people to come to our wider gatherings so we figured out a way to make sure that we included music, teaching and a fairly good vibe…Most of our life together didn’t happen in that main gathering. Instead, it happened in eye-to-eye and heart-to heart encounters throughout the week…After about a year muddling around trying to find ourselves, it became clear that we were mixing models that can’t be mixed.”
Would you mind sharing a bit more on this? I am working with a church that is trying to basically “restart” the church and they want to move toward a missional model and to become a ” missional community-focused” church in a distressed community near their church. But, they are trying to carry the Saddleback seeker-sensitive structure into this new way of being. I have expressed my concerns to the pastor that I feel like they are mixing models that do not mix. He said to me “show me something better.”
Can you give me a bit more clarity on how you guys structured the church that kept it from being attractional and fostered a missional culture?
Kathy and I had a wonderful conversation and my take away from her was that you can’t move in two directions at the same time. However, I do believe it is possible to plant a missional expression of a church alongside an attractional model if they are seen as complementary and not one serving the needs of the other. I have not done it yet, but I hope to get a chance to experiment with a few things in the near future.
Here are a few things I don’t think work:
- Planting missional communities with the real goal of growing your church attendance so in other works “community outreach as as a way of growing the church.”
- Trying to take a church built on an attractional model and transitioning it to a missional model. I have seen too many church splits form from this kind of radical change.
- Treating missional engagement as just a technique to “attract” people and then call yourself missional. This looks like a church that does a bunch of service activities as a part of their attractional structure but mission is not central to the way of being church. It is simply another activity people are invited to participate in.
What might work in theory (I will tell you in a few months if the theory holds any water):
- Allowing a missional expression to form outside the control of the attractional church with no expectation that it will “grow the church” or that the people will “join the church” but with the understanding that missional engagement is a legitimate way of “being the church.” These missional communities form around shared mission with mission being the central organizing principal. We currently have several of these expressions in our Hillside community – one around vocational development, one around family support, and one around hospitality and food.
- Forming “mission centered” small groups that support the work of missional ministries similar to the vision I shared regarding “Dream Teams.” We are launching several over the next few months. These are small groups formed in communities of resource that are formed with the goal of supporting our neighborhood based groups. Mission is core to the group but this group will likely support the mission through encouragement, prayer and sharing of resources more than direct engagement in the mission context. So we are building suburban groups to support our urban groups (vocation, family, hospitality) – twinning leaders with proximity and passion with Christians who share their passion but lack proximity to the neighborhood.
My dream is that Embrace will be able to develop a way of being missional that congregations who are attractional will be able to birth alongside their existing structures – the answer my pastor friend is seeking. If we can develop new models, my prayer is that someday, churches will see that releasing their members to plant “missional expressions” of the church is actually what Jesus told us to do when he said, “Go, therefore into the world…”.
Churches exist to give themselves away – their members, their resources and their authority. Missional is an outward movement away from the church instead of an inward movement trying to draw more and more into the church. Jesus told us, “Unless a seed falls to the ground and dies, it cannot produce new life.”
Hi Wendy,
It’s funny that you posted this while I was in class meetings for my D.Min in Missional Church. We’ve been talking about how you can never transform an entire organization at once, and you especially can’t do it by trying to get them to embrace an abstract mental model. You start with isolated events and groups and you keep at it until they become patterns and then until the patterns become values until, with enough patience and persistence (longer than most pastoral tenures), missional overtakes attractional. The two mental models and systemic structures have to exist side by side for a while, which is messy.
Hi Corey,
Thanks for your input…I know there are a lot of folks asking these same questions. It is cool that you have the benefit of being in a setting to discuss this face to face with other ministers.
Are you guys moving toward a missional structure in your church? Just wondering if you are trying this in your own context.
I hope so, but structures come farther down the line. If you try to start with structure, you will be met with objections based on irrelevancy. “That sounds great, but how does that help us where we are?” You start (at least I believe) by empowering and giving permission to those who will gather around missional ministry, and you just do it (go the path of least resistance). Then you take what works and let them cement into patterns and new traditions, and eventually new structures are needed to support it (again, through a messy process filled with power struggles and cognitive dissonance).
To put it more visually, think of a pyramid with “mental model” at the bottom and “events/projects” at the top. Between those are structures and patterns.
Mental model -> Structure -> Patterns -> Events/Projects
The mental model is what influences everything, but change starts at the other end with events and projects. People don’t work in the abstract. We have to create missional ministries for which a structure will eventually be needed.
You just affirmed the last 8 years of my life. We just started doing things and it has been incredibly messy. We had no existing structures, so there was no real push by anyone to build them until they were needed.
However, now we are trying to work with groups who have existing structures and I was hoping to save them the pain and the mess we have endured. But, I think you are right – it all grows organically out of chaos. Great advise!
I just helped lead a session in a business setting where the statement was made that you cannot pursue an organizational mission and focus on preserving your own job at the same time. That’s what a secular leader said. Why can’t we get that right in the church?
Michael,
That is an excellent point. I actually read a post by a retired pastor who said if he could do it all over again, he would have been bi-vocational and not been dependent on the church for his salary. It does change things.
I started out as a full-time volunteer and now draw a small salary. I have 3 teenager with my eldest starting college next year. I can assure you, I think about things differently now that my little salary means that my daughter gets to go to college. I take less risks.
I can imagine it would be far more anxiety producing if my salary meant food on the table and a roof over our head. The same is true for the church. I can see how the income from the offerings in worship can drive the attractional model. The cash flow with a missional approach is far less consistent and dependable. Some would say non-existent. Thus the need for lighter weight, lower maintenance ways of being church.
For those who already have large buildings and multi-staff structures – I can see how this idea would create a lot of challenges. Thus back to Corey’s point that you have to run parallel tracks.
Great comment. Thanks for participating in the conversation. Sadly it is often the finances that drive our ministries but we all do like to eat and have a roof over our heads. I think that is why many are predicting more bi-vocational pastors in the future.
Wendy,
I found your blog only about a month ago and since then, I anxiously anticipate each new post. Keep up the good work.
I don’t think the seeker and the missional church can coexist. Data shows that the majority of churches only expend $0.05 of every dollar in ways that do not in some way benefit themselves. That nickel is what I consider their missions budget. If other bills like mortgages, salaries or operational expenses overrun, the money will come from robbing the missions budget.
I also think that many church leaders subconsciously see missions as a threat because it can be difficult to control. What if someone were to become deeply involved in urban ministry thereby limiting the time that they could give to the seeker side of the church? Seeker churches, by definition draw people in and unless they are professional missionaries, are nervous about sending them out.
Tom,
I have seen the same thing. However, I am meeting more and more pastors who also see it and want to change it. I agree with the experts that it is “easier to give birth than raise something from the dead.” So far everyone seems to agree you can’t turn the Titanic around. But, can you build a few life boats. Are there pastors willing not only to “allow” their people to get off the titanic but who commission them to captain the life boat?
I am not saying this can happen in mass, but I have met a few brave pastors who are willing to risk it all to change the status quo.
Your observation about the tension between mission as lifestyle and mission as event is something I have seen. Seeker churches are often willing to do one time missions events, but few see a missional lifestyle based on authentic relationships as essential to Christian maturity. I think you name why – perhaps there is a sense that it will theaten the whole paradigm. I Never thought of it that way but it does make sense. Thanks for your insightful observation.
I love your Titanic metaphor. Most churches can only allow a limited number of lifeboats because if too many leave, it will cause the Titanic to sink. Any church on any corner depends on the notion that the passengers keep the Titanic the priority.
In his book, The Great Good Place, Ray Oldenburg talks about “third places.” He calls the first place the home: the second place is the workplace and third places are the informal meeting places that foster creative interaction. These can be bars, restaurants, clubs, etc. For many Christians, the third place has become the church (which is a whole other discussion). He argues that most of us do not have time for fourth places. So if the third place for becomes missional, the seeker model loses out.
I agree with this observation as well. I have been in too many churches that simply kept me so busy doing church stuff (weekly worship, bi-weekly small groups, periodic special trainings, missions events, women’s retreats, children’s ministry activities), there was no time or emotional capacity for missional engagement.
I have spent the past seven years in mission-centered ministry and have not had time nor any interest in the traditional model of church.
This next year is going to really test this theory of no capacity for a 4th space in my own life as I try to come alongside a more traditional church that is moving toward missional. I know if push comes to shove, my heart is in the missional expressions of church and that is where I will invest my energy. So, perhaps the threat of being too missional is real or maybe I am simply an anomaly.
I am not ready to write off the more attractional, institutional, inherited ways of being church. I think the two can exist along-side one another and actually help one another but one can not serve the other without robbing them of their purpose and vision.
Thanks for the great conversation and insights. You have named a reality that I have sensed by had never named.