This is the fourth entry in our survey of the attractional-missional church dichotomy, during which I have been elucidating on the contrasts outlined in the following chart:
In this installment, I'd like to touch on the relative ways attractional and missional churches do measurement, particularly the measurement of a church's success. This look at measurement will involve the 6th, 7th, and 8th contrasts in the chart.
Practical vs. Intuitive
I have defined the attractional church's primary aim as getting as many people through the doors of the church and into a service ostensibly to introduce as many people as possible to the Christian life and the concept of having a personal relationship with Jesus. This is seen as a quantifiable aim, and the practical objective (get people in, obtain decisions) begs for practical measurements. Therefore the attractional church tends to place a heavy emphasis on attendance, offerings, and "decisions." In many respects, this scale of measurement is in perfect continuity with the traditional church of the 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s, a mode of church the attractional paradigm often claims to break from.
But it is not raw data the attractional church wants, but an upward trajectory demonstrated in the data overtime. It is considered a success if attendance goes up, offerings go up, and decisions go up. This of course is a very practical (and admittedly fairly helpful) means of measuring a church's methodological impact, but the calculations often fail to compensate for a few important considerations in the raw data, most notably that the attractional church often draws more "churched" persons interested in a new congregation than it does unchurched.
The missional church, by contrast, allows for more discernment within the data accumulation. There is nothing wrong with increasing in size and offerings, and the missional church is just as interested in "soul winning" as the attractional church, but missional practitioners do not tend to measure success purely by numbers. They will want to intuit what the numbers mean. Raw increase may not be considered helpful if it is discovered the majority of new congregants are gathering simply because the worship service is considered a better production than the church's service next door. In this instance, the numbers have increased, but so have the numbers of (possibly) consumer-minded attenders. This introduces a problem for the missional practitioner, even if it is an opportunity. Pastors like Matt Chandler at the Village Church near Dallas, Texas and Mark Driscoll at Mars Hill Church in Seattle, Washington, for instance, regularly ask consumer-attenders to leave their church.
Not all attendance increases are created equal. Growth is Numbers vs. Growth is Health
The missional church's intuitive measurement of success extends further into the assessment of the church's health. The attractional church sees that attendance has increased, offerings have increased, and decisions have been made and see that as church growth. That is certainly one way of measuring growth, but it is not exactly the consistent measurement referenced in the biblical paradigm for Christian community.
The missional church is not opposed to increase in numbers and offerings and decisions. (Well, to be honest, some missional practitioners are, particularly those who believe that churches cannot be "big," whatever that means, and effectively minister to the community.) But its main measurement of spiritual growth focuses on areas that demonstrate spiritual health. The attractional emphasis on decisions comes closest to the area of health, but a missional church will examine, further, what percentage of its attenders participate in community groups, Bible study, and community service projects.
An attractional church may run 1,000 in worship with only 20% participating in community service. A missional church may run 100 with 85% participating in community service. Which one is more successful? A large attractional church may have 40% of its people giving in excess of several million dollars, while a small missional church might have 90% of its people giving only $100K. Which is more successful financially? An attractional church may see 5 decisions a month that result in commitments to the worship service. The missional practitioner may see 5 decisions a year that result in commitment to fully devoted Christian community. Which is more successful? The answers depend on one's standard for growth. Is it sheer numbers? Or spiritual health?
This is admittedly a simplistic way of looking at a complex subject. Attractional churches can and do measure health in more intuitive ways, and self-identified missional churches can be just as guilty of playing the numbers game as anyone else. Remember we are talking generalities here in order to highlight modes of doing church. This isn't a one size fits all approach.
Stats vs. Stories
Continuing in this way of examination, we now look at the different emphases taking place within attractional and missional churches. The attractional church, which places a huge emphasis on numbers, size, and raw data, highly prizes statistics. The missional church, which places a huge emphasis on believers impacting the individuals in their personal spheres of influence -- their families, their workplaces, their communities, their "tribes" -- highly prizes stories.
The difference can be subtle, but it allows the missional practitioner to celebrate "church growth" success by reveling in the stories of transformation. Indeed, missional pastors are often more in tuned and connected to the lives of their community members. Whereas an attractional pastor (depending on the size of his congregation) may only get to celebrate numbers on a page, a missional pastor (again, depending on the size of his congregation) may get to celebrate more people's stories personally with them. A missional practitioner values one story of spiritual transformation or neighbors loved much more highly than he values ten first-time visitors. (It doesn't mean he doesn't value first-time visitors.)
These are just some of the ways attractional and missional churches approach measurement differently. In the next installment in this survey, we'll look at the different ways these church models interact with The Culture.
Jared Wilson is the pastor and co-founder of Element, a missional Christian community in
Nashville, Tennessee, and an award-winning writer whose articles, essays, and
short stories have appeared in numerous publications.
Jared's first book, The Unvarnished Jesus, releases Fall 2009 from Kregel.
A graduate of Middle Tennessee State University, he lives outside
Nashville with his wife and two daughters.
Encounter Jared's passion for the ongoing reformation of the evangelical church
almost daily at www.gospeldrivenchurch.com.
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