Many of us believe the evangelical church in America requires a radical reformation of means and methods, and as more and more churches recalibrate their visions of what it means to be the church, more and more are reevaluating the assumptions and values that have carried them thus far.
We cannot, however, dispense with church structure and authority. Some critics today are challenging the very idea of an "institutional church," which is not only naive, but unbiblical. Clearly from the organizational outlines of the tribes of Israel to the networked churches under the apostles in the New Testament, ecclesiological anarchy is not the answer.
Setting aside the "third party" notion of abandoning attempts at church structure, what we are largely left with are the two approaches of the attractional church and the missional church, which I've been contrasting over the last 5 weeks in this series. In this installment I would like to highlight these two church models' approaches to the church "animal." How are churches organized, structured, and worked in the attractional and missional ways? How do they each see the local congregation run? For this contrast, I'll be covering the 9th, 11th, 12th, and 13th contrasts highlighted in the following chart. (I am skipping the contrast on cultural relevance/engagement and will come back to it in the next installment.)
These contrasts are all inter-connected, the ideas behind them bleeding into each other, so there will be some overlap in the philosophical and methodological concepts at work here.
Complex vs. Simple
This contrast essentially covers the issue of bloat. We have defined the attractional church's motivation previously as wanting to get as many people through the doors of the church so that as many as possible may learn what it means to have a relationship with God. Because this aim is somewhat broad, hoping to attract as many people as possible, the means to the end are practically endless. There are lots of different types of people out there, an increasingly diverse consumer base, so the number of goods and services the attractional church wants to offer to woo them is ever increasing, as well.
The attractional church increases its programs, its classes, its opportunities. It builds up multiplying teams with volunteers and leaders. It seeks to be a many-armed machine so that it might bring in as many as can be grabbed. The worship service itself becomes increasingly complex to continue impressing and attracting congregants. Video elements, music features, lighting, and sound, computer graphics, creative transitions -- the production of the service can compete with the best Vegas shows, and some pastors make no bones about the church's "duty" to rival the best of what Hollywood has to offer. Such a machine requires lots and lots of work, lots and lots of energy, and lots and lots of volunteers.
There is a lot going on in the attractional church, more and more all the time, so the structure and the operations get more complicated all the time. Many missional churches, by contrast, work a simple church structure. The machine is envisioned with a narrow focus. In my community, for instance, we focus on just three "programs" -- a worship service, small groups, and a regular community service project. We don't offer an ever growing menu of programs and opportunities, and so long as the simple structure vision holds, we never will, even as we increase in numbers. With less to do, we can better focus on the things that are most important.
This difference is directly reflective of the way the attractional and missional churches approach missions and evangelism. The attractional church sees evangelism mainly happening inside the church building, so the attractional attempts are myriad and always increasing. The missional church sees evangelism mainly happening outside the church walls, as its attenders live missionary lives in their communities. This frees the church up to focus on the few essentials the Bible prescribes for church life.
Firm, established vs. Flexible, organic
The difference is bloat. Because the attractional church often has so much going on, with lots of programs and leadership and volunteers, it is a bigger and more unwieldy ship to steer. It is a heavy machine with lots of working parts. It therefore becomes more difficult to change or transform, and it makes ministers more unyielding and unlikely to consider changing directions. Too much time, money, and manpower has been invested in the "bigness."
The simple structure of many missional churches, on the other hand, allows great flexibility. It is easier to add or subtract, to rework and rethink, when there is not much going on structurally to begin with. Compare the calendar of activities of the average attractional and missional churches. The attractional church is a lot busier doing, but the missional church is a lot busier living.
The attractional church develops an establishment erected around its goods and services and the programs designed to provide them. Challenges to rethink are taken as challenges to the establishment of the church itself. The missional church operates much more organically. Its needs for growth are fewer and less contrived.
Preserve organization vs. Organization is expendable
The first time I wrote on this particular subject I was misunderstood to be saying that the organization of the (big-C) Church was expendable. I wasn't at all. The organization I have in mind here is the specific organization of the local church, the "machine" in place that runs the structure and ministry of a specific congregation. The differences here are really reflective of the way we think when we hear the word "church." It is reflective of the contrast "Church as place vs. Church as people" highlighted in the second installment of this series.
Now, adherents to both attractional and missional churches will agree that the church is not a building but is the people of God, those who follow Jesus and who are the Body of Christ. But looking at it from a wide angle, we find that this belief is not always evident in how we do church. If the church is people, then the organizational machine in a local congregation is expendable. It can dissolve and the church will remain. Yet many of those doing the attractional model are very fearful of the organization dissolving. There are personal visions and aspirations at stake; there is money at stake; there are buildings involved; there are lots of programs that are considered successful.
The divide is illustrated even in the way these congregations multiply. The missional church is mostly passionate about church planting. The attractional church is increasingly passionate about satellite campuses, video venues, "franchising" a church brand, and "strategic partnerships." The attractional churches believe they have something unique, something marketable, something within their organizational machine or presentation that can be sold, shared, or otherwise disseminated in order to expand the reputation, influence, and "brand" of the local church name and structure. When this happens, it puts more and more stake into the organization itself. The church is viewed as the organization, the name, the leaders, the production. Much is done, therefore, to keep this enterprise running and growing.
Missional churches are not as interested in creating brand recognition and influence. They exist to feed the sheep and find the lost ones, not to grow and replicate the sheepherder's headquarters.
Institution vs. Organism
Again, this not a denial of the necessity of the institutional church. It is a contrast of the way the attractional and missional churches often view their own local structures and organization. The attractional church is more complex, and consequently more firm, and consequently more interested in self-preservation, and consequently more inwardly focused (despite their own stated motivation to be for outsiders, ironically enough). The attractional model births the megachurch model, and the megachurch model births bolsters the institutional mentality.
The missional approach, on the other hand, while still maintaining biblical order and structure, is freer and more agile in its attempts to treat the congregation like a body, not a machine. It has different means of measurement, different gauges of success. As the business model overtakes the attractional church, where quantifiable results are expected in short periods of time, the missional church adopts an approach to church growth that is more reflective of farming, of cultivation. While the attractional church expects its proven methods and powerful programs to produce results, the missional church focuses simply on the long-term investments of growth and trusts the Spirit to produce growth in His time.
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.
Good article as always on projecting your views and beliefs. If I might ask what impact does growth have on this new missional church? Do you think it will, because of growth and size, fall back on traditional thinking or change? Why do I ask. well is this not what happened to the early church and subsequently all the major denominations that started small? What do you think? Thanks.
Thanks for your comment, Robert. I'm not sure I understand your question exactly, but I've addressed the issue of missional measurements of growth in the last installment (Missional and Attractional, Part 4). I don't know that numerical growth necessarily means the missional church will begin reverting to attractional means to handle it, but I'm sure it has happened. What is more common is an attractional church trying to move in a more missional direction and then figuring out how to maintain a healthy tension in the transition.
I confess to not understanding your question about the early church. Are you asking how, if it began missionally, it ended up in denominations? If so, I don't know. But the issue of schism isn't really an attractional or missional issue. A church of any denomination or neither can be attractional or missional or some other ecclesiological model.
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