Institutional v. Missional Church: Structure
Jul 28th, 2008 | By art rogers | Category: Church, General Christian, Missional
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[For those in our Search Committee meeting yesterday, you may note that I have updated the article slightly and refreshed the diagram of the Missional Church in several ways.]
At this point, I think it is going to be easiest to lay out the structural differences between the Institutional and Missional Church and then unpack the details. If you’ve not read the preceding posts on the Individual and on Culture, I urge you to do so. Also, for additional flavor, You can check out a couple of Movie Quotes I’ve posted that relate. One is on being Institutionalized and the other is on Hope.
Here are the two structures as represented by diagrams, according to my understanding:
Institutional Church
Missional Church
It’ll take a while, several posts at least, to unpack just what you see. That doesn’t include some of the stuff that is implied but not represented by iconography.
We’ll start with concepts that characterize each:
The concepts that we will unpack for the Institutional Church are centrifugal, centralized, primarily attractional, culturally secluded, controlled, staff dependent and facility dependent.
The concepts to unpack for the Missional Church, obviously contrasting are centripetal, de-centralized, primarily going, culturally engaged, released, individually mobile and dependent on societal infrastructure.
[Note:Â There is no significance to the number of those living apart from God, dechurched or Christians or the ratios between them.]
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That is a better drawing than yesterdays. Althouth the traditional church diagram yesterday had a feeling of busy-ness and confusion.
Is the definition of dechurched in the diagram, believers that have dropped out of fellowship with other believers for whatever reason?
Bart,
Yes, generally de-churched would describe believers that have become disenchanted with the church. this is not to say taht the church is always at fault in such a situation. sometimes people choose to walk away and blame the inevitable shortcomings of the church as the “reason” they chose to separate.
There is the group of people who were raised in church but never came to know God and now are Apart from Him. Of course, not all of these people are de-churched, either. Some of them still occupy the pews on Sunday mornings, every so often.
That topic is really kind of different than the one addressed in the differentiation of the Institutional and Missional Church Structures, though, and is not really addressed in either depiction.
And, yes, the missional church drawing was much more busy and not as well done as this version. I had to clean it up a bit because I’m such a perfectionist. This is probably the twentieth rendition, to tell the truth. It took a while to get it like I wanted it.
I liked the busy-ness aspect of your whiteboard drawing. “Stuff” at church can demand a lot of time.
Oh, yeah. I see what you mean.
I misunderstood what you were saying. I thought you were talking about the two Missional Church diagrams.
Yes, the Institutional Church, if it is doing well, is a VERY busy place. If it is not busy, it is probably about to die.