12 Witnesses

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The church as an institution has long held a “ya’ll come” attitude toward the world, which is necessitated as a centralized church.  We want people to come to the center:  attend our church, get plugged into our programs and pay our light bills.

It’s deeper than that, though.  The “ya’ll come” attitude runs well beyond attendance to behavior, dress and other general conformities to which we would like for people to come in and adapt themselves.  I have often said that I thought that the church would be satisfied if the people of America would attend half of the time, tithe, dress nice and behave in a way that would not cause us any undue discomfort.  Note that this does not have the people of America coming to know or love God.  Just acting “right.”

Because of this, and although we have primarily operated in an attractional context, we aren’t very good at it.  To put it another way, we just aren’t that attractive and for people who base their “survival” on attraction, it is no wonder the church in America is in sharp decline.  People living apart from God do not value the things we value and have no desire to be a part of an organization that makes no sense to them.  Further, we have maintained some values in our church culture that are not Biblical and have not been passed on to subsequent generations.  As a result, the Institutional Church is often not very attractive to its own offspring.

Which brings us to the new generation of churches on the horizon.  Over the last decade or two, churches have been planted with less barriers, but are still attractional.  Let’s discuss barriers for just a minute and then I’ll unpack that last sentence.

In this diagram of the Institutional Church, the box around the facility and the Christians gathered therein represents barriers that we erect that keep people out.  Note, please, that I did not say that they were erected in order to keep people out.  Not all barriers are there with the intent of keeping people out.  I think all barriers are there to protect the comfort of those within.  I would guess that most are simple comforts to those inside that aren’t comfortable to those on the outside, and therefore become barriers.

Institutional Church

The simple barriers consist of music, dress, “churchified” lingo and things of that nature.  The more destructive barriers range from  “holier than thou” attitudes to racial discrimination.

The more modern church does quite a bit to eliminate the barriers between itself and the culture by delving into multimedia (we’re in a multimedia age, after all), singing more contemporary music, dressing more casually, being more welcoming and less judgmental, as well as relishing a racially diverse congregation.

But they are still attractional.

There are a good many churches that have torn down as many barriers as they possibly can, but they are still focused on getting the people into the church structure, program and culture.  They also tend to grow - for now.  They reach their fair share of people, but they also receive the transfer of those stuck in more Institutional Churches that don’t want to tear down those comfortable walls.  As a result, those smaller churches get smaller and, though they say they want young people to come, they can’t understand why they aren’t growing and may not survive.

Meanwhile, the Contemporary Institutional Churches grow primarily by transfer, and the transfers bring with them the attractional attitude that will one day seal their own demise if they continue to adhere to it.  Why?  Because one of these days, their kids are going to want to worship with a different sound and dress even more differently than their parents.  Those barriers will again do their work, though no one noticed them going up.

A Missional church needs to do everything it can to take down the cultural barriers that keep people away, but it needs also to go further.  In the illustration of the Missional Church, you will note that the barriers have been replaced by spheres of influence.  I am not naive enough to think that all barriers will come down for every one or every church, but it is the goal.

Missional Church

Also, please don’t misunderstand that the Missional Church has no Attractional qualities.  It does.  It should.

In fact, these diagrams are really the absolutes on a spectrum.  No church is completely Missional, nor is any church completely Attractional.  However, I would argue that the middle ground between these two representations is not nearly so Missional as we need to be.  We need to trend as close to the latter as we can get.

We as Kingdom people need to be a going people.  God is a going God, a sending God.  While He did say,

32 As for Me, if I am lifted up from the earth I will draw all [people] to Myself. - John 12:32 [HCSB]

and

44 No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day.- John 6:44 [HCSB]

he also said,

18 Then Jesus came near and said to them, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19 Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. - Matthew 28:18-19 [HCSB]

and

8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. - Acts 1:8 [HCSB]

[edit] Let me add here that in the above Scriptures, although there is the “drawing” of people, only God is doing it, because only God can do it.  It is impossible for churches or individual Christians to “draw” a person.  the best we can do is eliminate as many barriers as possible.  In other words, we need to get out of God’s way within the church and be salt and light outside the church. [/edit]

Up next:  Mimicking God’s Missionality - Incarnational Servanthood.  (That’s not the title, but the subject…)

Posts with related content

• December 24, 2008 -- Best Story of the Year (0)
• December 18, 2008 -- David Fitch on Missional Orders as Church Planting (2)
• December 8, 2008 -- Partnering with those outside your church (4)
• November 13, 2008 -- Local School Engagement (7)
• November 3, 2008 -- Simply Missional Article from Ed Stetzer and Eric Geiger (0)

Church, General Christian, Missional

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