The Church Transforming: Attractional and Missional

Can you believe that only a couple hundred years ago (equivalent of 5-6 generations) if you were born in Western Europe you were automatically considered a member of some institutional/national church?  For example, during the American Revolution, if you were born in England, you were Anglican. Today, only a tiny number of those people’s great, great grandchildren consider themselves Christian. That’s because the church in Europe really didn’t change after the enlightenment.  Unfortunately the church we know today in the US was also largely built upon the premise of Christendom (Christian Civilization). The primary place to do any evangelical mission work was to those civilizations that had not yet been Christianized. Even the great growth of the church going westward during the 1800s was due in large part to a Christian culture that was imbedded into the imagination of the pioneers. 

This kind of church is the one that the mainstream institution still basically follows today. We stand on the assumption that if we put up a sign and build a structure, people will naturally come. In some sub-cultures, people will. If you are more traditional and carry on the practices of your grandparents, church may inherently be a part of your life. But if you're the majority of the people in our western context, you won't. We've responded to a culture that is post-Christian by ramping up our attractional efforts (better programs, more publicity, free coffee and donuts) rather than adapting our whole paradigm. In fact, the mainstream church in America is several decades behind the culture in this awareness of Christianity’s diminishing role in society. Folks in church lament the fact that society is no longer centered on "Christian values" and the obligation/duty of church attendance. But rather than adapt we complain and pray that things would return to the way they were. Even worse, we cling to a way of doing church that is comfortable to us but is no longer relevant or applicable to the majority of people (who by the way are disproportionately young).

The primary shift that must be made in our local churches is our strategies for growth. Most churches are almost entirely attractional in the way they gain new people. In other words, the non-churched have the burden of coming to us. We must move to a greatly increased focus on missional outreach, where we have the burden of going to them. This burden is not simply going outside the walls of the church to invite people back into the walls where we are comfortable. It is learning to do church in a new way that speaks the language of the people who otherwise will never come to Sunday morning worship.