Incarnational vs. Attractional
Should a church be “attractional” or should it be “incarnational”?
In other words, should it focus on getting people to come to the church or should it focus on going out into the community and being the church there.
Here’s what I think: A church should be both.
A church should absolutely go out into the community and serve people who aren’t yet connected to God. But a church should also do its best to make its worship services something that truly blesses people–one of the worst things for a church is for people to leave thinking, “What a waste of my time.”
My friend, D.G., just e-mailed me a link to a poll that was done by Church Marketing Sucks in which they asked people what would bring them back to a church. The number one response for what would bring someone back to a particular church was…
Authenticity.
I think that’s awesome! And that’s the kind of “attractiveness” a church needs to focus on. Are we really being who we say we are. Being “incarnational” is “attractive” to people because people want to belong to a movement, not just a church service.
The number two answer was having teaching that was engaging. And I think that’s important, too.
Here are two questions that I think a church needs to ask itself
1) Are we really being the church in our community and in the world, and do people recognize that in our worship?
2) Is our teaching moving people to respond in such a way that they, too, want to become a part of what the church is doing in the community and in the world?
21 Jun 2007 markus
Markus Watson
I think your two questions hit the nail on the head. I know that is what I want to do and what Ted and I were just talking about last night. We want our small group to get our ministry going so we feel those things and want to keep going. We are finding “life” bogging us down from starting and isn’t that sad because getting out there with our ministry is what life should be about. I want my kids to learn to do these things without even thinking about it. Those should be the memories I try to make with them as I stay home with them. Not just the movies and water park.
I think that’s great that you want to do that with your small group! My hope is that our church might become a church made up of small groups who are constantly finding ways to serve in the community–constantly finding ways to demonstrate and to announce the love of Jesus.
you rock Markus! but I think that it still needs to be cleared up about the evil side of attractional church… that churches put all their focus on a performance or one ministry, and they become no different in their actions than a movie theater, carnival, Wal-Mart, etc… (please don’t misunderstand me of course at their heart is life and life abundantly through Christ, but all churches need to seriously ask themselves who are they attracting others to?