The Attractional and Missional Church Models: Part 1

by Darren Rusco

Open Spaces functions under a church model that most people are unfamiliar with. It's actually pretty simple, but if you've functioned in another model long enough, it could seem complex. Forgive me for writing in broad generalities, but the typical church model goes something like this:

• The starting point: a group of believers (as many as possible) and church service.

• Missional philosophy: New churches usually start with a sense of mission, which is inviting unbelievers to quality church services or attracting them through events.

• Missional execution: At the core of the church service is a dynamic preacher/teacher and a dynamic music leader. Also important are dynamic kids ministries and hopefully a crowd of friendly, hospitable people. These will be kwy to attracting people to the church.

• Discipling or making disciples: More often than not, discipleship is some kind of program for believers to mature rather than for unbelievers to discover Jesus.

I call this the attractional church model. The believers have a culture inside their church service and the mission is to invite unbelievers into this culture in order to discover Jesus. When it comes to being on mission with Jesus, I see a bunch of problems with this model:

• The mission of the church becomes: "invite people to church services." Some churches explicitly state this as mission, especially for Easter, supposedly the prime day for unbelievers to show up. For other churches there is an implicit expectation for members to be involved with invitation. But Jesus never gave a commission of invitation. Jesus gave people authority and power to go make new disciples. The authority and power was given in order to minister how Jesus ministered. So this model depends upon unbelievers coming into our church service space to discover Jesus, rather than us going to them where they discover Jesus with us in their space.

• The mission of the church is transferred to the people on stage. If an unbeliever shows up, the music and preaching better be pretty good in order for the unbeliever to stay. That said, there are dozens of other churches in town with the same model for the unbeliever to attend. But disciple making is for all followers of Jesus - not just the anointed leaders.

• A huge challenge I see in this model is the potential for the senior leader to become the brand of any movement. The model is intrinsically attractional, and while the hope that people are attracted to Jesus, the reality is that people get attracted to the stage people. This is not entirely evil. I mean, often people are very much helped by a preacher. But what gets built is on the foundation of one person. And what happens if they leave? What happens to the campus? In this way, the model places a ceiling on kingdom movement based upon the capacity of the leader and the meeting location.

• Most churches come to the harsh realization that the overwhelming majority of new followers of Jesus did not believe after attending a church service but rather through the relationship of a trusted friend or family member. And because of this realization, most churches redefine their mission as for the purpose of equipping believers. As a result, these churches will carve out 10% of their budget to give to others outside the church who do mission with Jesus. And in this model, only a small minority of people are actually on mission with Jesus. If you ask someone in this model about the church's mission, they will usually point to the missions program or budget which is something outside the actual church.

• In this model, personal calling for members quickly gets limited to serving the church service on some level, which usually leads to disengaged followers of Jesus. While the Holy Spirit is breeding up dreams in people to change culture, the church is offering opportunities for parking attendants, chair stackers, or coffee makers. If indeed the member wants to accomplish their dream calling, they will likely not be able to do this through the church. And of course, these callings are usually missional.

• In reality, this model usually only attracts other believers who are unhappy with their current church situation. And often, this unhappiness is do to the lack of quality on the stage - bad preaching or bad music. Christians have a hard time admitting this - they will usually speak of community and doctrinal importance - but it's amazing how easy it can be to find community in a church with great music!

• In this model, at least 90% of resources - money, time, energy - are going into the production of the Sunday service, which is completely disconnected from mission. This money pays for a building, utilities, and the salaries for those who prepared the sermon and music.

• Usually in American culture, this model is led by a teacher. We ask our church leaders to be trained at seminaries where they read, write, and learn to teach. Senior Pastors are teachers. And so churches are teaching centers. At the center of the model is the Sunday service and at the center of the Sunday service is the sermon. Teachers have a high value in the kingdom, but in this model, voices of mission do not often have a seat at the senior leadership table. Evangelists usually cannot find a home in their church so they end up starting ministries separated from church.

For sure there are answers to the problems I presented. But I wonder if this is what Jesus had in mind when he told us to go make disciples. Open Spaces does not function under this model. In the next post, I will lay out another way.