Attractional, missional, exponential and many more “al” words

This post is somewhat of a follow up to this post and my experience last week at the Exponential Conference.

There has been this debate/conversation in the church world over a philosophy of doing church.  It typically is cast as an either or.  You can either be an attractional church or missional church.

I have always wondered, “But shouldn’t we be attractive to those not in church?”

And at the same time I have wondered, “Jesus certainly said to GO, so we need to live missionally as well.”

Two things really helped clarify a distinction that we have to be careful about:

In The Tangible Kingdom, Halter and Smay present there alternative church lifestyle as A way and not THE way.

The real meat of the book comes at the end where they describe the kind of life that creates incarnational communities.  They offer a different way because of the central question to the book (in my words):

Does the way we typically do church where so much focus is on the Sunday service prohibit or limit our ability to actually be with and minister to people?

Their answer a lot of the time is yes.

So, their focus has been on getting their faith communities to be with people and use Sunday mornings mainly for the purpose of vision casting and encouragement but not outreach. Outreach is what happens when life touches life in a conversation or an act of service.

Unlike so many books that advocate this, they do not tell everyone that is involved in an attractional form of church to leave do what they do.  Instead, they encourage anyone that resonates with what they say to experiment within their context.

And then a second clarifying thing: This past week at the Exponential Conference, Alan Hirsch said something that really turned a light bulb on for me.  He said that a better word for “attractional” is “extractional,” because that’s the danger of only focusing on Sunday morning.  People are extracted from their mission field to spend more time at a church building.

If I’ve learned anything in planting Suncrest-East it’s that people naturally want to make church about a building or place, and it’s not!  So the tension I wrestle with is this:  How do we gather for the sake of cooperate worship and teaching without making it all about Sunday morning?

And this: “How do I as a pastor, not just work in the church and on the church but live missionally?

 

Exponential takeaway #1

I’m writing this several thousand feet above the earth. It’s an appropriate place to be as I am trying to capture in a few words a bird’s eye view of my Exponential Conference experience. For me the ultimate question is, “What am I taking away?”

I have a ton of notes.

I have several specific statements I wrote down as “takeaways.”

And one reinvigorated desire to join Jesus in transforming the world.

It’s so easy to get caught up in the daily grind…even as a pastor…and lose sight of my calling.

Church planting has increasingly become a part of that calling. 4 years ago I came to Suncrest with a desire to get closer to the church planting world. 2 years ago I started on a track to launch our East campus (a hybrid of church planting). 6 months ago we launched Suncrest-East.

I believe that church and campus planting is the most significant evangelistic effort the church can undertake. By starting life-giving churches and campuses in communities that desperately need them Jesus will transform lives. And when he transforms lives he transforms communities. And when he transforms communities he will transform nations. And when he transforms nations he will transform the world.

 

Bob Roberts at Exponential

He ran out of time, but said he would post the rest of his notes at his blog:  www.glocal.net:

The best way to learn how to plant a church is to look at what is happening around the world.

Most important questions:

What is the church? What is called God me to plant?
We argue over forms and philosophies why the world is going to Hell?

If he was going to plant a church he would:
-Get 10-20 people to praying for him.
-Read the book of Acts, Matthew, Luke
-Go off and spend some solitude time with God and ask God, “What do you want me to do?”

1. It’s the Gospel of the Kingdom of God.
–Does it bother you we can grow a mega church and our communities are not any different?
–Kingdom – Disiciple – Church – Community

2. It encompasses the reconcilliation of all things.
–the grid is the society

3. The focus is on the disciple, not the preacher.
–Every believer is a church planter

4. All religions are all places which makes for a naked public square and thoughtful communication.
–If Paul would have treated Jewish leaders like most American Christians treat Muslim leaders, the Gospel would have never spread.

5. Knowing other religions isn’t just for the experts but for everyone who would communicate who Jesus is.

6. Risk is seen in life and death not nickels and noses.

7. Never vilify another religion.
–Paul didn’t do this.

 

Craig Groeschel – Session 2 at Exponential

What I believe about church determines how I do church.

Do not be conformed to the pattern of the American church.

1. A movement will never be safe, predictable and clean.
–the church must become dangerous again.
–We are unintentionally inviting people to a better life. When you read the NT you see this die to your self, hardcore faith.
–Preach a dangerous message, the full Gospel. Not necessarily edgy, but challenging. Preach Christ crucified.
–We must invite people to experience the power of Christ.
–It must never be about the package. It’s about HIS presence.
–Just because you believe in Jesus does not mean you are following Jesus.
–Let the church become dangerous again.

2. A movement will never be about your ministry but about His kingdom.
–build your church on what it’s about, not what it’s not about.
–build it on what you are, not what you are not.

3. You will not lead a movement on the old measurements of success.
–The scorecard has changed.
–Old – attendance, offering, baptisms, small groups – these are still important but…your identity can’t be wrapped up in the numbers
–Don’t blame yourself for the declines because you will be tempted to take credit for the increases.
–You will be tempted to preach messages to bring people in. You will be tempted to beg them to stay instead of blessing them by giving them permission to leave.
–“When you think of 4 billion people who need Christ, we can’t say we are ‘big’.”
–If you think you are big you will start moving slowly.
–People don’t want to know how many people you are going to bring in. They want to know how many people you are going to send out.
–3 levels of buying into the Gospel:
—believe enough in it to benefit from it – line #1
—believe enough to contribute comfortably – line #2
—believe enough to give my life to it – line #3

–as God gives you success you are tempted to fade back

 

Alan Hirsch on “Missional”

This breakout was primarily about what it means to be “missional.”  Here’s my rough notes:In defining missional we are tempted to apply it to everything we do.

Truth is sustained in the clarity of words.
The word missional and everything it represents carries the full weight of the future of the church.
More of the same will not get significantly better results.
The problems of the world cannot be solved by the same type of thinking that created those problems.

It is not:
-emerging – largely a renewal movement
-simply being evangelistic; just because it’s outreach doesn’t mean it’s missional; typically done by telling people they have to come to our “culture”; to be missional is to be a sent people
—you should be attractive, but what happens is “extractional”; people are extracted from their culture
-social justice – part of it, but not exclusively; an expression of it;
-simply church planting – a tool that missionaries use

All mission in the West should be cross-cultural.

Every church planter needs to think like a missionary.
-missionary stance in relation to culture
-missionary distance – attractional works when people are only slightly removed; but in a far removed culture whre missionaries deal attractional is actually extractional;

It’s not so much that the church has a mission as much as the mission has a church. God is a mission in the world and we can join him in that mission.

You do not bring God into a place. He is already there.
The job is to disern the hand of God in people you would normally write off.

Mission is the outward thrust, not collection but a driving out.
Incarnation is the way the sent God comes to us.
-God is in the neighborhood for 30 years and no one notices. That says a lot about his patience, respect for culture, and how we should engage the world. Subversive.
-Mission best expresses itself incarnationally.

What are the marks of the church?
-People
-Jesus
-Covenant community
-Transformation/discipleship
-Mission
-Worship

Most churches center themselves around worship.
When we say missional church, we mean that mission is the organizing principle.

 

Erwin McManus at Exponential

My rough notes from the 1st session of Exponential:

When talking about movements we have to ask ourselves, what exactly we are trying to move.

To plant a church you have to consider what space you inhabit.

Acts 17:16f –
Paul takes us through 3 spaces:
1. Paul goes to the synagogue which seems odd.
–It was a familiar place
–We end up creating better spaces for Christians.
–the reason we only reach people just like us is that we really just like people like us.
–we need a movement that is not self directed
–Love covers a multitude of irrelevance.
–The current expression of church is that we create spaces and invite people in.
–They do “10 minute” parties where they invite nonxians to
–“If I can’t answer you questions well enough it’s not because there’s not a god, it’s because I’m stupid.”
–“Jesus is the best in the world at creating community where you can bring your atheistic friends.”

2. Marketplace – where we live
–saying “I’m a pastor is like saying “i’m a cannibal, do you want to have lunch?”
–you have to find a different nuance of language
–you can’t say people aren’t open in the marketplace. They just don’t know who to have a conversation with and trust.
–People are looking for people with “presence.”
–If we don’t learn how to reach the real world we won’t make a real difference.

3. v. 19 – a place you cannot go unless you are invited – Areopagus
–a place you have to earn the right to be invited into
–living in such a way that people ask what makes our lives so different.
–We stop trying to be popular in the world and we go after the Dionysus (those who don’t fit, those on the fringe)…who risk the disdain of the 1st place to reach the 3rd place.

 

Dinner with Ed Stetzer and Alan Hirsch

So I had dinner tonight with Ed Stetzer and Alan Hirsch…along with about 50 of my closest friends.  Actually Mary Beth, Tim, Kevin and Andy are here in beautiful Orlando for the Exponential Conference.  We had an opportunity to attend a dinner put on by the Upstream Collective and hear from two great thinkers and practitioners in the church planting world.  Here’s a few highlights from Ed and Alan:

Ed Stetzer:

• A lot of people fall in love withtheir model before they fall in love with their mission.

• The how of ministry is determined by the who, what and when.

• Does our model create spectators?

• Watching a great communicator is good, but we need to reproduce the great communicators as well.

• The term “missional” has become a theological junk drawer. We see in the word what we don’t like about the current church.
• Missional in our context, mission minded in the global context

• Every culture has things we can:

-adopt
-adapt
-reject

Alan Hirsch

• Plant in the hard places.
• Live missionally and let the church come from that.
• You have to unlearn and then relearn before you can plan.

• Question about what he specifically would do if he moved into a new neighborhood:

-Find where the social hotspots are and hang out.
-Make friends outside the church.
-Get the church out of the comfortable zone and into public places.

• 3 keys in living missionally:

-Proximity
-Frequency
-Spontaneity – to invite them to your home

• You become a chaplain to the system if you can’t challenge it.

Great stuff and this was just a little precursor.

 

The 3 questions of Dave Gibbons

I recently read The Monkey and the Fish by Dave Gibbons. In it he talked about 3 questions that have been a filter for deciding direction for him personally and for the church he leads. They are:

1.  Who is my neighbor?

2. What’s my pain?

3. What is in my hand?

Who is my neighbor? is a question related to Luke 10:25-37.  Through this parable Jesus teaches that our “neighbor” are those who are around us but very different than us.

What’s my pain? is a question about personal brokenness and passion.  What are you most passionate about?  What pain in your past has been a catalyst for passion?

What is in my hand? is a question about the gifts, skill and interests God has given you.  It’s about using what God has given you to work towards His mission.

These may be 3 of the most powerful questions I’ve ever considered.

What do you think?

 

A successful church

I recently read in a church’s newsletter the statement that God wanted them to be a successful church.  I seriously doubt anyone at first glance would take issue with that statement, but the more I pondered it, the more I disliked the statement.  Before this begins sounding judgmental you should know that I would have prayed that very statement at one point in my life.  But something over the last several years has changed in my thinking.

I’m not sure what WE mean by successful is really what God means by successful.  In the church world, what is typically meant by successful is butts in the seats and money in the offering.  These are two easily quantifiable metrics.  The assumption is made that if you grow in numbers then you are being successful.  That is certainly not always the case.  You could just have the best show in town on Sunday morning.

Now I think numbers are important.  The book of Acts record more than once how many people assembled or how many people were saved.  So numbers are important, they are just not everything.  They never tell the whole story.

I remember a comment made during a “revival” at a church I served.  A revival is an old church term to describe having church services for 3 or more nights in a row to reach out to those who are not saved.  “Revival” became the fashionable name for this outreach event even though “revival” was originally a description of the Holy Spirit’s movement and not the name of an event.  Anyway, one of the leaders in looking at the attendance that day said, “If we are not careful, we are going to be a big church.”

He ws bragging about the attendance that day and missed the point.  In attendance was a lot of people from the church and a lot of people form other churches but NO ONE new and NO ONE who was not already a Christian.  He would have said that “revival” was a success when in reality it was a horrible failure for its purpose.

So does God want us to be a successful church?  Well of course He wants us to succeed at HIS mission.  But HIS mission is not getting people into a building.  His mission is making disciples, however that needs to happen.  And sometimes we can gauge our success with numbers, but they never tell the whole story.

Monday morning rant is now officially over.

 

Rhode Island Project

I’m standing in the Manchester, NH airport, heading home after the Rhode Island church plant partnership team retreat.  This was a great two day experience getting to know the church plant and partnership team.  This is a first for me so I’m really excited on two fronts.

First, I love church planting.  My time at Suncrest has lit a fire under me for church planting.  I believe that church planting is the very best evangelism tool we have as churches.

Second, I have always wanted to get to know Restoration House Ministries (RHM).  RHM is the church planting group for New England sponsored by Christians Churches around the nation.  With only 1 independent Christian church per 876,390 people (as compared to 1 per 50,000 people in other areas of the United States) it is easy to see why they are needed.

The newest plant and the one I will encourage through the partnership team participation on behalf of Suncrest is going to be in Providence county, Rhode Island.  Less than 18% of all residents in Rhode Island attend any Catholic or Protestant Church.  This is prime territory for a new church.

The launch will be October of this year, so pleae pray for this new church work as there is huge potential for hundreds upon hundreds of people coming to Christ as a result.