One of bigger shifts in church planting over the years is from attractional to missional. “Build a program and they will come” is just not true anymore. Missional church plants require living incarnationally in order to draw people toward Jesus. But this isn’t to say that attractional churches can’t practice incarnational living as well—the most successful attractional churches have powerful incarnational living on the front end… before people are invited to services. With some of the more successful attractional churches, we just don’t realize how much incarnational, missional ministry is going on behind the scenes.
So—in answer to my own question—I think that if an attractional church is defined simply as one that holds public worship services that they hope to attract people to, then it can also be missional. In both cases, people are being introduced to the faith community.
Regardless of its structure, what is your church doing to help its people live incarnationally?
Bob,
At La Canada Presbyterian Church, we have a missional living training event coming on Sat, May 21, 2011. There is not a key note speaker or anyone from outside coming in to tell us how to do it. Rather, we are spending time together asking key questions that help us to take a look at 5 areas of our life, identify which one helps us connect more with people outside existing churches, and spend time listening to God for what our next step might be in that one area. Questions, self reflection, questions, reflection on community, questions, reflection on scripture and waiting in silence and listening for God’s nudging. It’s an open event, so others can join us at 9am. http://www.lacanadapc.org