Wednesday, October 17, 2007

The missional-attractional church

The family and I spent the weekend in Tennessee. We got to visit Gatlinburg (otherwise known as Hick Vegas) and I led a workshop at Johnson Bible College. We got to see the extended family. Abby's parents came down and her brother and sister in law and their kids. Good times all around.

One of the things I talked about at the conference was churches being missional. We need to be the hands and feet of Christ in the community. However, I have worked for churches that are very attractional...the whole come and see how cool this thing is...mentality. My conclusion is this: We must be missional or we'll die on the vine as a new church. However, we must be attractional so when people come to the "show" (I hate that I even just wrote that, but I think you get what I mean) they want to come back.

But the best way of looking at is what I heard from Mark Nelson, pastor of Crossings Church in Knoxville (where we worshipped on Sunday) who said "There is nothing more attractional, than a church that's living missionally."