Missional-Incarnational and Evangelistic-Attractional Church

A while back I posted about The Shaping of Things to Come (TSOTTC) conference that my bro and I went to. Michael Frost and Alan Hirsh, authors of the book by the same name TSOTTC and missiologists/practitioners in Australia, were the presenters/dialogue guides for the day. At the conclusion of the conference Ed Stetzer (of the North American Mission Board) lead the group in a guided Q&A. I'll attempt to dialogue about some of the "main points" that influenced me as a result of the meeting.

Missional-Incarnational & Evangelistic-Attractional Church

The M-I and E-A Church dialogue was perhaps the "meat" of the conference. This posting will serve as an introduction to terminology and set the stage for a future post that will go deeper into the M-I and E-A Church.

M-I Church: Reflective of the Early Church's missional impulse. Missional/Incarnational are 2 sides of the same coin, reflecting Christian community that moves both outward (missional) and deeper (incarnational) into culture. Those within an M-I Church movement view themselves as "sent ones" (apostolic). The central focus of the community is the shared, common mission. Evangelism and mission are synonymous in that both occur regularly across cultural barriers even within the same city (for example, my current hometown area, Atlanta, is such a mulit-cultural melting-pot). Success is measured in multiplication of Churches and quality of disciples.

E-A Church: Reflective in the "Church-Growth" movement; the Constantinian model ("Constantinian" referring to the Church becoming the state religion of the Roman Empire under Emperor Constantine). Evangelistic/Attractional Church is "extractional" by nature, meaning converts are brought out of their cultures and assimilated into a new culture (Christian/Church). Evangelism occurs within the same/similar cultural context; hence, homogeneous Church demographics. Whereas, mission occurs outside of the culture. Therefore, the E-A Church does not regularly reach across cultural barriers unless they are engaged in "mission" (often "mission" is programized as sending missionaries, going on short-term mission trips, etc.). Success in E-A Church is measured in numbers of Church members, baptisms, program attendance, etc..

For the past several centuries (over a millennium), the Western Church has been operating primarily in an E-A mode. This "worked" for the most part, but in this post-everything culture it is not nearly as effective. In the county I live in, 70% of the population are completely "unChurched," meaning they have little to no connection or interest in Christianity. Therefore, the E-A Church (the majority of all Churches) is effectively reaching only 30% of my local neighborhood...

Posts in this series:

The Shaping of Things to Come Conference

Differences between the M-I and E-A Church

Consequences of the E-A Church: (1) building mentality, (2) missiology, (3)consumerism, (4) passive Christians

The mega-Church: crowning achievement of the E-A model

Dialogue with Dr. Ed Stetzer on The Shaping of Things to Come

Comments

[mo]

I have a hard time with this...not because I don't see good things in it but because of the words used. It seems to me that there is a subconscious (maybe conscious) feeling that E-A=modern/bad and M-I=post/pre-modern/good.

I would argue that the Constantinian model had its place in history, and I would venture to say that without the Roman Empire you and I would not be Christians. I'm not trying to limit God, just saying it's a big tool that He used to spread the gospel.

I also think that the attractional model is Biblical. As a community of believers we SHOULD be attractive to the world. I would hope that others would be attracted to the light that they see in us and our community.

Even in the missional model, as I understand it, we are still going to run into the problem of only reaching 30%. The call is for people to be missional to the people they relate to. So say I relate to groups a, b & c and I meet Adam in group c, and he becomes a Christian and I disciple him and he preaches the gospel in groups c, d & e. The hope is that eventually the gospel is spread through groups a-z, but I am still only reaching my 30%. I don't think people in most modern/attractional churches would argue that this isn't the ideal. The problem is that somewhere along the line most American churches started targeting the same 30%. I think this happened when the "programized" mission became the end all of church mission instead of a starting point to encourage people into deeper mission.

I guess what I'm saying is that I think missional/attractional both need to be "different sides of the same coin". We need to respond to the Holy Spirit by going into the community and spreading the gospel & those in the community need to respond to respond the Holy Spirit making us attractive to them.

Just my $.02

[adam]

thanks, mo. i agree with you that an m-i and e-a dichotomy is almost like splitting hairs. i think that they are both related (hence why i said m-i "and" e-a and not "vs") and will talk more about that in a later post. for now, i'm just posting some of hirsch/frost's ideas for dialogue. (um... which you're doing!)

further, i agree w/ what you said about the targeting of 30% of the population...

[Steve McCoy]

I'm not sure I agree with you guys on this one. I see M-I as thoroughly biblical and as natural Christian living and church life. I see E-A as taking some biblical basics of evangelism and distorting it a bit to fit cultural entanglements. When I read Acts I see M-I everywhere all the time. If I ever see E-A, it's always mixed in with M-I. Does that make sense? In other words, any attractional model will only work if when they are attracted there is a missional pull that gets them there and a missional response by the Christians present.

So in that sense there isn't a dichotomy, BUT IMHO the M-I understanding of things is the Mississippi River and E-A is but a lowly tributary.

Great post, I linked to it Adam. I'm reading the book and it's very good.

[adam]

thanks for your input, steve. i would concur that there is much more biblical basis for the m-i church than there is the e-a church structure. i also agree that e-a must exist within an m-i framework and not vice-versa (the opposite of which, i believe, is PART of the issue w/ the irrelevance of most churches). but, as mo said, we cannot discount the fact that the e-a church has "worked" (ugly word) for several centuries and is still working... albeit marginal at this point in time. if i err in this dialogue, it will be on finding a balance between the two. you will find, however, that when it comes to the chicken-and-egg dialogue, i argue for the m-i as predecessor of e-a.

btw, thanks for linking. i hope to further explore these ideas over the next few days.

[Rick Marshall]

Great post Adam. I linked to it on my blog and my collegiate ministry blog. When I poll the students in my collegiate ministy about their backgrounds almost all of them say that they have come out of a churched background. For most of these people the E-A church has worked. And the E-A church seems to be doing a good job of feeding the flock. But, those in my group without a church background (and the numbers are getting larger) have typically come to know the Lord through relationship evangelism (my students/their friends living a misisonal life before them) would have never been attracted to the church. It was through the church being attracted to a relationship with them and loving on them that worked.

We have one student who was raised in Nepal and grew up a Hindu. The E-A chruch never had any impact on him. A relationship started by one of my missionally minded students is what showed him the love of Christ in human form. I don't think the E-A church is a thing of the past, but I do think that it works for a select group of people who typically grew up churched. As we become less and less churched I believe we need to move to a more misisonal mindset.

[Maryellen]

Ok guys, so I'm not on the same intellectual level as all you seminarians,(I teach Jr. High Special Ed after all) and the language on the post is a little beyond me...still, I see myself as M-I, living on the Navajo Reservation, I can see where E-A can be pretty determental to the spreding of the gospel. Actually the E-A model as I understand it, has been used here for over 200 years and there are still only 5% native americans who even claim to be Christians. American Christians have to realize that Christianity is not an American thing. Native Americans still refer to it as the Whiteman's Religion. And Christianity is not a western idea or a European Idea. I think one of the biggest mistakes the "church" ever made was to turn the missionary work over to the sons of Japeth, when it should have been done by the sons of Shem, from whom all major "religions" of the world came.

[adam]

rick and maryellen, i resonate with what you are saying regarding previously "un-churched" folks not able to connect with the e-a. incidentally, maryellen, my wife lived in an eskimo village for several years and found a similar experience with the catholic church presence there.

[Steve McCoy]

Adam, is it possible that the E-A has "worked" not because, but in spite of itself? I don't mean to overstate it and say there is nothing good about it. I do think it's fine in some cases, but again the real "work" is being done by the hidden M-I that never leaves those who have really been transformed by the Spirit.

[Scott]

My greatest bone to pick with E-A is the E. Being attractive to non-Christians is a natural consequence of a healthy, vibrant church, but the extractional aspect bothers me. It's the "mission station" approach in which people are pulled out of their culture and the communities to seek safe haven in a new Christian sub-culture/ghetto. The new believer then has adopted by default an "us vs them" stance instead of an "us with them" stance. Now a member of different culture, the new believer has burned or allowed to decay a lot or relational bridges that otherwise would have been powerful bridges of understanding and acceptance. The pros of encouraging new believers to remain within their culture simply outweigh the difficulties incurred. The new believer who stays also has the ability to display the redeemable aspects of his/her culture.

[adam]

steve, you bring up a good point. that's something to consider... perhaps the e-a has worked because it has been the primary (majority) expression for the past several centuries. i think there is some "real" work going on in e-a circles... perhaps not with the same level of "quality" in "hidden" m-i churches.

scott, i'm with you on your thinking regarding "extractional." i'll be making a post on that later this week...

[Steve McCoy]

Scott, good comments. That was helpful for me.

Thanks Adam. Great topic.

[Gerry]

To be quite honest the hardest part of all this for me is I know that I have been raised in an E-A format with an M-I mindset and that has affected me. I see the biggest difference in something like this..."Hey bro you ought to come visit my church." That being the only way a person presents Christ to someone as suppose to "Hey bro, I really enjoyed our talk yesterday over lunch. I was wondering if we could get together again and talk about some of the questions you were asking me." E-A come to me mindset...M-I I will go to them mindset.