But an attractional “seeker-friendly” service by itself can be just all milk and no meat.

Absolutely agreed!

I suppose it depends how you define the categories. New church sign, fresh coat of paint, good architecture, sound worship practice, adequate lighting, decent parking etc. are all important at a superficial level. Mostly common sense, but also non-necessary. Let a few years of economic depression sink in and throw in a little religious persecution, and people won’t care if the sign is dusty.

There is just something creepy about “attractional” that I simply can’t embrace. I’ll stick with Michael’s description of “kickin’ band and tech.” That may be attractive to some, but not to those who worship in my congregation. Most have fled this. That’s part of the problem – is the Gospel something to be “marketed” to target groups like underarm deodorant and running shoes?

Yeah, we use “tech” in form of microphones and a decent digital recorder, but we prefer our tech to be heard, not seen. Same with our musicians. And we’ll take a killer organ over a kickin’ band any Sunday, though I have no problem with “bands” and other creative instrumentation, so long as the hymns they produce are capable of doing the heavy lifting of corporate singing with content.

As Michael says, “Time will tell.”

Thank you for your gentle responses.

William. Your follow up comment was interesting. We just had a church evangelism committee meeting this afternoon. Comments were made about our dilapidated church sign. I made the comment that from the outside of our building there was not much to indicate that some exciting stuff was going on inside. There is some really good stuff happening at our church, baptisms, relationship building, meaningful worship. It is a healthy growing congregation. Yet we are doing so little to let the rest of our community know about it. I don’t know if this falls under the category of attractional or missional, but we need to be doing something that lets the community know that they are missing out on something big.

Wyman, I read your comment again in context, and I must admit that I reacted more to the word that the context. Though I also must admit that I don’t like slippery slope arguments, and taking things to the extreme to make the point.

On the other hand I totally agree with you that “sincere” by itself is not enough. The question is, where do you draw the line. Michael Spencer I think does a good job at drawing the line at Joel Osteen, Todd Bennett, Seven days of Sex, or the Family Research Council. There is an awful lot of room inside those extremes to be practicing our Christianity. Some/many are going to be sincere but misguided. I will probably be found among them at times. A small church I know close by to here spent $250,000 on their sound and video systems. Attactional absolutely. But it is matched with sound Biblical teaching, high church involvement in small groups, and every month they are seeing new converts and baptisms. Misguided or visionary? Time will certainly tell.

I was applying the term “ecclesiporn” to certain aberrant manifestations of “attractional” (i.e., people having sex on the platform) certainly not to all. My apologies if I painted with too broad a brush. I was hoping the context of that word would qualify it a bit. The church I pastor has and attempts certain “attractional” elements.

That being said, though, I do think there’s dangerous ground there when we start justifying whatever on the basis that the person doing said whatever is “sincere.” (I’m not suggesting that you would justify anything with this, just that it seems to be a common idea. “Sincere” = “right”.)

Blessings.

Wyman

Point well taken, Michael! I agree that was a cheap rhetorical shot. (I’ve tried to give up snarkiness as part of my Advent fast, but old Lutheran habits die hard – simul justus et peccator as we say). I should have stuck with IM’s original definition of “kickin’ bands and lots of technology” and left it at that. My sincere apologies to worship leaders everywhere.

I still think the “attractional” belongs to God, or specifically in the verse I cited, God the Father. Of course we all want to attract people to our churches to hear the Gospel, or at least not drive them away. The question I have is whether a church that intentionally sets out to attract an audience hasn’t already gotten off on the wrong foot.

I can find no evidence in Scripture or church history where putting on a good show was understood as part of the mandate to disciple the nations. In fact, the apostle Paul indicates that the power of the cross is hidden under weakness. Or as Isaiah says of Christ, “For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot, And like a root out of parched ground; He has no stately form or majesty That we should look upon Him, Nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him.” (Is. 53:2)

As a worship leader in a number of different churches that have tried to be somewhat attractional, my only qualifications for worship team members have been an ability to sing, and having a heart that wants to worship.

Throwing out terms like this to apply to people who are sincerely trying to reach others for Jesus Christ is offensive, insulting, and demeaning.

As can be seen in the original post and the many comments their are very good reasons to support liturgical/sacremental, missional, and attractional styles of ministry. Let us not fall into the trap of having to demean what others are doing in order to justify what we are doing.

If you are interested in reading more about why I feel so strongly about this, I have discussed this in greater depth at Eclectic Christian.

BTW, that “praise babes” line cracked me up. Kinda like the “anchor babes” on Fox News.

I have always thought that many churches considered ‘attractional’ provide an “easy on ramp”
to the Christian Faith. However, the problem becomes when the whole service becomes a ’sales pitch’ to attract unbelievers. I don’t think any of the Gangsta’s are against doing church in a winsome way, or wish to run the service in such away that deliberately turns off outsiders.
My father-in-law attended one of the premier mega churches in the country, located in SoCal. Half a dozen or more worship services on the weekend in four or five different venues depending on nyou preference of worship styles (Country Western, Hawaiian, Rock and roll etc.) with the sermon digitally pumped in from the main venue. He was part of the video crew. Along with many members of the “core” membership, the high point of his week was the mid-week service, designed to disciple the committed members. They had a time of worship and prayer followed by in depth Bible teaching. The service was regularly attended by 1200 to 1500 people. He liked it because it was geared to believers and had some substance to it. The church cancelled the service. When I called the church and (FINALLY)got hold of a pastor, I was told that because less than 10% of the church attended that service, it wasn’t worth “firing up the building” (lights, air conditioning,sound and video crews) for it, so they discontinued it.

Where does the New Testament authorize the use of the worship service as the the main means of evangelism? Since when do the Scriptures advocate polling the general populace to determine what the worship of the church will be like?( Which is how the church described above got it’s start) A lot of churches drink the kool-aid of seeker sensitivity to the point that they compromise the gospel and worship for it.

A sacrament is holy act. If we can return to a biblical view of beauty, then suddenly the sacred fits in perfectly like a puzzle piece. Sacredness is attractive; it is beautiful.

I think missional fits in equally well. From my understanding, the word “mass” comes from a latin phrase meaning “to depart”. What we receive from the sacred is taken to our homes, our jobs, our schools, our recreation, our civil duties. The sacred is directed outward. A mission is not bringing the world in but equipping and sending the missionaries out into the world (check out today’s gospel reading – Matthew 9:35 – 10:1, 5, 6-8). When that gets reversed – changing the goal to bring the world in – it is no wonder that there is no room for the sacred; that the lost are not being reached; that word and sacrament are replaced with “ecclesiporn”.