Posted on December 2, 2008 - by Stephen Murray
Dan Kimball asks Questions About Being Missional
‘We all agree with the theory of being a community of God that defines and organizes itself around the purpose of being an agent of God’s mission in the world. But the missional conversation often goes a step further by dismissing the “attractional” model of church as ineffective. Some say that creating better programs, preaching, and worship services so people “come to us” isn’t going to cut it anymore. But here’s my dilemma—I see no evidence to verify this claim.”
Wow!!!!! – that’s all I can say after reading Dan Kimball’s Missional Misgivings. Here’s an emerging/missional leader sharing some serious misgivings about the state of the missional church. His little article is definitely going to draw some heat – but its also going to make a lot of people think very hard about what it means to be missional. I wonder if the issue is not so much attractional versus missional but rather the content of the gospel message preached in either approach. I’m convinced that when the gospel is rightly proclaimed people are converted and disciples are made. For me the missional approach rightly suggests that there is an important context for that gospel proclamation – the redemptive community on mission – but at the end of the day the transformative power is in the gospel message, missional or not. Perhaps the reason why many missional models have failed to get off the ground is because the community has been prized over the message – but that’s pure speculation on my part. Either way, Kimball has made us think.
(HT – Jason)
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Stephen Murray
Christian, husband to my beautiful Robin, missional dreamer, pastor, church planter, Arsenal, Sharks and Springbok supporter, surfer (in the real sea), patriotic South African, Capetonian. Find out more about the church planting work I'm involved in at my support blog.
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December 2, 2008
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Chris Gensheer said:
Your wrote: “I wonder if the issue is not so much attractional versus missional but rather the content of the gospel message preached in either approach,”
To which I say, “Amen!”
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December 2, 2008
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jason allen said:
His comments about the examples of 35 people in 10 years are poignant. I remember a gathering where a church planter was leading a break-out session on missional church planting. The vibe was, here’s a cool, hip church planter with the now-typical story, “dude left mega-church staff to do something different.” They were 6 or 7 years in and had 15 people “doing life together.” That was a small defining moment for me.
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December 3, 2008
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Reggie said:
Although he denies this but, the thinking of Kimbal seems to be summed up in the quote:
“But his church has the same problem. After fifteen years it hasn’t multiplied….”
Is the ’success’ of church measured in numbers again ? If missional is all about competing with big-ness, then obviously this is nothing more then the ‘church growth’ paradigm in a new garb. Or did I miss the point, here
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December 3, 2008
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Stephen said:
Reggie I think there’s a difference between being a numbers person and being a person concerned with growth. Any movement that is not concerned about growth cannot be a healthy movement. The very nature of Christianity demands that we be a people who are concerned to spread out and multiply because our Saviour deserves worship from all people.
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December 4, 2008
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brad brisco said:
Stephen
I first have to say that I have great respect for Kimball and his ministry. I have read each of the books he has written and subscribe to his blog. He is a good thinker and articulates his positions very well; however, I think there is much to consider with Kimball’s critique of the missional church.
Kimball’s assessment that the missional movement is “unproven” is riddled with problems. First, I do not believe there has been enough time to adequately “judge” most of the missional movement. It is by nature a slow, grassroots, momentum building movement. We just don’t know yet. Second, I believe there are many missional leaning churches/groups that no one ever hears about because they are small. Third, we should be reminded once again that the number of people in a corporate gathering is not always a clear indication of ministry effectiveness. I am often skeptical of numbers of “unchurched” who are attending attractional churches.
Moreover, Kimball’s antidotal example of an “unproven” missional church is completely inadequate. A sampling size of one does not make a case. I could give multiple examples of large, attractional churches that are filled with people whose only commitment to Christ is the “sacrifice” of given the church one hour a week to attend a corporate gathering.
Now having said the above, I do think his words should cause those of us in the “missional camp” to reflect a bit on his critique. I have to admit that as a result of seeing/hearing and being a part of churches the focus the majority (in some case ALL) of their resources on developing and maintaining programs to attract people to the church, I have been guilty of pushing the “attractional is bad, missional is good” argument too hard and too often.
In contrast I have come to realize it is much more helpful to consider a continuum rather than an either/or proposition. I hope in every church we will learn to move in a missional direction with our resources such as prayer, time, facilities, people and finances.
In either case the sooner we recognize that more and more people are less and less interested in what the church is doing the better position we will be. Should we be attractional? For me the answer is YES, if what is attractive is a grace-filled, Christ-formed community that is living a sent, missionary life, not for itself but for the benefit of others.
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December 4, 2008
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Daniel said:
Maybe instead of working from the assumption that the church should “organize” itself around the purpose of being an agent of God’s mission in the world”, maybe the church should instead organize itself around Christ.
The common denominator between “missional” approach and the “attractional” approach, is that they both still try to have an approach at all. God never asks us to do this…
I can totally identify with the previous comment about hip, break-away church planters who think it’s all about “doing life together”, we’ve experienced our fair share of that, and it has felt very stagnant from our perspective too… It seemed that the problem with those situations is that it’s all about our hipness, and our ideas, basically all about us, and following Jesus takes a backseat to being hip. I think a lot of people getting on the ‘missional-train’ are reacting to this to a degree, being drawn to the idea that it’s not about us, but about the lost people out there. (which is good…) However, it still falls into back into the mindset that somehow, we, as human beings, can strategically figure out to “go out”, and it’s just as non-dependant on the Spirit’s unseen moving and working as the human strategies that try and figure out how to get the people to “come in”.
The hardest thing for us to do as the Church, it would seem, is to just sit back, follow Christ, and let HIM send us out, and let HIM bring them in… With no formulas, no buzzwords, no church-planting gurus…
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December 4, 2008
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Chris in RVA said:
David Fitch has written a helpful response to Dan Kimball’s article. Find it here.