Attractional vs. Incarnational

First of all, I'm posting two articles in one night, so check to see if you've read the one below, too...

Anyway, I just wanted to mull over some ideas about the way evangelism is done. I mentioned in a previous post that we're moving our "postmodern" ministry from a top-down approach to a bottom-up approach. What I mean by that is this: instead of starting a church service ("top") and having people come to that service and then hopefully start other ways to provide spiritual growth through, say, small groups, we start with smaller groups that are church ("bottom") and then, as the need arises, provide a larger worship gathering for those groups.

In some of the literature I've been reading, the words used to describe these two different strategies of ministry are attractional and incarnational. Attractional churches say, "Here we are. Here's what we offer. Come to our church." They work very hard to attract people to their church. Incarnational churches say, "We're going to go to where you are. We want to know what's going on in your life and we want to become a part of what's going on in your life."

Some argue (and I think I tend to agree) that the incarnational is the more biblical. After all, God didn't try to attract us to himself--he was incarnated in Jesus. He came into our world and met us where we were (John 1:14 - "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.").

Even then, however, there was some attraction involved. Jesus says in Matthew 11:28, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." But Jesus didn't try to attract people until after he had gone into their world. Only then did he say, "Come."

I think the attractional worked for a long time--especially in a culture that was to a large extent ecclesiocentric (How's that for a big word? Can you believe I just made it up--it means "church-centered."). When most people went to church, all a church had to do was provide what people wanted.

But now that most people are not interested in church, we have to be willing to go into their world. They sure as heck don't want to come into the world of the church!

Here's a short but really helpful article that goes a little more in depth on incarnational and attractional ministry. And here's one that discusses the strengths and weaknesses of not two, but three, different approaches to evangelism.