On December 2nd, 2008 the following article was published on the Christianity Today blog aka “Out of Ur.” The article is incredibly challenging and intensely thought provoking not only because of its deep and practical ecclesial-centered content, but also because of the name attributed to it! The name “Dan Kimball” is as synonymous with the emerging/missional church movement as a name can be! The lot of his published books can be found in the Emerging/Missional section of the local Christian bookstore near you. So, to read his following reflections concerning the emerging/missional movement came as quite a surprise, to say the least. I’ll simply say this: It is refreshing to see such honest and critical self-examination of current movements. We would do well to spend some serious time thinking upon such things. I have spent the better part of two months with Kimball’s article. It’s been an edifying two months, too.
That’s why I printed the following off and read it with our leadership team during a recent leadership team meeting. We too need to offer our own movement up for a bit of critical self-reflection so we can be all that we are called to be in our context. So, again, for all who would read it, I offer the following examinations from Dan Kimball – a brother in the ministry we share. And I do challenge everyone from the ministry growing in Lancaster City to seriously consider these thoughts and their very credible source. Here’s Dan’s article:
Small, indigenous churches are getting lots of attention, but where’s the fruit?
I hope I am wrong. For the past few years, I have been observing, listening, and asking questions about the missional movement. I have a suspicion that the missional model has not yet proven itself beyond the level of theory. Again, I hope I am wrong.
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.
Not long ago I was on a panel with other church leaders in a large city. One missional advocate in the group stated that younger people in the city will not be drawn to larger, attractional churches dominated by preaching and music. What this leader failed to recognize, however, was that young people were coming to an architecturally cool megachurch in the city—in droves. Its worship services drew thousands with pop/rock music and solid preaching. The church estimates half the young people were not Christians before attending.
Conversely, some from our staff recently visited a self-described missional church. It was 35 people. That alone is not a problem. But the church had been missional for ten years, and it hadn’t grown, multiplied, or planted any other churches in a city of several million people. That was a problem.
Another outspoken advocate of the house church model sees it as more missional and congruent with the early church. But his church has the same problem. After fifteen years it hasn’t multiplied. It’s a wonderful community that serves the homeless, but there’s no evidence of non-Christians beginning to follow Jesus. In the same city several megachurches are seeing conversions and disciples matured.
I realize missional evangelism takes a long time, and these churches are often working in difficult soil. We can’t expect growth overnight.
But given their unproven track records, these missional churches should be slow to criticize the attractional churches that are making a measurable impact. No, I am not a numbers person. I am not enamored by how many come forward at an altar call. In fact, I am a bit skeptical. But I am passionate about Jesus-centered disciples being made. And surprisingly, I find in many large, attractional churches, they are.
Yes, people are attracted by the music, preaching, or children’s programs, but there may be more to these large churches than simply the programming. There are also people being the body of Christ in their communities. When these disciples build relationships with non-Christians, the evidence of the Spirit in their lives is attractive. The existence of programs and buildings does not mean mature disciples are not a significant reason why these churches grow.
There are so many who don’t understand the joy of Kingdom living here on earth and the future joy of eternal life. This joy motivates me missionally, but I also cannot forget the horrors of hell. This creates a sense of urgency in me that pushes me past missional theory to see what God is actually doing in churches—large and small, attractional and missional. Where are disciples actually being grown? What is actually working?
I hope there are examples of fruitful missional churches that I haven’t encountered yet. I hope my perception based on my interaction with the missional movement is wrong. But for now, I would rather be part of a Christ-centered megachurch full of programs where people are coming to know Jesus as Savior, than part of a church of any size where they are not.
Dan Kimball is the pastor of Vintage Faith Church in Santa Cruz, California.
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*Sigh*. I have been thinking about this “problem” as well. First off, thanks to Dan Kimball for such a challenging piece here. I definitely agree with almost everything he says, but I differ in some ways.
I think that the megachurches are definitely doing really great things by attracting a lot of people who do not identify themselves as Christ followers and I think that is great! However, the other piece of it is that most of these missional places seem to be trying to reach out to the people that are hardest to reach out too. White America goes well with these megachurches (not that all of them are this way, just an overwhelming majority that I’ve seen) and their entertainment-driven services. But these “missional” places are trying to reach out to the poor, to people that may be completely different from them in race, experiences, etc. Or take for instance Shawn and I’s church which is trying to reach out to anyone who needs the Gospel, but trying to attract an intelligent Arts community that generally hates everything traditional about Evangelical Christianity. Is that a healthy view? No, but it is where a lot of us have been.
I guess I look at it that in order to convince someone of the truth of the Gospel who does not have a whole lot of baggage with the church is much easier than someone who knows nothing of Him. Also, take into account the other outside factors. For instance, the arts community is a very loose group of people who do “come and go”. They are not going to be the big money givers because they live simplistic lives and aren’t working for the corporate behemoths. Or, take the community that Shawn affects with this blog. Shawn is not getting a head count for the hundreds he is impacting here (well…somewhat online with some sweet tracking software ha). My point is that every church defines it’s market: the people it is targeting to reach out too and attract. Many megachurches I’ve experienced are attracting the upper-class (not some of these megachurches in places like NYC, but the ones I’ve mostly been to have been in suburbia), while the “missional” churches are reaching out to the lost and forgotten.
So I pose the question I have at my blog: Where would Jesus choose to go to church every week if he was deciding between the two places? [I'm not making that answer as easy as it seems with my logic pointing towards the missional church.]
However, in my defense of the missional church, I take seriously the challenge that Dan has said. There is a lot of fruit coming from these megachurches and even if they are not how we like to experience God, it would serve every missional person well to digest the positive things being done in those places.
Yeah, I’d agree with your thoughts, Sig.
I would, however, like to clearly differentiate between the “mega-church” model and “attractional” aspects of the church. I think a church can be attractional while avoiding the pitfalls of the mega-church model. I’m not interested at all in the mega-church model, but I am interested in introducing people to the Kingdom of God and solid discipleship. Both of these things seem to be absent from the house church model. And I say so as a church planter who has invested more than a year into the house church model.
There is a better way …
Oh and one more thing Sig – The emerging/missional church movement is almost all white too. I have to say that in response to your point about the mega-church being almost exclusively white. It’s no small secret that People of Color generally avoid emerging/missional churches and instead look for “attractional” elements…
Yes, my observation is that emerging/missional churches are the kind of “stuff white people like”, but a lot depends on how you define “missional”. Does it just mean a particular movement?
And why the antithesis between “missional” and “attractional”? Is this the same as the distinction between “centrifugal” and “centripetal” mission, or does it refer to something else?
Great questions, Steve. And I think the difficulty in answering them clearly and quickly is symptomatic of the inherent issues with emerging/missional church.
Movements that need defining like this are not movements at all, honestly.
Oh any movement needs to define its terms, especially if it uses specialised jargon. The difficulty arises when the meaning of the jargon is known only to the in-group, and is never explained for the benefit of anyone else.