Movements that need defining like this are not movements at all, honestly.

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?

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 …

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.