It’s a conflict. You want to have quantity, but does quality come first? You want quality, but sometimes it means that quantity isn’t quick.
We have quality, just not the quantity… yet.
We are starting healthy just not with hundreds. But that is okay.
We have people far from God attending regularly, and that is exciting. We have people, whom we baptized after our second preview service, growing in discipleship. We have families, who joined us on Easter, coming back and have made us their church home.
We believe we have great quality services that everyone says they love to come to. But here lies the main problem we are trying to fix. How do we get more people in the building?
Is it location? Is it marketing? Is it we aren’t giving away a new iPad mini? hmmm… there’s an idea.
Attractional vs Missional
There has been a debate in the states over the last 2-3 years that the shift has been moving from attractional to missional. I am a big believer in the attractional model. We need to make this accessible to those outside the faith and far from God. We need to make the environment irresistible and be aware that they are coming to our services. And we need to engage them.
I also believe that attrational is missional by having the goal to introduce them to Jesus.
But there is a missional argument that has weight and is a strong argument for a post-Christian era. Where we have more de-churched than unchurched, they are less willing to step into a church due to baggage of a previous experience with a christian or church. Whatever their reason, their perspective is their reality and we have the call to make the gospel of Jesus relevant to them.
The debate now is that you have to be missional or attractional. I have never agreed on the either or, but have stood with the leaders who embrace a both/and model.
However, I have changed my mentality on this in the last month in a South African context. Where I was thinking that attractional would be the way to get people in our doors. Advertising a family driven service that is excellent and appeals to the consumer hasn’t been a draw here.
We have had more return from the individual relationships being built (missional) and it only makes sense in a dominantly relational culture.
Instead of thinking the attraction of a family driven church, targeting kids, is the pull, I’m approaching the key to getting people in the doors missionally (relationally) and seeing the attractional aspects of our service as what keeps them.
The feedback we have collected from guests, who have become regular attendees, is they love the experience. We are just trying to get their friends and our community to experience it too.
That being said, I’m grateful for the quality we have but I want more of it. I want more people to discover the life and joy that putting their trust in Jesus as their Savior will bring them.
All that to say, keep praying for us. We believe we are on the verge of seeing this explode, and we are praying and seeking God’s wisdom, direction, plan, purpose and timing – like crazy!