In our time a whole body of work has grown up around the distinction between "attractional" ministry versus "incarnational" ministry. The attractional model consists of Christians bringing people in to hear the gospel preached inside the church walls. The incarnational model is dispersing and going out beyond the walls of the church to love and serve in the community and talk to people about the gospel on their own turf. (See Alan Hirsch, Michael Frost, The Shape of Things To Come.)
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People who are dedicated to the incarnational model are anti-institutional, sometimes naively so. They not only eschew buildings but strong, central leaders, organization, and large-scale gatherings. But without some institutionalization there is no permanence or stability. (And indeed, the knock on churches in the incarnational model is that they are tiny and don't last more than a few years.) However, people dedicated in the American context to the attractional church can pander to our culture's consumerism, attracting people through lots of polished programs which provide the "customer" with an enticing selection of choices to meet felt needs.
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in the end, if you make preaching central to your ministry, you are indeed expecting that the public ministry of the Word will be attractive and draw people in.
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1 comment:
I suppose that it has to do with the purpose of your preaching. Is the end goal to enlighten those you have gathered together? Or is your purpose to gather people together in order to send them out?
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