A couple of weeks ago I preached a sermon titled “Revival or Survival” in which I shared what I believe to be a critical change churches will need to make in order to serve God faithfully into the future. In fact, I said that if churches don’t make this change, God’s revival may pass them by. Strong language, to be sure, but important for us to prayerfully consider.

The change I spoke about is from the “attractional” paradigm of church to the “missional” paradigm.

The “attractional” paradigm says this: if we make our church attractive to people (excellent programs, worship, preaching, facilities, etc.) they will come. It assumes that there are a significant number of people who are looking for a church and will take the initiative to brave the obstacles and show up one Sunday! This has been the primary way that “mega-churches” have experienced such phenomenal growth. Unfortunately, “attractional” growth comes overwhelmingly at the expense of other churches; the vast majority of people attending “mega-churches” are there by way of transfer from other churches.

But what if we changed the way we think about church? What if we adopted a “missional” paradigm where we don’t wait for people to come to us, but rather we go out to them? The “missional” paradigm posits “church” as a mission outpost, full of missionaries, going out into the community to serve, teach and demonstrate the Kingdom of God in a broken world. The main goal of a “missional” church is to get people into the Kingdom of God and not, primarily, into the “pews” on Sunday morning. If they come, great! But our measure of success must be faithfulness to the Gospel, rather than numbers in the “pews”.

It is not easy to change paradigms. For those of us who have been in the church most of our lives, it is hard to think in these terms. But people who have little or no exposure to “church” cannot fathom themselves getting involved in a church that doesn’t go out into the community to effect good. So if we want to reach these new, pre-believers, we will need to change.

In the coming months I will be casting this vision more and more, because I believe this is where God is calling us. Indeed, our new “vision statement” resonates with this. We are “A Biblical Family of Joyful Servants, Sharing the Love of God in a Broken World.” As God shapes and molds us into a likeness of this “vision statement”, I invite you to bathe your church in prayer and stay attentive to the Spirit’s guidance.

Faithfully,

Pastor Glen