When we come to the New Testament church, people often assume a switch of direction from “drawing in” to “going out.” But in fact the attractional missiology of the Old Testament continues. God’s new covenant people are to be a light to the world, attracting people to God’s reign (Matthew 5:14-16; 1 Peter 2:9-12). What has changed is the center! The center is no longer Jerusalem, but hundreds of small communities of light, littered across the world. We simultaneously draw in (through our community life) and move out (through church planting).
The problem with a lot of attractional churches is not their missiology, but their ecclesiology. Church is seen as a meeting. Attracting means attracting people to an event or even a performance. But biblical mission is about a community life, ordinary life, lived under God’s Word that attracts people to God.Mark Driscoll
I disagreed with this quote until I got to the end. The more I think about his last paragraph the more I agree with the entire thing. The things that happen in most of the churches that he calls "attractional churches" is not only that they follow an unbiblical model of reaching the lost but most of what is done in the name of evangelism is utter blasphemy. Sadley I would guess that includes 90% of the churches that really like Driscoll.
ReplyDelete-Stephen