Traditional churches must wake up and reinvent themselves if they are to remain — or become — relevant, some Christian leaders say.

“We have to think the way missionaries think,” said Larry Hovis, executive coordinator of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of North Carolina.

Thinking like missionaries is necessary to relevantly preach the gospel in an age when small missional church starts are drawing more and more people, Hovis said.

Hovis and others have gotten the message after years of watching the growth of the missional church movement across the nation and in other parts of the world. Led often by small, scrappy church planters with subtle or no denominational affiliation, the movement emphasizes hyper-local community and social activism in the neighborhoods where they are located.

Those churches have proven successful to luring Americans generally craving fellowship but disaffected by organized Christianity.

But by no means is the steeple church out of the game, said David Crocker, executive director of Operation Inasmuch, a Knoxville-based ministry that trains churches to adopt outward-focused programs.

Crocker said he’s working with 1,600 churches mostly in North Carolina, the Southeast and other parts of the nation to reinvent their mission and equip their members to serve outside the four walls.

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