It seems to me that we need to stop justifying the mission of God by unflatteringly caricaturing any and all pre-Grunge churches. We also need to vociferously reject this false pitting of ecclesiocentric against missiocentric perspectives that abounds in the missional movement’s apologetics.

Theologians have an irksome propensity for needlessly multiplying technical terms. Words like “Christ-event,” “contextualization” and “demythologize” come immediately to mind. The Germans are especially good at this (Heilsgeschichte!…God bless you).

These impressive terms, though often simple in meaning, give an air of grave seriousness and intimidating expertise. As a friend of mine once observed regarding an email I sent slovenly littered with theological jargon: “Ah yes, James, this is why we go to seminary, to keep the laity at a distance and in the dark.” This is the worst kind of Christianese.

One bit of Christian-speak in particular that has found widespread currency among evangelicals as of late is “missional.” Its meaning is less clear. J. Todd Billings, in his article “What Makes a Church Missional?” writes,
With so many variant views, the term missional church now needs something like an FDA label: Warning: Contradictory and conflicting views of the church inside.

“Missional” is a completely made-up word, echoing, perhaps, the similarly coined “incarnational,” or the recently re-appropriated term (from secular leadership studies) “transformational.” From it has spun other delightful neologisms, such as “post-attractional” and “urban missionality.” I’ve even encountered “emergental” as a description of incarnational-missional, ancient/future-liturgical churches… Confused yet?

At any rate, there is much that falls under the rubric of “missional” that I agree with, and actively promote. In fact, I hope our churches are missional, and incarnational, and transformational…I think.

Furthermore, in our endeavor to follow Jesus, I want us to be relational, contextual, intentional, vocational, inter-generational, and even sensational. Yet I am still unclear as to the precise meaning of missional (if it has one). This is my feeble attempt to parse its usage and usefulness.

First, missional is almost always contradistinguished from attractional as its mirror-image. For instance, consider this refreshingly simple and concise video on the missional church. To be clear, when the narrator begins with “in the past…,” he really means, “since the early 80s.” That is to say, since the advent of the so-called seeker-sensitive movement, which is closer to what he’s describing (and to be fair, this isn’t necessarily synonymous with ‘attractional church’). Really, what this video is saying is that ‘missional church’ is the self-conscious rejection of the seeker-friendly, consumer-driven model of doing mission, as exemplified and promoted by such ultra-mega-churches as Willow Creek and Saddleback. Along these lines, I think Mark Driscoll does the best job of concisely critiquing the seeker-sensitive approach over against the so-called missional approach here.

But isn’t this really just a return then to the oldskool rule of thumb: “we gather to edify and scatter to evangelize”? I hope so. Certainly when Driscoll goes on to describe missional church in contrast to the seeker model his definition appears to be, basically, the biblical paradigm.

Yet, surely being missional is more than simply a return to the church Before Hybels (BH). The traditional Western church, it is argued, was conceived within the cultural context of Christendom, and operated with the same basic assumptions that the seeker-friendly, attractional model continues to presuppose. Namely, that we inhabit a Christian world, and that non-churched people simply need to “attend church.”

However, we now live in a post-Christian culture, or so it has been insisted by secularists and, ever since Francis Schaeffer pronounced it so over 40 years ago, evangelicals alike. We can no longer assume “if you build it, they will come.” This is why, we’re told, the attractional model is no longer effective (or at least is losing its effectiveness). No matter how cool you make the “church experience,” non-Christians still don’t want to burn their ‘lazy Sunday’ listening to contemporary Christian rock (even if you show clips from Narnia).
[This is undoubtedly true, but the sad fact is, many wannabe-hipster Christians actually do!]

So being missional means, in great part at least, taking seriously our ‘post-Christendom’ situation and rethinking our call as missionaries to a non-Christian context. [By the way, it strikes me as ironic here that the seeker-friendly movement – the apparent epitome of missiologically backward approaches to doing church – developed out of the church growth movement, which was based on the broader missiological principles outlined by missionary-theologian Donald McGavran]

This ‘cultural shift” is the focus of Tim Keller’s explanation of the term. However, it is striking to me how he appears to continue to conceive of the church in essentially traditional categories: “everything [the missional church] does…not just the evangelistic programs, but the worship, the education, spiritual formation, assumes that people … need to be pretty deeply reshaped by the gospel.” Note here, also, how Keller speaks of being missional primarily in terms of how the non-Christian experiences Christian gatherings (he cites specifically corporate worship, preaching, and small groups).

I’m not suggesting that Keller thinks exclusively in attractional “come-and-see” terms. Of course he doesn’t. But he doesn’t see attractional as the opposite of missional either. His concern is basically about content, not, fundamentally, about method: namely, how missional churches in “everything from education to the worship service to the preaching” are “connecting the gospel to baseline cultural narratives, problems, aspirations, etc.”

Along these lines, it is also noteworthy that influential missiologists such as Ed Stetzer do not see the attractional and missional (or incarnational) approaches as mutually exclusive. A healthy church, we are told, should have both dynamics at work. I agree. What is the difference then between seeker-sensitive attractional models and what Keller is describing? Apparently, one attracts business professionals, while the other attracts artists.

However, I am beginning to wonder whether our quickness to de-christen America – a nation that is still overwhelmingly Christian in its religious affiliation and stated beliefs – isn’t conceding too much too soon to our secular critics.

It’s difficult to deny that Keller’s church is a testimony to the sustained ‘attractional’ efficacy of “good preaching and good worship” – and that in one of the most secularized and pluralistic cities in the country. Driscoll himself has acknowledged the obvious effectiveness of a titillating sermon series for ‘church growth’. I’m not criticizing any of this. It simply raises the question of whether our cultural context is really so radically different that the attractional dynamic has become outmoded.

Moreover, I suspect our less-than-enthusiastic description of churches “in the past” may be a sort of chronological snobbery, a jaundiced view of those who’ve come before us. Was it ever a justifiable assumption that “if you build it they will come”? The false belief that our non-churched neighbors simply need to be re-churched has always been opposed by evangelicalism’s ardent demand for radical regeneration. Similarly, effective church-planting was never without a real penetration and presence in the culture.

All too often, ‘missional’ gets defined at the expense of those on whose shoulders we now stand. I am tempted to conclude that the real message of so many explications of missional church is: “Yo momma’s church sucked, but this ain’t yo momma’s church!” Wasn’t this precisely the critical reflex of the now defunct emerging church?

For instance, in a recent online article by a church-planter I respect and admire, the author contrasts ‘missional church’ from ‘institutional church’ (hint: ‘institutional’ is never good) by defining the latter as a “church with a mission” and the former as “church as mission.” But this distinction seems to me to be more rhetorical than substantial.

For example, it is not clear that all the instances he cites of “church with a mission” are communities that necessarily conceive of mission as mere “event,” or as somehow optional, as he charges. There are too many ‘institutional churches’ that simply don’t fit this pejorative stereotype.

Moreover, the church as a mission is always a church with a mission, precisely because the church is both the product and process of Christ’s mission in the world. Along these same lines, in his article “Defining Missional”, Alan Hirsch writes:

Because we are the “sent” people of God, the church is the instrument of God’s mission in the world. As things stand, many people see it the other way around. They believe mission is an instrument of the church; a means by which the church is grown. Although we frequently say “the church has a mission,” according to missional theology a more correct statement would be “the mission has a church.

Again, a false dilemma is presented to us. Neither one is more correct. It is the case that both the church has a mission (i.e., our commission from Jesus), and the mission (i.e., the divine administration in Christ, Eph.1:10; 3:9; 1Ti.1:4) has a church. Surely the mission is an instrument of the church (Eph.4:11-16)! Surely the church is the instrument of God’s mission (Eph.3:1-11)!

It seems to me that we need to stop justifying the mission of God by unflatteringly caricaturing any and all pre-Grunge churches. We also need to vociferously reject this false pitting of ecclesiocentric against missiocentric perspectives that abounds in the missional movement’s apologetics.

So here is my question to my fellow planters, pastors, and theologians. What if we stopped calling ourselves “missional”? As though this label were clear or particularly helpful. As though it won’t be dated in a few days, months, or years.

What if we just said we want to obey Christ’s commission? If we want a single adjective to put in front of “church,” how about “biblical”? If that strikes us as too broad, well, consider again the ambiguity of “missional.” If it smacks of arrogance, as if to suggest that all other forms of church are ‘out of God’s will’, than ask yourself whether this isn’t precisely the implication of our present use of ‘missional’.

Finally, let’s acknowledge that many churches before 1992 were “on mission,” even if they failed here and there to be thoroughly so – just as ours do now. I am praying for repentance from my own shortcomings as a missionary to my culture, and a renewed alignment of my own view and practice of the church with the missionary’s only authorized field guide.

(Editor’s Note: This article overheated my computer’s spell check function!)

James Walden is an RTS Orlando alum and an Acts 29 Church Planter in Columbia, SC www.riversidecommunitychurch.org. He blogs, occasionally at http://lutherspub.blogspot.com/ where this article first appeared: it is used with permission. HT to Andy Stager for the heads up on this blog.

[Editor’s note: Some of the original URLs (links) referenced in this article are no longer valid, so the links have been removed.]