Emerging Spirit @ The United Church of Canada Emerging Spirit @ The United Church of Canada

by Graham Cray | Article reprinted with permission from e-xpressions © Fresh Expressions 2009.

The answer of course is that there is nothing wrong with making your church attractive - every church should do it. As long as, by attractive, you mean welcoming, hospitable, friendly, and as much like Jesus as you can manage! Every church or congregation should aspire to be like that.

But in Fresh Expressions we distinguish between 'attractional' and 'incarnational' church.

All churches should be attractive, but an attractional church seeks to attract people to its form of Christian community: to get them to come to its life, culture and worship and find faith there. It does mission through a 'come to us' approach.

An incarnational church follows the pattern of Christ's costly incarnation. It is established within the culture of the people it is seeking to reach. It is set up so that their life and culture can be transformed by the gospel. It is based on a 'go to them' approach. Its life and worship may be culturally uncomfortable to the planting team, but they know that they are called to pay the price of that discomfort, so that others may find Christ.

The difference is often seen in the approach to worship. 'Come to us' church often tries to make its worship attractive to outsiders - perhaps more contemporary, or more reflective. Sometimes a new congregation is planted in a more neutral venue, to help make the contemporary worship easily accessible. But this is still attractional church. The team are using an approach they have decided and now invite unchurched people to attend.

'We go to you' church makes no decisions about the style of worship until it has begun to form community with the people it is seeking to reach. That comes at the end of a process which might take a long time. That process begins with listening, develops into practical forms of service (no, not church service!), forms community as it shares its faith and only sorts out worship at the end. Hopefully the worship will be attractive but what matters most is that it is transformative within that culture. There is room in the mixed economy church for both approaches, but fresh expressions of church will normally be incarnational.

The problem with attractional church is that it is appropriate for only a minority of the population. If, as we believe, at least 60% of the population cannot be reached by our existing patterns of church, however attractive, then even churches which follow an attractional model very successfully need to ask the question, who can't we reach this way and what else could we do? To reach the majority of our culture we will need an incarnational approach. We will have to stop designing church for ourselves and start designing it with and for them!

There is more information about the incarnational approach in the booklet listening for mission.

Bishop Graham Cray is perhaps best known for chairing the committee which produced the landmark document, ‘Mission Shaped Church', adopted by General Synod in the UK in 2004. He has been a leader in the Fresh Expressions movement in the UK, encouraging church plants in unusual locations and formats.

Article reprinted with permission from e-xpressions © Fresh Expressions 2009 http://www.freshexpressions.org.uk/.