while reading one of my new favorite blogs, i came across this post that spoke of the author’s upcoming book. if you know anything about me, you’ll know that i’m interested in the so-called Emergent Church Movement that is currently sweeping the american church culture. Mark Driscoll is one of the more conservative pastors in this movement and i really enjoy his stuff. his book, coming out in may, will recount his experience in planting the church he currently pastors in seattle, washington. he’s posted an excerpt from his upcoming book, an excerpt that spoke of one of the main (and one of those most often misunderstood) issues regarding the movement.

a good number (probably most, if not very close to “all”) of emergents are very critical of the megachurch movement, charging that megachurches focus too much on being attractional and not enough, if at all, on being missional. what this means, according to these critics, is that megachurches are mainly concerned with boosting numbers (and church bank accounts) in a sort of community popularity contest to see which church can be the biggest and best, usually making the emphasis into nothing more than which service is more entertaining (self-admittedly this is a good bit of generalizing). those in the emergent movement would rather churches be missional, meaning that churches should not be all that focused on bringing people in to the church, but sending their people out of the church to minister to the outward community through building relationships.

Driscoll says, in the small excerpt posted on his blog, that this conflict is unnecessary and that both sides should be focused on moving toward the middle from where they are. he says,

Therefore, the growing hostility between attractional-ministry pastors with larger churches and missional-ministry pastors with smaller churches need not occur. Instead, each needs to learn from the other; each has a vital piece of the truth gleaned from the life of Jesus.

[...]

Simply, the goal of a church that is both missional and attractional is to continually follow Jesus’ example so that more people are saved for God’s mission and more influence is spread for God’s kingdom, without rejecting one aspect of Jesus’ ministry in favor of another.

i could not agree more. i think it’s important that both sides realize it’s not an either/or where our churches are totally focused on bringing people into the church and not ministering to the community or those outside our “church bubble”, or, on the flip side, so outwardly focused in ministering to the community that we neglect to shepherd and build up those in our covenant community.

i really liked what little Driscoll let us see in advance, and i cannot wait to read this book.