Well it is two days before we leave for our first trip to Seattle. We are rushing and hurrying around like mad to get ready to leave.

I (Jason), have been spending a lot of time in prayer and contemplation throughout the days (usually while I am working) in preparations for the trip. I’m exited and scared to death at the same time, which, I’m fairly certain, will become a semi-permanent condition for us as we move forward in this venture.

One of the main things I have been turning over in my mind and prayers is the differing approaches to community. I just finished Emerging Churches: Creating Christian Community in Postmodern Cultures by Gibbs and Bolger, and Pam is currently making her way through it. Man, this really challenged me to think and rethink approaches to community. One of the big ones I’ve been exploring is the difference between Attractional and Incarnational communities. Some of the stories from these communities of faith really touched and stabbed at me (in a good way). This combined with the very limited amount of time I got to spend with a really amazing guy, Sean Stillman (if you don’t know who this dude is and what he does, you should), has caused me to ponder these two approaches to spirituality within the community of Christ.

So, what is the deal and differences between the two? Well…

Attractional Communities: These are churches, ministries, events and the like that are designed to…well…attract people to the community. This would be what would usually be categorized as “outreach” in most churches. Things like traditional rival meetings, spaghetti dinners, and cakewalks, are Attractional approaches, on the traditional side. In the more contemporary churches, this would be things like media adds, door hangers, high quality music/preaching/dance/drama/kids programs, radio shows, and the like. All of these have the purpose of drawing people to you with the hope of incorporating them into the existing community of Christ.

Nothing wrong with this approach, but it does make a crucial assumption: people have at least some desire to come to church. It assumes people, on some level, actually care about Christianity and what Christians are doing. Yes, these events do attract seekers and those investigating the faith, and for that, they are a great thing. Jesus himself used this approach in Mathew 5 for “The Sermon on the Mount”. So there is a place and time for Attractional ministry, and it cam be very effective.

Unfortunately though, this approach can degenerate into reshuffling those who are already actively Following Christ, and pulling them into a cooler, bigger, better Church experience. This, in Missiological (the study of missions and church planting) circles is commonly called Transfer Growth. Once again, nothing wrong with Transfer growth mind you. God often uses this type of growth to bring some amazing servants, leaders, and the like. Some Transfer growth is to be expected and embraced with any church. However, if a community relies solely or primarily on this type of Attractional growth, then there are only so many people it can reach. And if something “better” comes along, many times people will shift to that community because it is more “attractive”.

This approach also works very well with those who have experience with Church on some form and level. Saddleback and Willow Creek have perfected this approach to an art form, and have amazing ministries reconnecting people to their historic faith roots. Attractional communities also tend to have the “Wow, this is what Church is supposed to be like” approach. Once again, this works great to reconnect people with their faith, or lead them to Follow Christ and become involved in the faith community when they may have just attended out of cultural habit. This is an awesome thing, especially for those who walked away form the faith of their parents, and God is drawing them back to Him. These are the classic Seekers of the “Seeker Sensitive” movement started in the 1980’s.

But…what happens for people who have no experience with any form of Christianity? How about those who were raised by the people who abandoned the faith of their parents? What does one do with someone who would never consider walking into a church, ministry or event centered on Christ? What about those who are not “attracted” to Christ in anyway?

Incarnational Communities: These are communities, ministries, and “events” that do not focus on attracting people to a community, but instead take the community to the people. This type of community takes whatever they are doing to those who they are trying to reach. It isn’t a matter of bringing people to you, but going to them instead. These type of communities often meet, like Zac’s Place, where people already are. It isn’t, though, just a matter of physicality, but of entirety of life. Yes, these communities go to people in planned and group ways, but it’s more then just an organized approach. It becomes an Incarnational way of life. That is, people serve people where they go and through whatever they are doing. They minister to their greater communities and their faith comminutes with every aspect of their lives. Through their lives, and more importantly through what they do, and not just what they don’t do, they share the love of Christ to the entire world. In this way, they become a reflection of eternal life with Christ here and now.

This, to be frank and honest, was the main approach Jesus took during his physical time on Earth. He healed people, fed them, and loved the unlovable. There was no separation of “Church time” and “non-Church time” for Christ. There may have been intense, focused moments spent with His Father, but everywhere He went and all He did was centered on His mission. The very fact that God would take on the fragile flesh of humanity exemplifies the Incarnational Community. Even in the Sermon on the Mount, the gathered crowd had come because Jesus had been healing, feeding, and loving people all through Galilee. He had gone to them, not waited for them to come to Him.

This type of community centers not on Transfer growth, but on introducing people to Christ for the first time. There may be some transfers, but the heart of any growth in an Incarnational community are these first time Followers of Christ. This is especially true with those that reach people that normally would have nothing to do with traditional or contemporary churches. These comminutes, if they meet in large groups, will meet in public places like clubs, bars, pubs, coffee shops, or other venues where people already are. They will usually be focused on blurring the line between Church and non-Church, Sacred and Secular (as Gibbs and Bolger put it), living an Incarnational life wherever they find themselves. In doing this, they tend to deconstruct traditional and contemporary church habits, rituals, practices, and even theologies. Once the pieces are laid out, they can then construct their thoughts, beliefs, and practices into an Incarnational approach to mission, ministry, and community. These would include things like feeding the poor, visiting the sick, taking care of one another, welcoming the outcasts, giving to those who have nothing, and serving their greater communities among many others.

This approach has it’s own dangers as well. Incarnational communities need to be careful not to become closed and exclusive as they reject any form of Attractional ministry. In other words, they can become ingrown and cult like, much like one of the first Incarnational communities The Nine O’clock Service in Sheffield, UK. There is also the old danger of accommodation to anti-Christ aspects of culture that remains a criticism of many Incarnational communities. Modern expressions, from my experience, will tend to fall into the exclusivity danger zone before accommodation takes serious hold.

The Attractional approach to community has worked well enough for centuries in North America, especially in areas with a large Churched population. It reaches a certain aspect of the population, and it does it well.

However, who Attractional communities struggle to reach, are those who have little to no experience with Churches. This was my experience growing up, so much so, that I didn’t experience any communities of faith until I sought them out. I became a seeker (of sorts), and ended up attending an Attractional church because of a personal invitation from…well honestly…a girl…I wanted to date. This was, of course, God moving me towards Him…outside of the traditional walls of the church. Culture has changed in many areas, and moves away from any semblance of a Churched Culture. This has, accordingly decreased the effectiveness of the Attractional approach for many people.

So now we come to my thoughts, prayers and contemplation. Seattle, from what I can tell from a distance, is the most “unchurched” city in America (estimated only 4% are Christians). There is also a quite large and (oddly) Attractional church that is running in the thousands. So, simple math would tell me that most of the very small amount of Transfer growth has already occurred. This, combined with the way I am wired up, makes me hesitant to adopt an Attractional approach to community.

However, all of my education, and much of experience, has been centered around building an Attractional church/ministry/community. This, I’m thinking, though would not be the best approach for Seattle. Incarnational community may be the best approach for this city. Yet, there are Attractional aspects that I can see working in concord with an Incarnational community.

This creates some major questions in my mind. How does one go about building a network of relationships that lead to a community of faith? How do you plan and budget for a community based on relationships? What does a group meeting look like and where to have it? How does one incorporate art in a consistent and authentic way without stifling creativity but also maintain appropriateness? What does musical worship look like in this community? How do you maintain an Incarnational focus as you organically grow?

It seems the more I explore things, the more questions it raises in my mind. Yet at the same time, the more confident I am that this is what we are called to do. So as we head out there, I imagine some of these questions will be answered, some left unanswered, and more will be raised. Which I’m thinking isn’t a bad thing.