Attractional Model Research Paper

My personal view of mission revolves around Servant Leadership or what can be better called “Incarnational leadership”. This is rooted in the life of our Lord Jesus Christ, as “He took a towel” (John 13:2-5) and washed Peter’s feet. He was efficient with people, had goals in sight, but was also relational over being task-driven. This kind of leadership produces new churches filled with real purpose and motivation as people are called, appreciated, loved, encouraged, discipled, involved by mentoring and discipleship before they are deployed in ministry (Prov. 27:23; Mark 10:35-45; Luke 22:26; John 13:2-17; 1 Cor. 3- 4; Eph. 4:1-16; Col. 3:13; 1 Thess. 5:13-14; 1 Peter 3:8;

Galindo analyzes that the fundamental “mission” of a congregation is the same as any other congregation that exists in any part of the world. He argues that though every congregation has a mission and a vision, at the same time, it shares a basic common mission. (43) This reminds me of my home church The First Church of Evanston and my Field Site, The Evanston Vineyard Church. Both churches have a common mission of welcoming people to the church, irrespective of their ethnic, cultural, racial, and economic and, gender backgrounds. The mission is to help people be received in the house of God with due and deserved Christian love so that they feel loved and welcomed. Both these churches encourage church attendees to attend the service and receive the Eucharist.

The overall purpose of the Roland Allen’s book is to convey the dramatic differences between the methods of modern day missionary organizations

Subsequently, the church has a mission which is to go into all the nations making disciples, baptizing them, and to teach them to observe the ways of Christ as noted in Matthew 28:19-20. When looking at the differences between the missional model and the attractional model is the missional goes out to win the lost, and the attractional seeks to bring the lost in not focusing the cultural boundaries. Stetzer and Hirsch state, “Missional represents a significant shift in the way we understand the church. As the people of a missionary God, we are entrusted to participate in the world the same way He does—by committing to be His ambassadors.” In retrospect, Hirsch cites that, “The attractional model, which has dominated the church in the West, seeks to reach out to the culture and draw people into the church—what I call outreach and in-grab. But this model only works where no significant cultural shift is required when moving from outside to inside the church.” Both have their uniqueness, however, they are designed to seek and make disciples.

Moreover, God calls us to make disciple. People should be far more important than task and project. Simply running around and get occupied by activities do not mean we are leading people to a deeper relationship with God. Spending quality time with our congregation and our neighbor is a must to build up a missional church. If we do not know how they struggle spiritually in the world, then how can we lead them with gospel wisdom? Gibbs states that the church leaders must have significant life experience in the secular world. We find it very true in our own ministry. Those who can only talk but fail to walk produce more trouble than good to the church. Ministry is disciple making not decision making. The church leaders must earn the trust from the congregation

We are reaching out to the community of the poor which may have a negative of the church and be shameful to be involved in the church. Christians will go out to the poor, has social involvement to improve the poor and proclamation of the kingdom of God to come. For the second emphasis of the model, "bring people to the church", Christians are encouraged to bring the people back to the church to have worship together to form a covenant community. This will allow those Christians, who hesitate or because of health reason to reach out, still enjoy the fruitfulness of mission and as the body of Christ to be in covenant community. This model will see the reality of God's reign in covenant community, witness and service.

Thom S. Rainer and Eric Geiger conducted case studies of churches and found out that healthy churches have simple processes for making disciples. Church leaders are encouraged by the authors to inquiry and seek answers to vital questions pertaining to church discipleship. The questions that peeked my interest are: Is our church simple or complex? Why? Where do we fit on this continuum? Or In the culture how have you seen people respond to simple (Rainer & Geiger, 2011, p27)? The kingdom is expanding through churches with simple process and the more complex churches are struggling. The authors share examples of simple church, just to name a few; the first one, is not well-know, the Cross Church (Rainer & Geiger, 2011, p33). Their purpose statement is clear and concise “love God, love others, and serve the world” Rainer & Geiger, 2011,

This purposeful elucidation proffered the need for the church to become missionaries within the context of their local community. Rethinking mission and ministry is required in breaking the missional code. Stetzer and Putnam stated that if a church does not regularly examine its culture, it ends up as a culture unto itself (Kindle Location 481). The one thing that appears to be certain in their exposition

# The mission of the Church is modeled on the divine missions of our Trinitarian GOD, the mission of the Son and the mission of the Holy Spirit. The church’s identity comes from modeling the divine missions of the Son and Spirit, whose mission Christians are called upon to share with the world. The Son and Spirit were sent into the world to rescue the world and bring it into union with GOD. So “the church is missionary by her very nature” (#2).

Over the years, many models have been developed and implemented to endeavor to make disciples. Some of the models have been effective and others have not. Among some of the most biblical and efficient models are the ones that involve small groups. Within the small groups models, they can be broken down into further detail, such as pastoral involvement, the church’s goal, missions mindedness, etc. In this paper, I will explain my philosophy of small groups in a church and the importance of the relational group in authentic disciple making. I will also explain how missional groups can help the body of Christ move out into the community. Finally, I will summarize my status in regards to living in community with other believers and being missional with that community.

The need is for healthy churches, who then in turn are more likely to send healthy mission teams out into the field. The world desperately needs an untainted gospel. The power of the gospel is the best tool to break down barriers. When the Apostle Paul wrote Romans, he was crossing cultural barriers, he stated in Romans 1: 14-15 "14 I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians,[d] both to the wise and to the foolish. 15

The idea of spiritual formation has somehow gotten lost in the shuffle of “going to church” versus retaining the understanding that we in fact are the church and we carry within us the knowledge and the skill to be transformational. The role of evangelism in Christian education is to aid in church growth and expansion, as well as advancement toward the salvation of souls.

Knowing our position(s) from the margins truly affects of ways of doing ministry/mission. Gittins charts the complexity of cultural and social polarities in a cultural grid of four quadrants. The bold lines represent the boundaries which configuring population. In the time of Jesus for example, by virtue of social status, everyone belonged to one of these quadrants. If in religious world, the occupants were the insider-participants (clergy, hierarchy, religious leaders), “they would established an exclusionary zone whose borders would be patrolled by upholders of strict orthodoxy and executors of appropriate sanctions.” These small numbers of elite also declared the will of God and exercised their authority over the other three groups. It was difficult to move from the ranks of insider non-participants and outsiders to the insider participants. However, “not all insider participants are self-serving: the kenotic ministry of Jesus illustrates the possibility of moving from the centers of privilege to the margins or boundaries where missionary encounters take place.” This gives us an encouragement to rethink and shift our position(s) in serving the people of God more effectively.

This course has had a great impact on my walk with Christ as well as my witness for Christ. I pastor a church and teach two classes and for me I thought that I was doing plenty. However this course has helped rekindle my passion for sharing Jesus Christ with people through personal evangelism. This paper will demonstrate what I have learned throughout this course.

First of all, any missional mental model should be derived from missio Dei itself, which is "the mission of God to bring about redemption of the world" (Sunquist 2013, 7). When we carry this mission out in suffering for God’s eternal glory, we need to imagine how in the future his goodness, his beauty, and his harmony will cover the entire creation. I think it’s necessary for us to have this vision of his glory and be aware that whatever we do is not our own ministry. The idea of us joining the ministry of Jesus Christ is