{"id":694875,"date":"2019-09-04T02:00:38","date_gmt":"2019-09-04T07:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thomrainer.com\/?p=694875"},"modified":"2020-02-07T15:59:07","modified_gmt":"2020-02-07T21:59:07","slug":"seven-things-we-can-learn-from-attractional-churches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/seven-things-we-can-learn-from-attractional-churches\/","title":{"rendered":"Seven Things We Can Learn from Attractional Churches"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><strong>By Chuck Lawless<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>The debate between being an attractional or missional church continues. I\u2019m not a fan of a church that is ONLY attractional, but I do think we can learn some things from the attractional approach:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>Have an intentional strategy to reach people.<\/strong> Too many churches are <em>neither <\/em>attractional nor missional because they have little commitment to reaching the unchurched anyway. An attractional approach is at least an intentional start.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Think about the unchurched.<\/strong> You might argue that the attractional approach gives too much attention to them, but it does focus on non-believing people that the Lord loves. It pushes us to be outwardly focused.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Promote excellence<\/strong>. The consumerism of the attractional approach may go too far, but it nevertheless requires us to strive for excellence. Far too many congregations act as if a shoddy, ill-prepared worship service is pleasing to the Lord.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Keep moving people in the direction of evangelism<\/strong>. Few believers will ever share the gospel verbally, but perhaps inviting others to church is at least a move in that direction. An attractional model requires us to consider the spiritual state of others \u2013 a first step toward evangelism.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Demand strong communication.<\/strong> Attractional approaches don\u2019t work if the delivery of the message is poorly done (and, of course, I\u2019m assuming here that the message is clearly the gospel).<\/li>\n<li><strong>Apply the gospel.<\/strong> Hearers need to understand how to apply the gospel to their lives during the rest of the week, and strong preaching takes them there through application. Show people where the gospel intersects their lives.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Maximize the opportunity<\/strong>. We may get only one opportunity to proclaim the gospel to the unchurched person who unexpectedly attends our church. Tell it clearly. Tell it well. Passionately call people to Jesus.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Now, I\u2019m not suggesting that missional churches don\u2019t exhibit these characteristics. Many, in fact, do. What I\u2019m encouraging is an approach that is <em>both <\/em>attractional and missional: we move outside the church to live among the lost, take the light to them, share life with them, and also invite them to corporate worship that is biblically sound and culturally aware.<\/p>\n<p>We can learn from each other.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The debate between being an attractional or missional church continues. I\u2019m not a fan of a church that is ONLY attractional, but I do think we can learn some things from the attractional approach:","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":694876,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"publish_to_discourse":"","publish_post_category":"","wpdc_auto_publish_overridden":"","wpdc_topic_tags":"","wpdc_pin_topic":"","wpdc_pin_until":"","discourse_post_id":"","discourse_permalink":"","wpdc_publishing_response":"","wpdc_publishing_error":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1,175,180],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-694875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-church-answers","category-grow","category-outreach-and-evangelism"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Seven Things We Can Learn from Attractional Churches<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The debate between being an attractional or missional church continues. I\u2019m not a fan of a church that is ONLY attractional, but I do think we can learn some things from the attractional approach:\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/seven-things-we-can-learn-from-attractional-churches\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Seven Things We Can Learn from Attractional Churches\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The debate between being an attractional or missional church continues. I\u2019m not a fan of a church that is ONLY attractional, but I do think we can learn some things from the attractional approach:\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/seven-things-we-can-learn-from-attractional-churches\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Church Answers\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-09-04T07:00:38+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-02-07T21:59:07+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/rachel-lynette-french-U7HLzMO4SIY-unsplash.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"640\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Chuck Lawless\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Chuck Lawless\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/seven-things-we-can-learn-from-attractional-churches\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/seven-things-we-can-learn-from-attractional-churches\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Chuck Lawless\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/#\/schema\/person\/09e294734245d3978e67deffd6991c7f\"},\"headline\":\"Seven Things We Can Learn from Attractional Churches\",\"datePublished\":\"2019-09-04T07:00:38+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-02-07T21:59:07+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/seven-things-we-can-learn-from-attractional-churches\/\"},\"wordCount\":370,\"commentCount\":13,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/seven-things-we-can-learn-from-attractional-churches\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/rachel-lynette-french-U7HLzMO4SIY-unsplash.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Church Answers\",\"Grow\",\"Outreach &amp; Evangelism\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/seven-things-we-can-learn-from-attractional-churches\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/seven-things-we-can-learn-from-attractional-churches\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/seven-things-we-can-learn-from-attractional-churches\/\",\"name\":\"Seven Things We Can Learn from Attractional Churches\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/seven-things-we-can-learn-from-attractional-churches\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/seven-things-we-can-learn-from-attractional-churches\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/rachel-lynette-french-U7HLzMO4SIY-unsplash.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2019-09-04T07:00:38+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-02-07T21:59:07+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/#\/schema\/person\/09e294734245d3978e67deffd6991c7f\"},\"description\":\"The debate between being an attractional or missional church continues. I\u2019m not a fan of a church that is ONLY attractional, but I do think we can learn some things from the attractional approach:\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/seven-things-we-can-learn-from-attractional-churches\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/seven-things-we-can-learn-from-attractional-churches\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/seven-things-we-can-learn-from-attractional-churches\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/rachel-lynette-french-U7HLzMO4SIY-unsplash.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/rachel-lynette-french-U7HLzMO4SIY-unsplash.jpg\",\"width\":1200,\"height\":640},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/seven-things-we-can-learn-from-attractional-churches\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Seven Things We Can Learn from Attractional Churches\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/\",\"name\":\"Church Answers\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/#\/schema\/person\/09e294734245d3978e67deffd6991c7f\",\"name\":\"Chuck Lawless\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/b99cf3a5686c69c6ee0fa69473f5a659bee7daaa31ff24217be46675fd10a5bd?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/b99cf3a5686c69c6ee0fa69473f5a659bee7daaa31ff24217be46675fd10a5bd?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Chuck Lawless\"},\"description\":\"Dr. Chuck Lawless is a leading expert in spiritual consultation, discipleship and mentoring. As a former pastor, he understands the challenges ministry presents and works with Church Answers to provide advice and counsel for church leaders.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/author\/clawless\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Seven Things We Can Learn from Attractional Churches","description":"The debate between being an attractional or missional church continues. I\u2019m not a fan of a church that is ONLY attractional, but I do think we can learn some things from the attractional approach:","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/seven-things-we-can-learn-from-attractional-churches\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Seven Things We Can Learn from Attractional Churches","og_description":"The debate between being an attractional or missional church continues. I\u2019m not a fan of a church that is ONLY attractional, but I do think we can learn some things from the attractional approach:","og_url":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/seven-things-we-can-learn-from-attractional-churches\/","og_site_name":"Church Answers","article_published_time":"2019-09-04T07:00:38+00:00","article_modified_time":"2020-02-07T21:59:07+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1200,"height":640,"url":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/rachel-lynette-french-U7HLzMO4SIY-unsplash.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Chuck Lawless","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Chuck Lawless","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/seven-things-we-can-learn-from-attractional-churches\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/seven-things-we-can-learn-from-attractional-churches\/"},"author":{"name":"Chuck Lawless","@id":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/#\/schema\/person\/09e294734245d3978e67deffd6991c7f"},"headline":"Seven Things We Can Learn from Attractional Churches","datePublished":"2019-09-04T07:00:38+00:00","dateModified":"2020-02-07T21:59:07+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/seven-things-we-can-learn-from-attractional-churches\/"},"wordCount":370,"commentCount":13,"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/seven-things-we-can-learn-from-attractional-churches\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/rachel-lynette-french-U7HLzMO4SIY-unsplash.jpg","articleSection":["Church Answers","Grow","Outreach &amp; Evangelism"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/seven-things-we-can-learn-from-attractional-churches\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/seven-things-we-can-learn-from-attractional-churches\/","url":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/seven-things-we-can-learn-from-attractional-churches\/","name":"Seven Things We Can Learn from Attractional Churches","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/seven-things-we-can-learn-from-attractional-churches\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/seven-things-we-can-learn-from-attractional-churches\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/rachel-lynette-french-U7HLzMO4SIY-unsplash.jpg","datePublished":"2019-09-04T07:00:38+00:00","dateModified":"2020-02-07T21:59:07+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/#\/schema\/person\/09e294734245d3978e67deffd6991c7f"},"description":"The debate between being an attractional or missional church continues. I\u2019m not a fan of a church that is ONLY attractional, but I do think we can learn some things from the attractional approach:","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/seven-things-we-can-learn-from-attractional-churches\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/seven-things-we-can-learn-from-attractional-churches\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/seven-things-we-can-learn-from-attractional-churches\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/rachel-lynette-french-U7HLzMO4SIY-unsplash.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/rachel-lynette-french-U7HLzMO4SIY-unsplash.jpg","width":1200,"height":640},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/seven-things-we-can-learn-from-attractional-churches\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Seven Things We Can Learn from Attractional Churches"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/","name":"Church Answers","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/#\/schema\/person\/09e294734245d3978e67deffd6991c7f","name":"Chuck Lawless","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/b99cf3a5686c69c6ee0fa69473f5a659bee7daaa31ff24217be46675fd10a5bd?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/b99cf3a5686c69c6ee0fa69473f5a659bee7daaa31ff24217be46675fd10a5bd?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Chuck Lawless"},"description":"Dr. Chuck Lawless is a leading expert in spiritual consultation, discipleship and mentoring. As a former pastor, he understands the challenges ministry presents and works with Church Answers to provide advice and counsel for church leaders.","url":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/author\/clawless\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=694875"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694875\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":696785,"href":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694875\/revisions\/696785"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/694876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=694875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=694875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=694875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}