Playing church, being the church
I’m reading a book that is tough for many Christians to accept. The book is The Shaping of Things to Come, by Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch.
Frost and Hirsch have taken a lot of heat on the “professional church” front because they challenge many of the things we do when we play church. They say believers need to be in the world.
Many churches claim to be missional. They say they are because they are open to lost people, maybe give an invitation, have an outreach program, or MOPS, or a daycare, or community picnics, or Trunk-or-treat.
Early in this book Frost and Hirsch give their definition of what a missional church needs to be.
One of its characteristics is:
“The missional church is incarnational, not attractional, in its ecclesiology. By incarnational we mean it does not create sanctified spaces into which unbelievers must come to encounter the gospel. Rather, the missional church disassembles itself and seeps into the cracks and crevices of a society in order to be Christ to those who don’t yet know him.”
Are you a part of a missional church?
Does your church do “attracting events” or does your church disassemble itself everyday and seep into the cracks and crevices of our society?
This is so right on point! I catagorically believe that you have to meet people where they are in order to share the gospel. A true relationship with Christ can only be enhanced by true relationships with “genuine” believers.
Right on the button!
Great stuff.
J