Short Take 4: What is the “attractional church” and how does it impact the Evangelical church today?

So Brandon, talk about how this false way of thinking that if we create a product, an entertaining product for the outside world, they're going to like us more, they're going to want to be a part of us, they're going to want to come to our church. Talk about how pervasive this has become in the evangelical church. I've been in a church where I saw behind the scenes the decisions that were made were geared toward attracting the non-believer, the unbeliever, instead of for feeding the believer. So this attractional model, again, is geared toward the unbeliever where those decisions will be made with the goal of making that person want to come back to church. So you don't want to offend them in their Christmas or Easter service by preaching the gospel.

You want them to come back next week. The problem is, the next week you are now filling your church with false converts, and the true Christians in there are starving because they're not being taught the word of God. There's all these distractions that are covering up the gospel, or the gospel is being watered down. So the church is supposed to be geared for the believer. We're there to worship God and to hear the word preached, the gospel preached.

We're not here to be entertained. That's a time where we're equipped to then go out into the world in our workplace or wherever to share the gospel. So if that time is for the unbeliever and no one's being fed, then how are these people going to ever share the gospel if they don't know what the gospel is and they never hear it? Yeah, this pretty much explains why the church in America, at least the evangelical church, in large part, not every church of course, but just in large part has become so confusing and impotent in preaching the gospel, preaching the hard truths of Scripture, preaching the whole counsel of Scripture. That is what has impact and changes people's lives so that they can be truly ambassadors for Christ here in America. So I think it goes a long way towards explaining why we are where we are.