I am not writing about the 1987 film Fatal Attraction in which Michael Douglas and Glen Close star. Sorry if you thought this was going to be some  Hollywood review of the movie (which I thought was pretty good for an 80’s flick). I want to spend some time on churches that place all of their eggs in the “attractional” camp of growing their church. For the sake of not sounding like a broken record, let me share one more time that I have led some pretty attractional based churches
over the years. As a matter of fact, a church I pastored was awarded the Purpose Driven Church Health Award from Saddleback Church and we were featured in the promotional video for the 40 Days of Purpose.

Most recently, I have launched a new church that has grown from 0-185 people in twenty-four months. It grew that fast first and only because Go.d so wanted it so. Dozens upon dozens of lives have been changed as God has used Bridge Church at Perry to be a church about change. Bridge Church has been an attractional ministry, but with a definite bent on being incarnational. By incarnational, I mean being the hands and feet of Jesus to a community that not experienced a church reaching out with unconditional love. 

As we continue to watch God move at BC@P, I am amazed at how He continues to evolve this part of his body. Our leadership team, has been praying, fasting, and scouring the scriptures for the vision of BC@P.  One area the Holy Spirit has been speaking to us is that our church needs to progressively move to a form of being attractional and incarnational. 

Attractional ministry has been taking place since the time of Jesus (I hope I can say that without being attacked). People were attracted to Jesus, bottom line.  He was a revolutionary who challenged the religious establishment and that attracted people, some of them were loose cannons. Jesus was a miracle worker which drew a definitely different crowd – those who were attracted to him because of the healing. Others were attracted to Jesus because there was something radically different about the way he spoke, the way he lead, the way he showed compassion and the way he gave grace and mercy. Jesus’ ministry was one of attraction.

 “The growth of
megachurches in recent decades has come about because of a common historic
cycle in U.S. religion: faith institutions reinventing themselves to meet the
consumerlike demands of worshippers,” said Paul Harvey, American history
professor at the University of Colorado who specializes in U.S. religious history.

 From a USA Today article
dated 9/09/2008, “Experts see more troubling concerns than slowing growth: No
measurable inroads on overall church attendance and signs that many churchgoers
are spectators, not driving toward a deeper faith. “You can create a
church that’s big, but is still not transforming people. Without
transformation, the Christian message is not advanced,” says Ed Stetzer,
head of Lifeway Research in Nashville, which did the Outreach study.

“The megachurch story
is not really about growth, it’s about shifting allegiances. People want to
feel good about who they already are,” says Philip Goff, director of the
Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture at Indiana University in
Indianapolis. “If church is too challenging or not entertaining, they’ll
move on.” Many who do stick may be “spiritually stuck,” as well,
according to an intense spiritual inventory conducted by Willow Creek. The
study, now being marketed to churches nationwide as a self-assessment tool,
found many who attend church are not progressing from beginner believers to
become “fully centered in Christ” — deep in Bible study, prayer and
service.

Lest we get caught in
dishing out high fives over Jesus’ attractional life, we better well remember
and realize that Jesus was attractional because he was first incarnational.