http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheForgottenWays/~3/220128097/
From the digram in the last post we can see the ‘sneeze-like’ nature of the missional impulse in the diagram. But the diagram also enables us to see how exactly it is that we have inhibited this outward flowing movement. The Christendom template tends to bolt down this missional impulse by substituting it with an attractional one. So while the local church does genuinely do forms of evangelism and outreach, because it measures effectiveness through numerical growth, better programming, and increase of plant and resources, it requires the attractional impulse to support it. The exchange is subtle but profound and the net effect is to unwittingly block the outward bound movement that is built-in to the gospel. Instead of being sown to the wind, the seeds are put into ecclesial storehouses thus effectively extinguishing the purpose they were made for. Or to go back to the sneeze metaphor…we suppress the ‘sneeze’ by holding back the impulse to sneeze in the first place. And because of this, it quite simply can never hope to impact the broader culture as Jesus movements are able to. This is an attempt to try portray the evangelistic attractional mode….
