MISSIONAL vs ATTRACTIONAL...PART ONE

(Authors note, I'm supposed to write a paper on this for a class I'm taking. Here is what I'm thinking).
What are we driving at?
In our churches this becomes a great question. Many have looked at the church in America as a whole and either verbally or in written form have concluded it isn't working the way Christ intended.
But how do we measure success in the church? Is it pure numbers? What about individual growth?
I would say that when the numbers begin to slide most leadership teams take the attractional route, and what I mean by that we either develop or implement programs that are meant to draw people into the church. Some examples might be, more contemporary worship, programs for kids, programs for adults (example might be a fitness class), hi-tech gadgets that enhance worship, perhaps in extreme cases new building programs or even a new pastor-speaker.
I believe this is a very human response to a larger spiritual issue.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not against any of this, in fact you could make a case that attractional things will bring people in, and if one person finds Jesus because of it, that's great.
But lets face it, doing attractional stuff is easier. Oh I don't mean that starting programs is easy, but it doesn't require us to grow, which can be painful and a lot of work.
It comes back to this question, what are we driving at?
When two pastors get together that haven't seen each other in awhile, the question usually gets asked "how many are you running on Sunday morning?" I'm not sure I've ever heard "how healthy is your church" or "are your people becoming disciples?"
If it's all about numbers then the attractional model makes sense. My fear is that when numbers become the main issue, we tend to do attractional things that draw Christians from other churches, instead of the intended target, the un-churched.
I want the church to be relevant, it has to make sense to the culture that it serves, however if we are not careful it can become a grand production. It looks great, high energy, but it doesn't always make disciples, sometimes we only create consumers.
Next month we will look at the missional model.