Attractive Churches

by Joe Thorn on April 1, 2005

It seems like a lot of churches desire to be attractive. I think this is good. Everyone wants to be attractive. But the issue for me is to whom do we want to be attractive and how? Obviously the church should be concerned about being attractive to Jesus Christ. We are his bride, and are clothed in his righteousness and adorned with faith and holiness. This should be of first importance. In another sense we desire to be attractive to those outside the community of faith. We want them to see the beauty of Jesus among us, and the love we have for one another. We want them to see the Kingdom and enter in. But how do we show this beauty? How do we make ourselves attractive?

Many churches make themselves attractive by trying hard to be like the world, making ourselves beautiful with whatever is fashionable, trendy or cool. Do I need to say that this approach only makes the church superficially and temporarily attractive? But in reality it is God’s design of the church itself, her ancient faith and practices, her counter-cultural values and behavior, that makes her appealing to those outside. Brian Kay, Pastor of Trinity Presbyterian Church in CA, says that if anything makes the church appealing/interesting/attractive to the world in a redemptive way, it is being ourselves.

The church will be the most provocative and alluring when it is being itself, being who God constituted it to be, that is, a mini-society that proclaims the Person and work of Christ, and imitates his sacrificial service. The church will be least relevant when it is caught in the act of reinventing itself to gain more friends. I remember as a teenager that the surest way to get me to avoid a Christian youth event was to show me a flier promising "cool music and awesome teaching." That meant that for sure the music would not be cool, and the speaker would be more aware of himself, or me, than of God.
Brian Kay, The Relevant Church

About Joe Thorn

I am the Lead Pastor of Redeemer Fellowship in Saint Charles, IL, and author of Note to Self: The Discipline of Preaching to Yourself. Jen is my wife, and Katherine, Elias, Madeline and Kilian are my kids.

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  • Jeff

    Joe,

    I hope that I am not being too esoteric about your latest post about “Attractive Churches” but while I agree with you whole heartedly on the points that you make as well as your usage of the word attractive, I strongly believe that modern (or as you would say, “post-modern”) society and unfortunately the Church, have formed a perception of this word based on a fallacy. Somewhere along the time-line of revisionist history, we as a society have decided that attractive is the same word as inoffensive, and thus as a result, the concepts are interchangeable. This simply is not true. Now I am not writing about the semantics of the word, but of the conceptual meaning of it, as well as the ramifications of its misuse. I very strongly hold to the belief that one of the most significant reasons that the Church of today is suffering under a veil of socially conscious activism coupled with spiritual apathy is that it has in attempt to be attractive to all, become equally inoffensive to all. This result flies in the face of basic Christianity.

    Christ, His message, and the path to eternal life are VERY OFFENSIVE for the unbeliever. It is through the process of recognizing this offense (sola Christo, sola gratia, sola fide, sola scriptura and soli Deo gloria) and coming to a place where the Spirit leads us to understanding and acceptance… that is the basic tenant of faith. Without the offence, Grace becomes cheap, optional or irrelevant. I am reminded of a Michael Card song called “Scandalon”. As you know (since your language studies were more Greek than Latin) scandalon comes to us from the Greek and is where we get our English word, “scandal.” The word scandalon is used in 1 Peter 2:8 where the Greek text refers to petra skandalou which is literally “a rock of falling” or a “rock of offense,” but it comes into our modern English as “a rock that makes them fall.”

    Scandalon
    by Michael Card
    Copyright 1985, Birdwing Music

    The seers and the prophets had foretold it long ago,
    that the long-awaited One would make men stumble;
    But they were looking for a king to conquer and to kill;
    Who’d had ever thought He’d be so meek and humble.
    Along the path of life there lies a stubborn scandalon,
    And all who come this way must be offended.
    To some He is a barrier to others He’s the way;
    For all should know the scandal of believing.
    Seems today the scandalon offends no one at all;
    The image we present can be stepped over.
    Could it be that we are like the others long ago;
    Will we ever learn that all who come must stumble.

    Chorus

    He will be the truth and will offend them one and all,
    A stone that makes men stumble and a rock that makes them fall.
    Many will be broken so that He can make them whole;
    And many will be crushed and lose their own soul.

    That verse about offending no one is a very telling statement and it causes me great trouble. It does this because I know that this happened in Old and Inter-Testament times, and I know that this is what is happening in our churches today. You see, the nation of Judah managed to create an aberrant version of quasi-biblical faith that offended no one. They learned how to be religious without living lives of justice and mercy and righteousness. They learned how to mouth the words and act out the rituals without allowing any of it to offend them with the radical call to godly living. They crowded into the temple and performed all of the prescribed rituals, but their lives were starkly out of step with the will of God…The same God whom they worshipped with such regularity. The Pharisees, by Christ’s own words, managed to develop this new ‘theology’ into something that was anathema to God. Did this aberration occur through an original attempt at being ‘attractive to all’? And hasn’t the Church of today done exactly the same thing when it practices the ‘art of being attractive’ but in reality is actually being inoffensive? Doesn’t the church of today make believing in Jesus easy? Has it not allowed rationalization, acceptance and abstract theologizing to smooth down the rough edges of the Stone and as a result, ‘domesticated’ the Gospel?

    I await your input?

  • http://www.joethorn.com Joe Thorn

    I think we’re talking about slightly different things. My point is that the church should not try to make herself look good by adopting the world’s most current dress, but is most beautiful when wearing the righteousness of Christ and is adorned in holiness. Will this be offensive to unbelievers? Yes and no. Not all are offended. I think the idea of “offense” is often the reponse of the “righteous,” and not necessarilly of the “sinners” Jesus encournters. Jesus spoke of the world seeing our good works and “glorifying our Father in heaven.” This is not offense, though it is not faith either.

    I think you and I are in agreement. Can the Gospel be lovely and offensive at the same time? Yes. It is, and must be (Thanks Mr. Card!). So, my point is not about marketing, or being user-friendly, but about being who God calls us to be, and THAT is beautiful. Some will see the lovliness and be attracted for a time. Some will be attracted and fall in love with Jesus by his Grace. Other will find offense and mock it all.

    I’m excited that you figured out how to comment bro. Looking forward to a conversation! We playing chess next week?

  • Jeff

    Well, I guess you could say that we are both right, (not that right or wrong is even the issue). Rather, I would say that the problem of some churches today, that are clothing themselves in superficial attractiveness, is in my opinion, indicative of a much larger problem. As I said before, I absolutely agree with the points that you set forth in the original post, but I feel that while you are addressing the symptom of the ailment, you must look deeper to see the root cause. Ultimately, it comes down to motivation. Is the church attempting to be attractive for the sake of acceptance from society or it truly and genuinely attractive because it is reflecting the genuine beauty of Christ?

    As for chess, is Wednesday good for you? If so, where?

  • http://www.joethorn.com Joe Thorn

    A beautiful church for the pleasure of God! (I’ll email you about chess.)

  • http://slimfastcrusader.blogspot.com/ John

    I’ve got a new blog with a post on Calvin and visible elements in worship. I’m not convinced Calvin is correct, but I think his critique of the “Visible” is an issue that needs to be addressed by emergent types.
    http://slimfastcrusader.blogspot.com/

  • http://www.joethorn.com Joe Thorn

    John,

    I (and I think most at Grace) are in essential agreement with Calvin here. We embrace the regulative principle, though not exactly in the way of Calvin or the puritans. We believe only what is prescribed in Scripture should be essential elements in gathered worship on the Lord’s Day. I think the idea of the Lord acommodating us in our humanity via communion is great, and I agree this is all of the visible needed in worship to engage the pomo culture.

    Some of the ec churches (Mosaic and Vintage for example) often have people painting, sculpting, etc. during the worship time reflecting the theme/Scripture of that day. Very creative stuff, but out of bounds from my perspective. Where the ec is doing well is in emphasizing the need for the church to be engaged in the arts. But the way it is sometimes brought into worship is dangerous.

    This was the point of my post, and certainly the point Kay was making – both coming from reformed perspectives. In fact, Grace appears to be similar to Kay’s church in CA.

  • Chris K

    I wanted to address the discussion Jeff and Joe were having about making the church attractive. From where I’m sitting the thing that Joe is promoting and the thing that Jeff is warning against are two different things. In the same way that a beautiful bride is different than, shall we say, an easy girlfriend. It seems that Joe is saying that we should be like a beautiful bride and Jeff is warning against being an easy girlfriend. I Peter 3:3 says:
    Your beauty should not come from outward
    adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of
    gold jewelry and fine clothes. Instead, it should
    be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of
    a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth
    in God’s sight.
    Of course this is talking to wives who might or might not have unbelieving husbands, but if marriage is a metaphor for the Church’s relationship with Christ the principles should be the same. Our beauty, or attractiveness, should come from our innerselves, not outward adornments. In our lif as a church we should be beautiful by being submissive to each other and having a gentle and quiet spirit, not by taking on just a pleasing outward appearance.

  • http://www.slimfastcrusader.blogspot.com John

    Thanks Joe. I think Grace’s evaluation of the arts in worship, shows that emergent types aren’t just adopting a program/system but thinking theologically about the issues of the day. I don’t think I said it in my blog, but Calvin wasn’t opposed to religious art in homes. Luther thought that image-free worship was ideal, but he was willing to accomodate for the “weak”. I personally go back and forth on the legitimacy of the regulative principle, but I love simplicity in worship. If I were ever involved in worship leadership, the “service” would probably look like a regulative principled service

  • http://www.joethorn.com Joe Thorn

    For the record, Grace is not an “emerging church,” though I am involved in the conversation. We’re somewhat hard to classify I think. Since all of our labels would be too much (Reformed, Baptist (SBC), Evangelical, etc.) to use effectively, and since some people in each of the categories would object to our use of the terms perhaps we need our own. lol.

  • Chris W

    Thanks, Chris, for pointing out the positions Jeff and Joe were speaking from. I was trying to form that into words and couldn’t, but I was seeing the same thing you were. Different sides of the same point, I guess. Or the same point of different sides? Or two sides of a point that has different….oh, forget it! ;^)

  • http://djword.blogspot.com Rick Bennett

    It is hard to not bow down to the god of consumerism in a society like the US, sadly.

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