“Evangelistic” is the adjective form of the noun “evangelist.”
An “evangelistic” church preaches the gospel calling people to repentance.
An “evangelistic” church exhorts the gospel and calls people to a decision.
“Evangelistic” churches strive to be attract the lost that they may come, hear, and be converted.
“Missional” is simply the adjective form of the noun “missionary.”
A “missional” Christian lives his/her life with an attitude of a missionary, going into a culture to bring them the gospel in the context of their culture. Just as Jesus was incarnational, becoming a man in order to redeem man, missional churches love their missional field (as Christ loved the world) and brings the light of the gospel into its darkness.
A “missional” church lives the gospel in her culture, in her society that people may come to faith in Christ.
Therefore a healthy church strives to be both “attractional” and “incarnational” in her ministry design.
“Incarnational” means that the church goes to where the people are and brings them them the gospel.
“Attractional” means that the church brings people into the church to join Christianity.
To be biblical/mature/comprehensive/balanced a church must be balanced in both evangelistic/attractional and missional/incarnational.
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Jason Robertson is a husband and a father and a pastor. He is dedicated to leading and equipping his the Church with God’s word and biblical theology for life ministry, using a combination of pastoral, church planting and evangelism experience. He holds a Master of Divinity from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. He is experienced in church planting, evangelism, missions, and the training of pastors and Bible teachers.
Jason has been preaching the gospel since 1985, serving the first ten years of ministry as a Southern Baptist itinerant evangelist out of Milldale Baptist Church in Zachary, LA which ordained him in 1993. He has preached in hundreds of churches in over 30 States and 4 countries. He planted churches in Siberia, Russia in the summers of 1993 and 1994. He founded Murrieta Valley Church in California, which he planted in cooperation with the SBC NAMB in 2001. He also teaches ministry students at California Baptist University.
You can hear his sermons and read his manuscripts on sermonaudio.com. Just follow the link to "sermons" at the top of this page.
Sorry, this may come across as a bit dense, but are you defending Keller or just reporting what he says?
I had no idea Keller needed “defending.”
I think people ought to be missional/evangelistic. Maybe the church should be too – if we are talking about the people. The meeting of the church is for believers, as I understand the NT. The gospel should be preached because we never outgrow the need to hear it.
But it seems to me that whenever a church starts emphasizing being “missional” it turns into a church that becomes concerned with “getting people in” aka numbers and trying to keep everything as inoffensive as possible to the point of changing the message. Now of course most churches use a Bible and preach in the native language. But that is a given as being a sensible thing and there is not a lot of dancing about over things like that.
I wish the church would busy itself using the ministry offices equipping us all to do the work of the ministry, helping us lay Christians be missional/evangelistic as we go out into the world every day, instead of trying to make the meeting of believers be more and more evangelistic (ie. the purpose is to get unsaved people in as much as possible.).
I apologize if I misunderstood the question, I hope I answered what you were asking. I can’t go back and check without losing what I’ve typed!
Karen I actually think you may misunderstand the meaning of the word missional. You stated “But it seems to me that whenever a church starts emphasizing being “missional” it turns into a church that becomes concerned with “getting people in” aka numbers and trying to keep everything as inoffensive as possible to the point of changing the message.”
That is an exact description of the seeker model, but I don’t think it properly characterizes a missional model. In fact I would hope that the opposite would be true.
OK, thanks Scott. I may well have.
Scott, can you describe what a missional model would look like?