Planting Space

I just want to give a shout out to church planter Sean Lovejoy for his recent post on being “Missonal” AND “Attractional”. This has been on my heart lately as I see more and more church planters wanting to bypass all forms of marketing in the name of being missional. The reality is that God wants you to be in the community, serving people on a one to one basis, and He wants you to reach out to the community so that you can touch people with your message that you do not have a relational connection with. Let me give you three quick definitions we use:

• Marketing: Communicating your message with the unconnected in your community. Letting people see and hear your message.
• Outreach: Providing opportunities for the unconnected in your community to experience who you are by meeting their felt needs. Letting people feel your message.
• Networking: Building relationships with an expanding number of people who have the ability to influence the thinking and actions of the unconnected.

If you want to bring as many people into the kingdom as possible, plant a church using all three methods to exponentially multiply your impact in the community. Use just one or two and I guarantee your impact will be lessened. Let’s find the balance between attracting people to hear the Gospel proclaimed and going out into the world to demonstrate the Gospel to them.

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