The "Attractional" Body

Put your bikini away...this isn't that kind of post

Mar 26, 2025

This week’s post is brought to you by my dear and oh-so-talented friend Caleb Southern. Perhaps if we treat this post right we can convince Caleb to launch his own Substack. Til then, I’ll ride his theologically brilliant coattails. Caleb is a historian and armchair theologian. You’ll see he is a great communicator and realize why it is that I always leave chats with Caleb smarter, and more in love with Jesus.

If you get to the end and have more questions than answers, don’t fret…I’ve already asked Caleb to write at least 2 more follow up pieces to this. Feel free to post in the comments so Caleb can hear your thoughts/questions.

Written By: Caleb Southern

It all started when I finished the final session in my church’s series of discipleship classes. We had to take a spiritual gifts assessment, and my top three gifts were (1) knowledge, (2) wisdom, and (3) teaching. The next thing we were supposed to do was look at a piece of paper with areas of service within our church listed on it. I was supposed to pick an area of service that best utilized my spiritual gifts. Parking team? Greeter team? Children’s ministry? The areas listed were all valuable and admirable areas of service. None of them, though, screamed, “Hey! We need someone who nerds out over the Bible and theology and church history and knows a lot about those things and likes to teach them to others!” The thought was planted then in my head: “Do I belong here?”

It was a strange thought because I love Jesus, and I loved my church. I found myself at the church quite on accident. My first Sunday in college, a shuttle was taking students to the church. I didn’t have a car, so I took a ride there. It was unlike anything I had ever experienced growing up. There was a large lobby with a coffee bar; there was upbeat music during worship; and there was an engaging sermon preached as part of a sermon series with a catchy title and promo video. I didn’t know it then, but I was experiencing my first seeker-sensitive or “attractional” church service.

As I have matured in my faith, however, I have found that those very things got old fast. It turns out that my church was the product of the well-intentioned Church Growth Movement that came into full force in the American church in the 1980s and 1990s. This movement was primarily designed around a “seeker-sensitive” ministry model aimed at attracting people—mainly young persons and young, middle-class families—to church. Once in church, seeker-sensitive churches presented the gospel as the answer to these seekers’ “felt needs.” Leaders sought to design churches that were “comprehensible and convenient for the lost.”1 Though well-intentioned, this church paradigm introduces some dangerous potential idols if uncritically adopted.

Before I go any further, let me define some terms and offer some qualifications so that we’re all on the same page. By “attractional,” I am referring to “a way of doing church ministry whose primary purpose is to make Christianity appealing”.2 Attractional churches are not synonymous with mega-churches though most mega-churches are attractional churches. Also, attractional does not equate to contemporary worship style. You can be a church that follows every formal liturgy known to Christendom and still be “attractional” if the main reason you are using those liturgies is to appeal to a particular group of people. Attractional refers to a way of doing church that any size or kind of congregation can adopt.

There are three primary characteristics of the attractional model which pose particular challenges for Christians. The first two are closely related: (1) consumerism and (2) pragmatism. Attractional churches treat churchgoers as consumers, asking questions like, “Who is our customer?” and “What does our customer want?” If you’ve been a part of an attractional church, you’ve probably seen and felt the general consumeristic culture—the church always feels like it’s selling you something or it is marketing something. Consumerism says that the answer to the problem of poor attendance at a particular event is better marketing. Instead of systematically preaching through the Bible most messages (they’re rarely sermons anymore) at attractional churches start with a perceived felt need of the congregation. Why have we resorted to consumerism? Because we’ve given into pragmatism. The pragmatist’s mantra is “If it works, work it.” 3 If you hear people throwing the word “efficient” around a lot about church, then you are probably hearing the language of pragmatism. The Scriptures rarely use language about efficiency or programming to describe the church. Instead, there is a lot of imagery drawn from agriculture and the human body. In other words, imagery used by the Bible for the church is organic. And sometimes, organisms are not efficient, but they are full of life. Pragmatism promises that if you rightly implement a set of tried-and-true methods, you will get quantifiable results. And this is the root problem underneath pragmatism and consumerism: (3) legalism. When we start to “assume certain tangible or visible results from our application and obedience” to certain principles, we’ve entered legalism.4 Its hard to find clear examples of this legalism, but it creeps through in the general feeling of pressure you might feel about going to church. If you leave church unhealthily tired, then you were probably partaking in a legalistic culture which required a certain type of work to achieve a certain type of result.

Attractional churches typically pride themselves on not being legalistic since they are partially a response to a negative view of holiness which emphasizes what not to do. However, they have simply traded one side of the “law” for the other. Law tells us what not to do (negative law) and what to do (positive law). To appeal to seekers, attractional churches have “down-to-earth” messages that usually “feel good” and try to help people see how the Christian faith is relevant to their lives. These messages usually embody a form of the positive law. If you leave Sunday morning feeling like you have a list of things you need to do over the next week to be a good Christian, then you’ve heard a positive-law sermon.

Law—whether positive or negative—never changes anyone.

Only the Gospel of Jesus Christ changes people (Romans 1:16). The Christian message is about what Jesus has done, what He has accomplished already for us. We never outgrow the gospel. Even seasoned Christians constantly need the gospel continually applied to their lives for growth in holiness (see Colossians 1:6).

The fundamental question that the attractional church forces us to ask is, Who is the church for, anyway? “And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. … And all who believed were together and had things in common” (Acts 2:42, 44 ESV, italics added). Outsiders in church gatherings of the Early Church seem to have been the exception, not the rule (see 1 Corinthians 14:23). If our churches are designed primarily for “seekers,” then a whole host of biblical commands about church discipline and the sacraments are likely to be ignored (see 1 Corinthians 5:1-13; 2 Thessalonians 3:6; Titus 2:15, 3:10). What meaning does church discipline have if those regularly gathered as a “church” do not share a common, covenantal commitment to be of one body? I think that the overwhelming tenor of the biblical assumption is that the church is primarily a place for Believers to gather together for mutual edification, accountability, and growth in Christ-like holiness (see Hebrews 3:12-13, 10:23-25). When Christians are refreshed by the gospel message and community each Sunday, they are empowered to live on mission for the lost. Pastor and theologian Karl Deenick has said, “The New Testament offers a surprisingly lightweight model for church life: it doesn’t seem to have run a great multitude of church programs, rather it gathered together for people to be built up by the gospel in order to then scatter and take that gospel with them into their daily lives.”5

People, never institutions or programs, are “fishers of men” (Matthew 4:19).

A major problem, though, of attractional churches is that they are not designed to truly disciple Believers so that they are sufficiently formed for evangelistic mission. Because attractional churches are designed to appeal to people as consumers, they tend to downplay the gospel and clear, robust biblical teaching. What happens, though, is that people are simply discipled to “a Bible-lite inspirational self-help teaching.” This isn’t really Christianity so much as “therapeutic moralism” 6. And this can be gotten anywhere. The “attractional church has spent decades discipling its customers toward a more self-involved, individualized faith, and we should not be surprised when this self-involved individualism is fully embraced, and people stop showing up to church on the weekend” 7. This discipleship failure is predicated on a cultural naivete. Attractional churches are built around a big, exciting, flashy Sunday morning production which is supposed to appeal to seekers. The problem is that Christianity has less and less cultural power to “pressure” people with a sense that they should be in a church on a Sunday morning. This means that people rarely just walk off the streets anymore and into churches.

This lack of discipleship and cultural naivete breeds shallow Christ-followers who are not evangelistically effective. This may be the greatest tragedy and irony of the attractional church since the whole paradigm defends itself by appealing to the good teachings and commands of our Lord to care for and reach the lost (for example, Matthew 9:37-38, 28:19-20; Luke 15:4-7, 19:10; 2 Corinthians 5:20; Hebrews 10:24-25). If the church of Jesus is a body (1 Corinthians 12:12-26), then attractional churches are bodies without feet. The Apostle Paul asks, “How are [the lost] to believe in him [Jesus] of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent?” (Romans 10:14-15). Attractional churches stand, wave their arms, and call people to come to them. Jesus’s great commission (Matthew 28:19-20) to His people was to “go…and make disciples” through baptism (sacraments) and teaching obedience (holiness). The call to “come and see” (John 1:46) or to “follow me” (Matthew 4:19) is never a call to view a large, impersonal spectacle. These are always highly personal calls from one person to another.

Obviously, the criticisms could be multiplied, and each of these have only scratched the surface of what could be written. I haven’t mentioned the generational divisions or the abandonment of sacraments like the Lord’s Supper, or the absence of congregational prayer. I stop here to offer a concluding encouragement and a prayer.

If anyone reading this knows me or the church that I attend, I hope that what has been written won’t be construed as some self-righteous, cathartic vent/bash session. As far as I can tell of my own heart (Psalm 26:2; 139:23; 2 Corinthians 13:5), I offer this in truth-rejoicing love (1 Corinthians 13:6) and expectant hope. I truly am hopeful. Because, ultimately, my church is a part of Christ’s Body (1 Corinthians 12:12-26), and He has “arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose” (v. 18, cf. Acts 17:26). Why has He so carefully arranged each of us in a particular local church and each of those local churches in a particular geographical location and historical culture? So “that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish” (Ephesians 5:26-27). Did that promise take your breath away? No? Then go read it again. Let it soak deep until no sin or church governance issue or contentious elder board meeting can shake your confidence that Jesus Christ has joyfully and painfully died a criminal’s death on a cross to atone for all of that and completely sanctify His Body, of which you, I pray, are a member (Philippians 2:5-11; 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24; Hebrews 12:2).

Now, a prayer. D. A. Carson, commenting in 1996 on American Evangelicalism’s overall lack of significant cultural and political influence despite their numeric superiority, wrote, “The level of frustration is high. But not, I fear, the level of brokenness” 8.

Jesus, make me broken for my church, not frustrated or angry or bitter about her. Make me her advocate as You are our advocate (Hebrews 7:25; 1 John 2:1-2). Give me faith to trust that you are sanctifying Your people and that You are growing Your Body in a way that only You can (Colossians 2:19). Empower me for faithful, courageous, joyful, and love-filled obedience and dependence. Give me eyes to see You at work and a generous heart willing to testify that You have done all things well (Mark 7:37). Amen.

Life in the Body

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