Thanks for the comment. I fully understand the weakness of my argument in that anyone in a megachurch that is doing a lot of good stuff could come on here and point to what they are doing and tell me that I am wrong. Perhaps I am and I just engaged in sweeping generalizations. Where small groups and mission teams exist, there is the possibility of community and engagement. I think that I allowed for that in my post. Maybe I was not as clear as I could have been in that regard.

Primarily, however, I am talking less about doing things and engaging in mission projects and more about a state of being. My question involves whether the attractional nature of the megachurch with all of its attendant ministries serves as an aid or a hindrance to living a “sent” lifestyle. Maybe some do it well. But, when the locus of the Christian life is focused on the ministries of the church, we often have a lot of people who just hang out around the fringes and come along for the ride.

Of course, you are right to say that this happens in non-megas as well. Maybe a better way to look at this is to delineate between attractional and missional, but I would also add that missional is more of a lifestyle than it is having a bunch of ministries that do a lot of stuff even though that has some merit.

Thanks for the input.

Let me say up front that I work as a missions pastor in a mega church. I have a slightly different view as you could imagine . I hold to some of the ideas you share about MC problems. Sometime we are too attractionalin nature. But I also think many, at least the ones I connect with, also send out missional swift boats more than our non mega churches.

In my experience I do not see non mega’s being more missional, at least in my area which is missions. I have worked for years with and among churches of all sizes seeking to partner among UPG’s here and abroad. I have a ton with our mission board seeking to engage churches of all sizes to be missional. Seldom do non mega’s have any desire to do this. Most of their mission activity resides solely in CP giving and little “going”. SOme will engage their community and few end up going to the ethnos.

I know that you and the ones on this blog are not that way and are very missional, as I have I read you guys in other spots for years. But again I am not sure mega or non mega is the determiner of swift boat or cruise ship You may not be saying that, but it seems that way. I have seen many, many non mega’s as cruise ships who simply do not carry as many people.

What I see, at least at our church and that is all I can speak for, are many people coming to us because they were tired of their non mega and it’s apathy. They want to engage in ministry outside the walls of their church so they come to us looking to go to the ethnos and to our community. They want their kids to have missional expiierence that their non mega had no desire to engage in.

I hope I am not coming across argumentative but simply presenting what one person observes.