Below are two very helpful videos presentations by Alan Hirsch from last year’s AND conference at Granger Community Church. The bulk of the first video is spent on the very important topic of cultural distance and the problem it creates for meaningful communication of the gospel. Building upon the cultural distance discussion, he then proceeds to examine the “missionary problem”, of having the majority of American churches attempting to reach the same population segment, that is 95% of churches in America are trying to reach the same 40% of the population.
This leads to what he refers to as the “strategic problem”, which recognizes that 60% of the population has no interest in identifying with the contemporary church that is represented by 95% of the churches. The last several minutes of the presentation is spent in a time of Q&A. When viewing the first video you may want to skip over the the opening song, as well as the goofy skit on the tension between missional and attractional that precedes Alan’s talk.
The second video deals with the five-fold ministry of Ephesians 4. Alan argues that we will never create or sustain a movement until the church recaptures the role of the Apostle, Prophet and Evangelist.
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Hey Eric Bramlet, I did see it and I don’t feel burned.
To be honest, I think 40% is too generous. I often hear 35-40% but I never hear any hard data to back it up, I believe it is just gut-feeling optimism at work in those who are invested in that type of church. The percentage of Christians in our nation is dropping while the mega churches are growing, which to me indicates that we have pretty much tapped out the segment that would be attracted to the attractional church. The vast majority of mega churches are drawing Christians from other churches, because that is the market that enjoys a worship concert and a sermon.
…going after the 60%!!!
Neil