Echoes Through Eternity Season 4 Episode 10 Death of the Attractional Church

Summary
In this conversation, Dr. Jeffrey D. Skinner discusses the decline of the Attractional Church model and emphasizes the importance of relationships in fostering lasting faith. He argues that the church's focus should shift from performance and spectacle to authentic presence and meaningful connections. The discussion highlights the need for churches to prioritize formation over mere attendance, advocating for a return to the core mission of love and community. Skinner provides practical takeaways for church leaders to navigate this transition effectively.
Takeaways
The Attractional Church model is fading.
Relationships are the strongest predictor of lasting faith.
Positive experiences with the Christian community shape identity.
Methods built on image erode authenticity and trust.
People want to be known by the church, not impressed.
The church's impact is based on how it leads, not what it produces.
Relevance fades fast; relationship endures.
Transformation happens in shared life, not in crowds.
The church is a people we become, not a place we attend.
The church that endures is the most authentic.




Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/echoes-through-eternity-with-dr-jeffery-skinner--5523198/support.

Echoes Through Eternity Guiding church planters and pastors to plant seeds of prayer, holiness, and courage that outlast a lifetime. contact [e-mail]

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Marcus Abrelius said, what we do in life echoes through Eternity?
What is your life echoing through eternity? Welcome to Echoes
through Eternity with doctor Jeffrey Skinner. Our mission is to inspire,
engage and encourage leaders from across the globe to plant
missional churches and be servant leaders. So join us and

(00:22):
hear the stories of servant leaders reverberating lives as God
echoes them through eternity. Brought to you by Missional Church
Planting and Leadership Development and Dynamic Church Planning International.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Welcome in Echoes through Eternity. I am your host, Doctor
Jeffrey D. Skinner. What is God that going through your
life today? Well, today we're talking about something that meaning
church leaders have since deep down for a long time.
The attractional church model is fading. In fact, Barna and
Kerrie Newhoff are their reports and are saying this dead

(00:56):
long before Barna and Carrie Newhoff began die. Giving these
trends though I saw them emerging my own ministry and
research during my doctoral stage at Trevec and Nazari University.
I asked three questions that guided my research. What impact
do relationships have on spiritual identity, what impact do methods
have on spiritual identity? And what impact do experiences have

(01:20):
on Christian identity? Spiritual identity? And that study became my
dissertation Loved Me Reintroducing Jesus to the Next Generations, and
later it became the foundation of my book Reachable, Seven
Keys to Loving, Mentoring and Leading the Church in the
Next Generations, which can be found on Amazon dot com,

(01:40):
in Kendall or hardback, even paperback and audiobook as well
on but what I found has become unmistakable today. Ships
are the strongest predictor of lasting faith. Positive experiences with
the Christian community can shape identity more than any program,
but they are not significantly impacting on spiritual identity. Methods

(02:06):
built on image and performance, he wrote, authenticity and trust
and have no impact. The church's impact rises or falls
not on what it produces, but on how it connects
and you off puts it well in the art on
the leadership network. For decades, churches drew crowds with energy

(02:26):
production and spectacle motorcycles on the stage, rooftop stunts, even
the Easter raffles. And it worked for our time, didn't
lize them today. We'll talk about why no honer connects,
what's emerging in his place, and how authentic presence can
restore the church's witness. What happened to the crowds For years.

(02:47):
Growth meant attraction, bigger stages, and branding more services, But
the numbers tell a different story. In twenty twenty three
says that only twenty eight percent of US adults into
weekly worship. That's down from forty five percent twenty years ago.
Oh I've in twenty twenty four said that church membership

(03:08):
has fallen below half for the first time in our
nation's history. What they've discovered is that the hunger for
meaning hasn't disappeared, but trust has. People don't want to
be impressed by the church, they want to be known by.
And if you're a church planter, that's awesome news for
you because you don't have the resources that the huge

(03:30):
megachurches have to draw the big crowds, but you do
have something they don't have. You have authenticity, and you
have small enough numbers that people can be nun In
my own research, those who developed a deep, lasting faith
shared one common thread. Someone saw them wasn't a program,
It was a person. Someone who walked beside them when

(03:52):
life was messy and faith was fragile. In other words,
they were a mentor. If you think about this, this
is very much It's what Jesus did way back in
Jerusalem when he came on the scene. It's the rabbi's way.
It wasn't anything new he invented. He just picked up
on what the culture was doing, and that was he
just walked into the highways and the byways of life,

(04:14):
and as he went he built relationships with people, and
then he had a system in place to where he
would mentor them. He would men toward a few, and
then he would multiply himself, replicate himself in others, and
they would do the same. In other words, we're making
christ Like disciples. When the church loses that relational heartbeat,

(04:34):
a tendency decline is only the symptom. The real disease
is disconnection. Why it stopped working. The attractional model assumed
that cultural limitation would lead to conversation. If we looked
enough like the world on Sunday, the world might show up.
But post pandemic life proved otherwise. Qew in twenty twenty

(04:55):
four found sixty three percent of Americans now distrust organized.
In other words, they gave them a slick marketing campaign,
but when they showed up, it was all fluff and
no substance. Younger believers see productionist performance. They do not
want a performative faith. They want a faith that matters.

(05:16):
It's a salient Christian identity, an identity of Christian identity
of faith that shapes who they are and makes an
impact on their life and leaves an impact on the world.
We've kept the form of faith but lost its breath.
In my doctoral data, this showed up clearly when methods
overshadow meaning, spiritual identity weakens. When faith that's presented as

(05:41):
a shadow instead of a shared journey, people quietly slip away.
And they can do that in a huge church, in
an anonymous way. No one will miss them. It's not
that the gospel lost its power, it's that we packaged
it in a way that no longer felt authentic. Faith
formed only in the pew rare survives the pressure of
the week. The church was never meant to be a spectacle.

(06:04):
It was meant to be a sanctuary, relevance to worship.
For years, the question was how do we stay relevant? Today,
the question is who actually seized me. The earliest believers
didn't ask for programs. They asked one another, how is
it with your soul? That question still changes lives. In
my study, those with a strong stritual identity always linked

(06:27):
it to relationship, a pastor, a teacher, a mentor or
friend who listened and guided without judgment. Relevance fades fast,
relationship endures. If you want to reach this generation, offer
a relationship, not a rehearsal. They're not looking for a shadow,
they're looking for someone to walk with them. From platform

(06:48):
to presents. The stage one symbolized authority now at signals distance.
Jesus didn't build stages. He built tables. He shared meals
with sinners, sat with the lonely, and look people in
the eye. Presence it's harder to measure, but it's what
the world craves. In my interviews with young adults, the
turning point was always presence. Someone who noticed them, prayed

(07:13):
with them, walked through their pain. That kind of faith
can't be streamed on stage or staged. It must be shared.
You know. The shift from platform to presence hit me personally.
A few weeks ago. I was prepping for this episode
of Ring on Caffeine, eight Deadlines and Too Little Sleep,
I pulled on a hypernatural polo, a simple Marino landing pause.

(07:35):
It sounds small, but it reminded me that even what
we wear can be a moment of presence instead of performance,
a chance to breathe, flow down, and feel human again.
If you've ever tried, check out. If you haven't tried them,
check out Hypernaturalstyle dot com. Use the code echoes for
twenty percent off. It's not about fashion, it's about living

(07:58):
with intentional peace. In fact, what really draws people to
Jesus his authentic presence, from attendance to formation. The Great
Commission never said make attendees, it said make disciples. Barna
in twenty twenty two found that believers active in small
groups are twice as likely to report joy and purpose.

(08:18):
Formation doesn't happen in a crowd. It happens in conversation,
in service, in shared life. That's where people find belonging
and meaning. And if you're planning a church, keep this
in mind. Transformation is slow, but it's real. It cannot
be microwaved. Microwave faith cools quickly and when it takes root,

(08:40):
but a transformation is slow. It's a crock pot faith,
and when it takes root, it lasts returning to the source.
The healthiest faith communities aren't built on personality or production.
They're built on shared life. They gather to pray, serve,
and grow. They carry one another's burdens and become living

(09:00):
evidence that God still changes hearts. That's the secret every
generation eventually discovers the church is not a place we attend,
but a people we become. A pastor's reflection, I've watched
these shift first hand. Flash fills the room, but faith
forms the soul. Churches that endure are smaller, warmer, truer
people are drawn not by spectacle but by peace, and

(09:23):
peace always begins with presents, Gods and ours. That truth
came home from me and Lisa last year. We were
wrapping Christmas gifts under the glow of the tree. The
house was quiet. I remember thinking, this is what peace
feels like. We just switched to cozy earth bamboo viscoas sheets,
a gift from a friend. The cool, soft and reminder

(09:44):
that rest itself is holy work. If you're thinking about
Christmas gifts, and I know it might be a little
bit early, but if the early bird gets some worm.
So if you're thinking about Christmas gifts, give someone else
that rest. Visit cozyearth dot com. Use the code echoes
for forty one zo percent on. It's not about the sheets,
It's about creating a sanctuary. What grace can bring recovering

(10:06):
identity and mission. The future church must rediscover is why
we are not entertainers. We're shepherds. We're not brands. We're witnesses.
When methods serve love, identity strengthens, and the church endurers.
When methods replace love both faith our calling has never
changed to live truthfully, walk humbly, and love will. If

(10:29):
we focus on those three, everything else finds this place.
Here's some practical takeaways from today. Let me offer a
few simple measures for leaders and churches in this moment.
Measure formation, not fame. Build smaller tables where people belong.
Preach for transformation, not reaction, and not information models. Surrender

(10:51):
more than strategy, because the church that endures isn't the
most creative, it's the most authentic. If you'd like to
hear Kerry Newhouse full conversation, look for the church model
that's dead, the attractional church and three shifts every Leader
Must Know on the k New Haaff Leadership Podcast, part
of the Art of Leadership network. The statistics today came

(11:13):
from Barnot twenty twenty two, three three twenty twenty three,
Gallop twenty twenty four and Pee Research Again. This is
doctor Jeffrey D. Skinner. Please share this with your friends
if you find it valuable. What is God echoing through
your life today?