'Come to us' or 'Go to them'?

Over the last couple of weeks we've organised our local newspaper advertisements, postcards in homes & businesses in the street where we are, information in motels & hotels - all this to "advertise" our Holy Week & Easter services.

People have asked, re a very moving Good Friday service last year, "Are we going to do what we did last year ...?".

I find myself under considerable pressure to ensure that our Easter services "attract". And I feel, rightly or wrongly seeing I'm having to do most of the thinking, planning, etc. by myself, that the judgment on the "success" of Easter at our church will fall upon me.

So I and find myself with a great amount of tension in my current situation. I'm beginning to become stressed by the kinds of questions & demands falling upon me. What can I do to get the crowds back like we had last year? If there are less at our Easter services than last year - does that mean I've failed as the minister? There's a BIG conversation here!

It sort of links in with some current conversations I've come across re the church as "attractional" or as a "people sent". An attractional church is one whose primary stance towards those it seeks to reach is couched in the expectation of a come-to-us mentality. And this expectation as it plays out in Australia, and other western countries, was basically formed in a time in history where the church had a central position in the culture and people naturally came to church to be cared for, to hear the gospel, and to participate in the community life. The problem is that adopting such a mode is at the cost of fundamentally altering our understanding of ourselves as a ‘sent’ people. And this is further exacerbated by the fact that we live in what many call a post-Christendom era. In other words, an attractional church can work in a Christendom context, but in a missionary context it actually undermines our efforts to reach people meaningfully with the Gospel of Jesus. Hence my thinking re an 'attractional Easter' at our church.Two different conceptions of church vying for our loyalty.

Living with a "come to us" mentality or a "go to them" mentality?