Blue Ocean or Red Ocean - Where Are You Fishing?

The Issues Around Cultural Distance and the Churched Culture

If you look at the population of North America on a continuum and number it from 1 to 4, it has been observed that each # between the Christendom Paradigm and the unchurched world is a significant barrier to communicating the Gospel.  The farther from the Christendom or churched world one moves, the more challenging it is to communicate the Gospel.

 

The  Christendom paradigm works fairly well in reaching between 0 to 1

But - the farther you get from 1 in cultural distance, the less the Christendom paradigm connects or communicates the faith because we struggle to explain our church vocabulary and the cultural trappings that often accompany our communication of Gospel truth. 

Attractional Church models reaches from 0 to 2 at best

If we do succeed in bringing in a 3 or 4 we often socialize them out of their current relationships to get them to the Christendom relational world.  Since the Gospel moves best along relational lines, this is counterproductive in creating a missional environment.  It extracts people from their natural relational networks!  In order to reach 3's and 4's we need to share who Jesus is and what he has done for us minus the "churched culture" stuff.  That is harder for many of us so we tend to fish in the Red Ocean.

 

In the Christendom or Attractional Church model we most often fish in the 40% Red Ocean.  That is the churched and "looking for a church" world. The 60% Blue Ocean is the Dechurched, Unchurched and Never Churched world which makes up at least 60% of the population.  That Blue Ocean world is at best indifferent to the churched world "message" and often "hostile to it." 

The 60% Blue Ocean will never respond to the old models.  Thus we have more and more churches taking the easy path and fishing in the same 40% Red Ocean while those who are lost in the 60% ocean are left to drown in their sin.  Everybody is competing for the same 40% (perhaps this % is even generous) instead of the 60% Blue Ocean where real fishing needs to be done.

The Attractional church model seeking to fish in the Red Ocean generally has a centrifugal model of church, drawing people from the Red Ocean into their vortex.  They indeed reach some people with the Gospel.  They do good and Godly work.

The Missional church model seeks to fish in the Blue Ocean and looks to operate a centripetal model sending people out into the community.  It sends people out as missionaries into the Blue Ocean reaching populations which are often ignored in the churched world.  When folks wade into that Blue Ocean they often find that while people there are hostile to the "churched world", they may be open to learn about Jesus, forgiveness, salvation and changed lives.

The truth is that people need Jesus in whichever ocean they are swimming.  Our natural tendency, regardless of worship style and ministry style is to fish in the Red Ocean because it feels more natural and seems easier.  I believe we need to fish in both.  After all, Jesus told the disciples to throw their nets on the other side.

Alan Hirsch and Dave Ferguson, in their book On the Verge, (Exponential Series, 2011) say "Christendom has been around as a culture for 17+ centuries and we have inoculated the culture against it."  Sadly this is true in many ways.  So - while the low hanging fruit may be in the Red Ocean, what could your church do to equip fisherman who go out in the name of Jesus to the Blue Ocean?