The upshot of the church’s focus on developing relationships with new members is that “the socialization process was so effective that most churches could cut people off from their previous relationships within two years, replacing the old ties with a new ‘family.'”
“The missional church, as you might guess, has an allergic reaction to the reach-and-assimilate social reengineering of people.”
— Reggie McNeal, Missional Renaissance, p.59
The question then becomes, “How do we assimilate people into the community of God without cutting them off from their social networks?”