6 Reasons People Aren't Coming to Your Church

I read this article this morning, thought the points were salient to all churches.  Read the whole article here.


Here are the salient points:

1. Your church isn’t for them. 

2. You don’t expect guests.  

3. You don’t acknowledge guests.  

4. You don’t advertise.  

5. They haven’t been invited.  

6. You’re not talking about what they care about. 

So, how are we doing on those?  How is any church?  There may not be much you can do about #1 - I mean, we live in a consumer culture** and people will select their place of worship.  The cold reality is that people choose where they WANT to go to church.  I'm sorry, no it shouldn't be that way, but it is.  Get over it.

#2 is really common, and in every sized church I've been in.***  Yes, there are lots of churches that do a good job of welcoming guests and getting information to them (I've been to a few - and I serve at one, thank you very much) but it's way too easy to get in the "closed family" mode - and visitors really feel like outsiders...

#3 comes with a caveat, in my opinion.  Don't make them identify themselves if they don't want to.  "Let's have the visitors come forward and tell us who you are and where you're from" will be my last visit to your church.  However, if you treat me like a complete outsider, same thing will happen.  What does it take?  People in the pews introducing themselves and being welcoming, ushers who ask gentle questions and accept the answers their given - and clearly answer the questions they are asked...It's not rocket science, but it isn't intuitive, either...

#4 just go to Church Marketing Sucks and see what church advertising can and should be (and some of what it IS and SHOULDN'T be)...

#5 Pastor Steve said a few months ago, "If everyone here brought someone, we'd double our attendance, and more importantly double our impact on the Brokenstraw Valley, overnight."  I can't tell you how many newer families have said to me, "Look, we brought our two!"  Let me make up a statistic**** based on my experience: 80% of people come to church because someone personally invited them.  Most people do ANYTHING because someone invited them to do it - good or bad...

#6 So much of what we do here at Otterbein is try to connect people's lives with faith - we really try to show how the Gospel of Christ breathes into our (often chaotic and uncertain) lives.  We just did a series on money and during lent we're focusing on healing brokenness.  There is a time and place for plumbing the depths of the minutia of the history and context of Scripture - we just don't believe that Sunday morning is the place for that.  Sermons and teaching are different - that's why Paul says there are exhorters and there are teachers.  But that's probably a post for another time.  Suffice it to say for now, we try very hard to say and do things that are relevant to people's lives, while still remaining true to Gospel and to speaking the words of hope, live, truth and salvation into people's lives.


How's your church doing?  How is any church doing?  These are some good (but not the only, of course) benchmarks...

** hate it, rail against it, decry how "real Christians" should be above such things - doesn't change the fact that we live in a consumer culture

***this extends to websites, too, people.  We don't live in the 1800s anymore - just a sign out front isn't enough to tell people where you are...  And your website better have current and relevant information on it...

**** Okay, this article says 63% - but it's a lot, that's all I know.  Truth is, something like 74% of statistics are made up on the spot (heh, including this one - smiley)