In the small community where my wife was raised there was a grocery store that always amazed me. It had two aisles. You entered the store, walked up the first aisle, turned the corner where the meat counter was, and then walked down the second aisle to the cash register. What amazed me was that it was possible to buy everything a family would need in those two aisles. They didn't offer 47 varieties of catsup; they probably had at the most two brands to choose from. When you were looking for something you didn't have to make sure you didn't get the package that was low-fat, or the one that had 50 percent less sodium, or the one that had extra flavoring added, or the one with the fresh fragrance that would make your whole house smell better. You simply bought the item because it was the only one available there for purchase. The butcher cut all the meat by hand while you watched, and he didn't bury the marbled park chop on the bottom of the stack. Grocery shopping was so much easier in those days, and you didn't have to invest two hours of your life to do it either.
Unfortunately, life isn't as simple today. People want all those options. In fact, they expect it, and if they can't get the exact product they want, they will go to two or three different stores until they find it. This is not limited to their purchase of groceries either. We live in a time when people expect options in everything they do, and this can be a problem for a lot of churches, especially smaller churches.
Many churches of all sizes report a steady decline in their Sunday school programs. Could that decline be due to the fact that many of these churches have not changed how their Christian education ministry is structured since World War II? Could it be that not everybody is excited about sitting in a room looking at the back of people's heads while someone reads from the Uniform Lesson Plan teacher's guide? What could happen if optional, short-term classes were offered that looked more like a discussion group than a formal Sunday school class? What if 3-4 of those classes were offered at the same time giving people an option? What if the church eliminated Sunday classes completely except for those who do enjoy the Uniform Lesson Plan and offer small groups that meet at various times during the week? Maybe, if people were given more options, we would see more people involved in our Christian education ministry of the church.
There is always a risk when one begins to talk about music in the church, but I believe it was Rick Warren who once said that when a church decides upon the music it will use in worship it also determines the people it will reach. As I meet with small churches a common refrain I hear is that they wish they could reach younger people. Well, how many younger people do you see lined up in a music department somewhere buying CDs of organ music? Now, I'm not opposed to organ music. I enjoy the great hymns of the faith. I also enjoy some contemporary music, but I'm finding that I'm singing less and less of it in worship services. I sense that much of our contemporary music today is not really meant to be sung as a congregation. It seems more suited for a performance by the worship team, but this is a topic for another blog on another day. We really do need to look at how we can give people more options when it comes to the music we have in our worship services, and in my opinion the best option for that will usually involve two or more worship services regardless of the size of the congregation. I plan to have a post on this in the near future to explain in more detail what this means for the smaller church.
How many ways does your church have to communicate with people? Do you send out newsletters weekly or monthly? Have you determined how many people read those expensive snail mail communication pieces? I would guess a large percentage never opens them. Does your church have a Facebook account, a blog, a webpage that communicates not only to the church membership but to anyone who wishes to check you out. I cannot tell you how many times I have wanted to visit a church on Sunday morning only to find out they didn't have a web page and I had no way to find out what time their service started. I just took my offering check and visited another church. Yes, some people will read their newsletter, but to communicate with the largest possible number of people you have to give them other choices. Some will check out the church Facebook page every day to see what's going on. Others will be interested in reading the pastor's blog. Others will prefer e-mail notices about church events.
For this post I'll give just one more choice that we need to offer people. How do you receive your tithes and offerings? If your church is like most you receive an offering at some point in your worship service. My 40 year-old son recently told me I was one of the only people he knew who still writes checks. Like many younger people he simply does not write checks. A person much closer to my age told me this week that she seldom writes a check but depends on direct billing to her bank account for all her utility bills and pays for nearly everything else by cash or debit card. Does your church offer your members (and others) the option to pay their tithes and offerings online by debit card? Do any of your members donate to your church through automatic payments from their bank account into that of your church? Dare I ask if your church has an ATM in the church to allow people to withdraw cash if they want to make a cash contribution?
I have to admit I miss shopping in that old two-aisle store, but even it remodeled several years ago and now offers many more options to its customers. The owners recognized their customers wanted more options than they could provide in their smaller store, so they made it possible to offer them those options. Thinking about some of the options I've mentioned may seem overwhelming, but they're really not. Most would cost very little money. It would require more planning and some changes in your current structures, but even these are not as great as one might think. None of these involve changing anything about your message. They just offer your church the opportunity to have more people hear that message, and that's a good thing.
No comments:
Post a Comment