Churches are reaching people through the side doors

Traditional churches have long sought to reach new people by inviting them to attend the Sunday morning worship service. A few generations ago it was common for church members to go door-to-door through their neighborhoods passing out tracts and inviting people to come to their church. That type of outreach isn't practiced by many churches today, but the emphasis is still trying to encourage people to attend a church service, The declining numbers in many churches today proves that strategy is not effective.

Most growing churches have replaced the attractional model with a more missional one that emphasizes being out in the community and developing relationships with those who live and work there. These relationships soon point to the best ways the churches can serve those in the community and ministries can be birthed through this understanding. These new ministries provide side doors into the church.

A side door ministry can be anything that brings members of the congregation and members of the community together for some interest or need they both have in common. For instance, a group of individuals who share a common interest in quilting might meet once a week to learn more about quilting and to work on their quilts. Another group might want to come together to learn about bass fishing. Perhaps a third group might consist of persons recently divorced who have custody of their children. Still another group might want to get together to learn how to better manage their personal finances. Another group might be grandparents who are now raising their grandchildren. As you can see, the possibilities are endless.

As these groups meet together relationships are developed among those attending. Unchurched people begin to form relationships with members of the church. As these relationships deepen and biblical truths are presented during their meetings it may well be that some of those attending will decide to attend a worship service. Knowing there is someone they know who will be there makes it less threatening to do so.

Since we are still challenged to practice social distancing, forming these groups may not be feasible right now, but that also makes this a perfect time to begin thinking about forming such groups and putting a plan together to do so. The pandemic will not last forever, and churches need to be prepared to reach out with these small groups as soon as it's safe to do so. 

What does a church need to start such a group? First, there must be someone, or several someones, in the church who have a passion for a particular group. Perhaps there is someone in your church who enjoys fishing in bass tournaments and would enjoy passing on some of the things he or she has learned about fishing to others. If there are persons in the community interested in learning fishing techniques you may have the ingredients necessary for a small group. Along with the individual there also needs to be a team of individuals who want to help with the planning. This is too important to leave it to just one person to develop the group and be responsible for all the planning and work that will be required for it to be successful.

Regardless of the size of your church, every church can have at least one such group that will offer a side door to your church. You may be surprised at how fast your church might grow if you open up a side door to go along with your front door.