Why new churches flourish

 One of the most frequent questions I was asked when I served as an Area Resource Minister was why the newer churches in the community were growing and the traditional churches struggled to remain open. One of the most common complaints I received was why the denomination was starting new churches rather than giving that money to existing churches so they could grow. The answer to both questions was that new churches reach new people. Most existing churches didn't have a money problem; they had a vision problem. Many of them, if they were given $100,000.00, would put it in a savings account to ensure they would remain open years later. Of course, the follow-up question I was often asked is why are the new churches reaching new people?

One reason is they are not limited by tradition. A new church leader isn't going to hear "But, we've never done it that way before," when he or she proposes some new ministry. Tradition isn't always bad, but some traditions are church-killers. When what has become a tradition in the church may have made sense at one time, but its shelf life is way past.

Traditional churches often expect the minister to provide the ministry in the church while the congregation handles the administration. A church business meeting is held every month to consider such important items as the color of the toilet paper for the rest rooms. I once knew a church whose item of new business each month was whether to pay the bills the treasurer had received. In many new churches, the congregation understands they are responsible for ministry, and the church leadership makes the major decisions of the church. This is true even in congregational churches. One very traditional church made a major change in its constitution several years ago. The church now has three business meetings a year, and there are only five things the congregation can vote on. A church council makes all other decisions.

New churches are often organized into teams, not committees. You ask what's the difference: teams get things done, committees talk about doing things. These teams are often ad-hoc. Once their work is done, they are disbanded so the members can return to doing ministry. Just to be clear, serving on a committee isn't ministry, it's administration.

New churches are often formed with a specific target in mind. They do everything they do in order to reach that target group. The music is often more contemporary and appropriate to that target group. I once read that the fastest growing churches in America today were Cowboy churches. I attended one of those churches. The music was all country-western, and the worship service itself was very informal. They were having a major impact on their community. Traditional churches often take the attitude of "We unlocked the doors. You all come." And nobody comes.

New churches spend far more on reaching new people than traditional churches. One pastor who started a new church wrote they spent over $100.00 per person to reach out to new people. Compare that to the evangelism budget of most existing churches.

Traditional churches staff for maintenance; new churches staff for growth. One new church targeted the two wealthiest communities in their city. They were meeting in the gym of a Junior High School. They had 14 ministers on staff and were now seeking a senior pastor. In the two years of their existence they had already grown to over 400 people, and this is without a building and without a senior pastor.

One final thought. New churches are very intentional about everything they do. There is a sense of urgency in what they do. Not so in many traditional churches. They can talk about doing things for months before anything actually happens. New churches are intentional about their target audience, and everything, including their music and discipleship systems, are designed to reach that target. Traditional churches post sign-up sheets hoping that people will volunteer to help out. New churches focus on people whose gifts are a good fit for what needs to be done and specifically asks people to fulfill those tasks.

The mission field around your church

 Approximately 100 churches in North America close their doors each week. Many of these are smaller churches. For years, they have watched their congregations grow smaller and grayer. Income dropped as the attendance decreased. It became increasingly more difficult to find pastoral leadership. Often, savings accumulated over the years was depleted in an effort to keep the doors open as long as possible. Eventually, the lights were turned off for the last time.

The question that must be asked is: why? Why did the church have to close? One report I've read is that a minimum of 50 percent of the people in every county in the United States is unchurched, and in some counties it can be as high as 90 percent. We now know that the United States is the largest English-speaking mission field in the world surpassed only by India and China. Churches do not close due to a lack of work that needs to be done; they close because they have lost their vision for ministry.

When a church's primary focus is on survival and not mission it is well on the road towards closing. God never intended His church to be concerned about surviving. The church is called to mission, and if a church has no mission beyond survival it has ceased being a church. It may be an organization that meets weekly to sing songs, pray and hear a message, but it is no longer a church.

Many struggling churches may not have to go more than a mile from their building to find enough unchurched people to double their membership. The problem is that they do not know the people who live within a mile of the church. The larger problem is that those people do not know that church exists.

Back when I first began serving as a regional minister I was scheduled to meet a pastor search team from one of our churches. The small church was located in a rural area. Other than an initial sign on the highway, there were no signs directing anyone to the church. This was before GPS devices were common. I was hopelessly lost and even stopped at two houses to ask if they could direct me to the church. Neither family was familiar with the church. It was now dark, and I was already a half-hour late for the meeting. I decided to turn around the first place I found and try to find my way back home. The place I found to turn around in was the church parking lot. That church was no more than a mile from either of the houses I had stopped for directions!

Your church is in the midst of a growing mission field, but those individuals are not going to come to you. For too long, we've unlocked the doors of our church buildings on Sunday morning and said, "Y'all come." Nobody came. The Great Commission tells the church that we are to GO into the world and tell people about Jesus. In order to do that, we've got to connect with our mission field, build relationships with them, and earn the right to tell them about our Lord.

How can you best do that in 2024? I encourage you to discuss that in your next leadership meetings.

What is a soul worth?

While serving as a judicatory minister one of my pastors was being attacked by a group within his church. I attended a business meeting and was pleased that the church's deacons stood up at the start of the meeting and affirmed the pastor's ministry and what the church was doing. The budget and other items were approved with no negative votes. When the meeting ended about two dozen people surrounded me with their complaints. One of the complaints was the amount of money being spent on youth ministry in the church. The spokeswoman for the group said the church had recently spent $800.00 to rent a rock climbing wall for a youth retreat, and they believed that was a poor expenditure of the church's money.

I explained to her that I received the church's newsletter each week, and in almost every edition there was a report of the number of people, including many young people, who were saved in the church during the past week. I then asked her, "What do you believe a soul is worth? Do you think spending $800.00 is too much to reach one person for Jesus Christ? If you do, I have churches that won't spend $800.00 a year on their youth ministry. Maybe you would be happier attending one of them." The group walked away, and many of them left the church over the next couple of weeks. Because of the ministries of the church, it was able to replace them, and more, within a few months.

Many churches would have given in to this group of church critics, but the pastor, the deacons and most of the congregation refused to do so. They understood God was doing a good work in that church, and they were not going to let a group of discontented people hold up that work.

One thing is certain...when a church begins to be effective in reaching people for Jesus Christ, Satan will come in and try to stop it. The weapons he most often uses are people within the congregation. They will point out that things are not being done according to the constitution or Roberts Rules of Order. They will question whether funding was achieved through "proper channels." They will loudly cry out the seven last words of the church: WE NEVER DID IT THAT WAY BEFORE!

For too long churches have caved into to these critics, and our churches are suffering because of it. Men, women and young people are dying and going to hell because we permit critics to limit what we and God want to do in our churches. Tom Bandy wrote in Fragile Hope some words that have affected my ministry since I first read them. He wrote

All you need to ask is: "Do you love controllers more than your own children, parents, neighbors, and work associates?" Is it more important to keep controlling clergy, matriarchs, patriarchs, wealthy trustees, or dominating institutional managers, rather than welcome your own teenagers, parents and immediate loved ones into the community of faith? The choice may be as profound as "Christ or institution," but for most people it is as simple as "Controller or my teenager.? If one must go so the other can belong, what will be your preference?

I'll ask again...what is a soul worth?

Covid and family emergencies and change

 I haven't posted anything lately as we've been dealing with health issues and other family emergencies over the past few weeks. I had Covid first, and on the day I was out of quarantine my wife came down with it. She actually had to spend one night in the hospital. After being home for a few days, she became ill again last week and went back into the hospital for three days with some complications they believe is related to Covid. On top of that, another family member contracted the disease and was later diagnosed with some after effects. To say the past month or so has been challenging would be an understatement, but we are pressing onward and upward.

One author recently wrote that the challenges that will face us in the future will be unlike any that have been seen before. In the past, a challenge would arise and we could address it with things we had learned from similar past events. That may not be the case in the future. Just like Covid forced everyone to find new ways of dealing with everyday life, the new challenges that will come will require us to change in new ways to address them. I think of our educators who do know one week from the next what decisions will have to be made to educate our children. I think of employers who are struggling to stay open never knowing if their employees will suddenly be quarantined for two weeks. And who knows what new challenges are out there for us?

Another author I recently read said that churches continue to spend much time trying to get people to attend their services and programs, and the reality is that isn't going to happen. This is an unexpected change for many churches and church leaders to consider. After spending several years pastoring a megachurch in the US he resigned to spend three years ministering in Europe. There he learned how most of the people consider going to church to be irrelevant to their lives. The majority of people there are totally secular with no sense of any need for God in their lives. He warned that the attitude towards church and God in America is fast becoming the same as in Europe making most of our outreach efforts ineffective.

For the past few years we've heard about the "nones," those people who report they have no religious affiliation. There are also the "dones." These are people who are done with the church as it currently exists. They may have been hurt by the church or they may just find it to no longer be relevant to their lives, but they are not going back. The "nones" and the "dones" are raising a generation who are not in church, know nothing about God and the church, and will grow up completely secular in their thinking and their worldview.

Unfortunately, although we know this is the case, much of our Western church world has continued to function as it always has. We keep doing the same things we've done for decades with diminishing returns. We cannot continue to address new challenges with the same tired programs and remedies that haven't worked in decades. We must find new ways of ministering to the world as it is, not as we remembered it. We must become missionaries to our ever-growing secular world and find new ways of connecting people to Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of God.

For years I have been telling churches and other gatherings that the church is in the midst of transition. I do not know what the church will look like when we come through that transition, but I am quite certain it will be much different than it is today. The question each of us must ask is are we are willing to make the necessary changes to be part of what God is doing, or will our churches become like the empty religious monuments in Europe that used to be healthy vital churches?

What do people want from a church?

 At various times churches will conduct surveys to help them determine possible next steps. Such surveys are common when the church is seeking a new pastor or considering building a new facility. They might conduct a survey when thinking about starting a new, significant ministry, Sometimes a church will do a survey just to check how people feel about the church and the direction in which it's going. But, who does the church typically survey? Often, it's the members of the church, and that's a problem.

When we ask the preferences of just our existing members we are ignoring the people we are supposed to reach out to. Even worse, we are perpetuating the way things already are because it's our most loyal members who are most likely to respond to these surveys. This helps ensure that we maintain an inward focus on pleasing our existing members rather than developing an outward focus that would better enable us to reach the unchurched.

How many churches truly know how people in their community think about their church? How many know what unchurched people might want in a church or what a church could do that might appeal to them? In a pastor's conference I led a few years ago I challenged the attendees with these questions. One pastor asked how he could find out what the people in his community wanted or needed from his church. I suggested he ask them.

Specific needs would be different in different communities, but broad-based studies have identified some things that many unchurched people want in a church.

• They want a church that actually believes something. Surveys consistently point out that there is no need for a church to water down the Gospel in an effort to reach people. They want a church that believes something, proclaims something and stands for something.
• They want a safe place for their children to receive religious and spiritual instruction. Churches cannot overemphasize the safety and security of its nursery and children's ministries to today's parents.
• They want a church that is welcoming to all people. Younger generations are much more racially inclusive than older generations have been, and they want to see that in a church they might attend. Singles, single parents, the elderly, persons from different economic levels all want to know if they will be made to feel welcomed to attend.
• They want to see women in leadership. The glass ceiling has been shattered in most areas of life but not always in the church. 
• They want to see the church involved in the community. They are not interested in joining an organization for the sake of joining. They want to be involved in things that make a difference in people's lives and will not be interested in a church whose focus is strictly inward.
• They want churches that address real life's challenges. They are not particularly interested in the history of the Hittites, but they are very interested in how to improve their marriage or help a child suffering from depression.

 There are many very good books that explore this in more detail that I would suggest you read. Like I said above, people in your community may have more specific things they are seeking in a church. The only way to find that out is to begin asking.

Does the physical appearance of a church matter?

 When churches experience financial challenges one of the first things that often happens is that building maintenance and upkeep are often ignored. Long-time church members may not notice when the physical appearance of the property begins to go downhill, but guests and the neighborhood do. They see the weeds in the flower beds and the peeling paint on the windows and doors. When guests come into the church they see the worn or outdated carpet, the stained seat coverings and the torn and dirty hymn books. They notice the bathrooms that need cleaning and upgrading. All these things impact their decision about whether they will return or not.

Early in my pastoral ministry an incident really brought this home to me. Our pews were stained wood. They had been in the church for decades, I assume they were original to the building which was around a century old at the time. At the time our church was not air conditioned, and this Sunday was a hot one. We had a visitor attend that morning, and I was excited to hurry back to greet him after the service. I didn't need to rush. The back of his white dress shirt was stuck to the back of the pew! The hot day had melted the years of old stain to his shirt, and he had to physically unstick himself from the pew. Although I greeted him as warmly as I could, as he walked away with a large brown stain on the back shoulder of his shirt I knew we would not see him again, and I was right. Not long after that we covered our pews with cushioned seat covers.

The problem is we often view our church property through the eyes of people who have attended there for years. We don't notice how hard our pews are or the dirty carpet. We don't see that we do not have a secure children's area that our guests would expect. We ignore the chipped and dirty baseboards that our guests would notice. One night while traveling we stopped late to spend the night in a well-known motel chain known for being one of the better places to stay. We went straight to bed when we got our room. The next morning we noticed a part of a donut in the corner of the room covered with cobwebs. It had evidently been there for awhile, but no one who supposedly cleaned the room ever noticed it. We did and it has impacted our choice of motels while traveling since then.

If your restrooms are not clean, if your children's areas are not clean and secure, if the appearance of your church building appears to be run-down and outdated, your guests will notice and will factor that in their decision about whether to return or not. You may argue that these things should not matter, but they do. You make a decision about what restaurants in which you will eat and what motels you will stay in on these same criteria, and your guests will decide whether or not to return partly based on this issues.

If your church is serious about having guests and seeing them return, it must take a look at the appearance of its property. Clean the weeds out of the flower beds. Seal and stripe the parking lot. Repaint the trim, the front doors and window casings. Upgrade the restrooms and make sure they remain clean and well lit. Do the same with the children's areas and improve their security. The physical appearance of the church property will have a significant role to play in the church's impact in its community. It does matter.

Lego churches

 If you've had small children in the home you've probably had Legos. Kids and many adults love them because of the ability to build some very creative things. They are not so much fun at 2:00 in the morning when you step on one barefooted in the dark!

Most Legos have about six snap-on points. Some have more while others have less. As you connect the Legos with these snap-on points you can build just about anything you can creatively imagine. Once all the connecting points are filled you cannot connect anything else to that piece.

Think about this in relationship to the church. The key to getting new people to connect to your church is to offer them connecting points with other people in the church. Unless a new person makes a connection with others in the church in a relatively short period of time they will find the back door and you'll not see them again. The problem is that in many churches, especially smaller churches, most people have all the relationships they can maintain. It's not that they don't like the new people or that they don't want to relate to them, it's that their connecting points are all used up. So what can the church do?

The key is to offer more connecting points. This may be from starting a new Sunday school class. One church had a Young Adult class that had grown too large to allow new people to feel like they fit in. The church started a new class for that age group, and when guests came to the church in that age group they were directed to the new class. Within a few months the new class had grown substantially.

The same thing can be done with small groups. A healthy church should be regularly exploring the possibility to starting a new small group to enable new people to build connections with people in the church. This means the church must constantly be developing leaders for these groups and identifying topics that would appeal to the people in the community for these new groups.

Healthy churches will be very intentional about taking steps to create as many connecting points in the church as possible. With enough Legos you can build anything you want. With enough connecting points in the church it can grow much larger than it is.

Favorite books of 2020 (1-5)

 Yesterday I shared some of my favorite reads of 2020. Today I want to share my top five books for the year.

5. Side Door: How to Open Your Church to Reach More People was written by Charles Arn. For years churches focused on inviting people to their worship services. Some today refer to that as front-door evangelism. Although that remains the primary (or only) outreach tool used by many churches, it is obviously not as effective as it was in the middle of the twentieth century. Side-door evangelism has been found to be much more effective. A side door is any activity designed to bring people together and help develop relationships between churched and unchurched individuals. I have heard of churches with over 200 such groups meeting on a regular basis, and through those side-doors have been able to reach many people for the Kingdom of God. While these are obviously larger churches, any size church can use this same concept. The key is to identify things people are interested in and persons to lead the groups. Arn does a very good job of laying out exactly how to plan and organize side-door ministries in a church.

4. Counter Culture: Following Christ in an Anti-Christian Age by David Platt addresses the problem of how the church can best respond to the cultural changes that surround us. Platt looks at some of the issues facing society and the church such as abortion, same-sex marriage, sex slavery, poverty, racism and others and offers a Christian response to each of them. He points out that it is not enough to just take a stand opposing the things we think is wrong, but the church must actively work to correct these injustices. He writes, "It is not possible to love the poor and live in unabated luxury. It is not possible to care for the orphan and the widow without major implications for the makeup of your family. It is not possible to confess gospel convictions about marriage and sexuality without being criticized, It is not possible to profess gospel truth at all and remain popular among all." Like Jesus, he reminds us that we must count the cost if we are to counter the culture around us. This is not a comfortable book to read, but it is an important one.

3. The Leader's Greatest Return: Attracting, Developing, and Multiplying Leaders was written by John Maxwell. In all the years I've published my top books of the year I don't think a year has gone by without at least one by Maxwell. For me, this was one of his best. The question is asked in the flyleaf, "After leaders have invested in their own leadership growth, what is the best way to accomplish their vision and grow their organizations? Develop leaders!" Growing leaders must be part of the focus of every pastor. Too often as a denominational minister I saw good churches fall apart after a long-term pastor left because there was no one there qualified to fill the leadership vacuum. Maxwell does a masterful job of describing how to identify potential leaders and then mentor them to grow their leadership skills. I really enjoyed this book and found it quite helpful.

2. Salvation and Sovereignty: A Molinist Approach was written by Kenneth Keathley, professor of Theology at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. This book looks at salvation and sovereignty through the lens of Molinism, a doctrine first identified in the 1500s. This view of scripture believes in a strong notion of God's control and an equally firm belief in human freedom. The author explains, "Molinism teaches that God exercises His sovereignty primarily through His omniscience, and that He infallibly knows what free creatures would do in any given situation. In this way God sovereignly controls all things, while humans are also genuinely free. God is able to accomplish His will through the use of what Molinists label His middle knowledge." Christian philosophers such as Alvin Plantinga and William Lane Craig are Molinists. It is a theological perspective I find interesting and plan to explore it in more detail in the coming year.

1. Arminian Theology: Myths and Realities was written by Roger Olson. I find that many theological books are written by Calvinists. Far fewer are written from the Arminian perspective. This may be one of the best. Olson is a professor of theology at George W. Truett Theological Seminary. The author writes that "This book is for two kinds of people: (1) those who do not know Arminian theology but want to, and (2) those who think they know about Arminianism but really don't." I regret I had not read this book earlier in my ministry because I learned more about what Arminians believe than I had learned throughout my ministry. Whether you are Arminian in your beliefs, Calvinist, or Molinist, this is a must-read book for anyone who wants to better understand theological thinking.

This concludes my annual top-ten reads for 2020. I must say that there were many others I read this year that almost made the list. I should give honorable mention to How to Reach the West Again: Six Essential Elements of a Missionary Encounter by Timothy Keller, One Blood: Parting Words to the Church on Race and Love by John Perkins, You Lost Me: Why Young Christians Are Leaving Church . . . and Rethinking Faith by David Kinnaman, and It's Dangerous to Believe: Religious Freedom and Its Enemies by Mary Eberstadt. If you are putting together a reading list for this year you may want to give these careful consideration.

Side doors into the church

 A few years ago I heard about the ways some churches were using side-door ministries to reach out to unchurched people. Although I have shared that with some church leaders, I've recently become more interested in the opportunities side-door ministries offer the church. A few weeks ago I read Side Door: How to Open Your Church to Reach More People by Charles Arn. The book was filled with helpful ideas on how to create side-door opportunities for churches.

Let me try to explain the concept of side-door ministries before proceeding. For decades the church has focused on front-door evangelism. We tried to find ways to get people into our churches through the front door. We invited them to worship services, revivals and other special events. While that was an effective form of outreach for a time, the continual decline of church attendance proves it's not an effective means of reaching people outside the church today.

Arn writes that "A side door is a church-sponsored program, group or activity in which a nonmember can become comfortably involved with the church on a regular basis. It is a group that provides an ongoing opportunity for a nonmember to develop meaningful and valued relationships with people in the congregation." These side-door events can be built around virtually any activity or life event. Some examples might be a group that enjoys quilting or bass fishing or camping. It might be a group of grandparents who are raising their grandchildren or a group of single moms. A side-door ministry can be built around almost anything in which a group of people share a common interest. As people come together with common interests they begin to build relationships with one another. Some of these relationships will turn into friendships, and these friendships will lead to conversations about spiritual things. We know that more people are open to attending church services when invited by a friend.

The book gives some great tips on how to create side-door ministries, but the one thing I want to focus on in this post is the importance of a ministry coach. The author writes that "A ministry coach is your church's 'contractor' for overseeing the construction of successful side doors." This is a key person who will oversee the overall strategy of side-door ministries in the church. Any church serious about using this approach to outreach needs to add this position to their leadership team.

As churches are being forced to adapt to new ministry challenges due to the pandemic, perhaps this is a good time to consider side-door ministries as part of your ministry strategy. As I wrote in yesterday's post, it is unlikely we will ever return to "normal" in the ways we minister in the future. Since we need to reinvent ourselves and our approach to ministry we may want to explore this as an option.

The church has left the building

 In the Great Commission Jesus tells the disciples (and us) that we are to make disciples of all the nations. Like the obedient Christians they were, they stayed right in Jerusalem. It wasn't until great persecution began against the church in Jerusalem did they begin to leave the city and scatter "throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria" (Acts 8: 1). It took a persecution to force them to leave Jerusalem and begin to take the Christian faith to the rest of the world.

As I thought about how the pandemic has impacted the church I began to see parallels between the first century church and the church today. For a long time we have been very comfortable attending church services, enjoying the company of our fellow believers and dealing with church issues. Even though our mission is the same as that given to the disciples, we have been satisfied to stay in the confines of our own little Jerusalem and ignore those outside the faith. 

But, when the pandemic hit and we were forced to stay away from our churches we had to become creative. Many of our churches began offering their services for the first time online through social media or their web sites. Many of those churches noticed something they didn't expect. There were actually more people viewing their services online than ever attended the live worship service. When churches were forced to leave their buildings they found a larger audience for the gospel message.

My prayer is that we never return to that inward focus that has had such a negative impact on the church and the work of the Kingdom. By that I don't mean that I do not want to see churches return to in-person services. What I do want to see happen is that we maintain our outward focus and seek even more creative ways to serve those outside the church family.

Perhaps in the near future we will find that a growing percentage of our church family will be digital only. I think of the many people who work every Sunday morning. Even if they want to attend church services their current job prevents them from doing so. In some communities no churches offer a worship service other than on Sunday. But, if the worship service is available through the church's website, people can watch it anytime it fits into their schedule. There is nothing high and holy about 11:00 Sunday morning. A person can connect to God and to a church the same on a Thursday afternoon as they can on Sunday morning.

Of course, this presents new challenges to the church. How do we help that digital individual grow as a disciple? How do we provide quality congregational care? Is it possible that we can involve the individual in some other event at the church at a time when he or she isn't working? Could this be a great opportunity for the church to offer a side-door ministry that would involve those who are only connected to the church through the digital services? There's a lot to think about, and it's still early in the game, but these are things church leaders need to be addressing.

It took persecution to force the first century church out of Jerusalem. It took a pandemic to force many churches today to take a new look at how to do ministry outside its four walls. In the first century, the Kingdom of God advanced because of the persecution. I believe we will see the Kingdom advance today because of the pandemic...if the church remains focused on those outside the building.

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.

What will your church do differently in 2020?

As I've written here many times before I love the start of a new year. When January 1st rolls around I feel like I have a brand new, clean sheet to work with. As a pastor I always loved planning for the new year and thinking about the possibilities that were available.

It's so easy for a church to fall into ruts in its thinking and ministries. One year just flows into the next, and nothing ever changes. We keep doing the same things, getting the same results, and complaining that nothing is improving. Why not spend some time leading up to the new year thinking about what could be done differently that might produce different results? Let me offer some suggestions to consider.

• What will your church do in 2020 to improve its evangelistic outreach? If we believe the Bible as many of us claim, people without a personal relationship with Jesus Christ are lost. The Great Commission tells the church that we are to go into all the world and share the good news about Christ and encourage people to trust in Him. How many people did your church see trust Christ for their salvation in 2019? Are you satisfied with that number? If not, what are you going to do intentionally to change that in 2020?
• The second part of the Great Commission has to do with discipling those who come to faith in Christ. How effective is the disciple-making ministries in your church? How many of your people are involved in Sunday school classes or small groups? How many people showed spiritual growth in the past year? Does your church need to improve this aspect of its ministry, and if so, how will you do that?
• What can your church do to strengthen families in 2020? So many families are struggling with problems related to addictions, finances, single-parent homes, abuse, and a host of other issues. I see no organization other than the church and para-church groups offering to help families address these challenges. Because many of these problems have a spiritual element to them, I don't believe any other organization can help families overcome these problems. Every church needs to have some ministries that specifically address family issues if we want to see families remain healthy. Does your church have such ministries?
• How will your church deal with justice issues in your community? There is so much injustice in our world today it can seem to be overwhelming. Everywhere we look we see poverty, homelessness, racism, sexism, ageism, crime, violence and the list goes on. Government cannot solve these problems. They can pass laws, and they have, but these laws do nothing to change human hearts, and injustice occurs when people's hearts are hardened to the point that they don't care about the fate of other people. The church must address these issues by not only talking about them but also by doing something to effect change. I ask the question again, what will your church do in 2020 to address the injustices that exist in your community?

This should be enough for your church leaders to think about between now and the start of the new year. If your church does nothing new in 2020 your church will look a lot like it does now when 2020 ends. But, if you are willing to dream and pray I believe God will show you some new things that will make the new year an exciting time of ministry and growth for your church.

What are the side doors in your church?

Smaller churches spend a lot of time worrying about why people are not coming through the front doors of their churches each week. In the past these churches saw a number of visitors attend their church each year. Some of these visitors may have moved into the community while others were looking for a new church to attend. Regardless of the reasons for their visit, they came and some stayed. For at least the past two decades many churches have seen a steep drop-off in the number of visitors who show up at their front door on Sunday morning, and with the way many people feel about churches today that is unlikely to change.

What churches can do is to begin to open up the side doors into their church. In one of my favorite books on church leadership, What Every Pastor Should Know: 101 Indispensable Rules of Thumb for Leading Your Church, Gary McIntosh defines a side door as "A church-sponsored program, group, or activity in which a nonmember can become comfortably involved on a regular basis. It is an ongoing function in which a nonmember can develop meaningful and valued relationships with people in the church." These relationships are built around common interests that people have, and they can lead to effective evangelism and provide a safe way to introduce people to your church.

Almost any interest can provide a side-door into your church. There may be a group that enjoys bass fishing. Another group may enjoy quilting while a third group may be focused on recent widows or widowers. There could be groups of single moms or dads. Another group may ride motorcycles. Virtually anything can become a side-door into your church.

A few years ago I heard of a megachurch that had over 200 side-door groups meeting in their church building every week during the summer months. These groups led to amazing growth in the church, and much of that growth came from people who committed their lives to Christ as a result of the relationships they had with others in their group.

McIntosh suggests a good rule of thumb is that a church should create at least two side doors per year. To begin a side door find someone in your church that is passionate about something. Perhaps your church has someone who is passionate about quilting and would be willing to lead such a group. Bring a group together to brainstorm the idea to see if there is interest in such a group. I always suggest that churches make sure other churches in the area are not already doing what you are considering.  McIntosh says that if there are three persons willing to help begin a specific group then it's time to schedule when it will begin and to publicize it.

There are many people who have no interest in attending a worship service, but they are willing to be involved in some activity that happens to meet in your church. As they get to know some of the church members who are part of the group they find out that they are not such bad people after all (hopefully!). If they decide to attend a worship service they will now have someone there that they know and can sit with. In time, they may become a part of your congregation.

As the subtitle of this book says, it includes 101 rules of thumb that church leaders need to know. It is one of the most practical books on church ministry I have in my library, and I highly recommend you add it to yours.

Are you ready for fall?

The summer is often a slow time for many churches. Some disband their choirs for the summer. Others cancel small groups or evening services. The thinking is that with many schools shortening their summer vacation many families will attempt to take theirs in that short window of opportunity.

This makes summer a great time for church leadership to begin planning for the upcoming fall and winter. As people begin to return to their normal routines once school resumes it's important for the church to hit the ground running.

In his excellent book, Ignite: How to Spark Immediate Growth in Your Church, Nelson Searcy recommends having several "Big Days" in your church to spark growth. He defines a Big Day as "an all-out push toward a single Sunday for the purpose of breaking the next growth barrier and setting an attendance record in order to reach as many people as possible for Jesus."

One of the times he suggests for a Big Day is approximately one month after school resumes. People are often trying to get back in their regular routines when school starts, and this can take a few weeks. Most schools now start before Labor Day, and families often take trips on that last holiday that seems to signal the end of summer. Five to six weeks after school begins is a good time to schedule a Big Day. As he does in all his books, Searcy does a great job of leading the reader though the process of developing a Big Day that will help grow your church.

Summer is also a good time to develop your preaching schedule for the remainder of the year, if you haven't already done so. Your worship team should be making their worship plans including any special services for the holidays. Summer is also a great time to develop a stewardship emphasis that will help support the next year's budget. I worked with one church a few years ago that had a series of stewardship events in the fall leading up to a special service that challenged each family to pledge their giving for the upcoming year. It was their first time to do this, and it significantly increased their giving. In fact, it was so successful that the church agreed to do it the following year as well.

Summer is a great time for pastors and other church leaders to spend extra time with their families and to relax. I encourage every pastor I work with to do that. But, it's also a great time to plan ahead so when things begin to pick up in the fall the pastor and church will be ready.

What do first-time guests look for in a church?

From 1981 to 2001 I served as the bivocational pastor of Hebron Baptist Church near Madison, Indiana. I went there with no pastoral experience and no education beyond high school. The only thing I had was the absolute conviction that God had called me into the ministry and that He had called me to that church. I wish I had one other thing when I started.

Gary McIntosh and Charles Arn wrote What Every Pastor Should Know: 101 Indispensable Rules of Thumb for Leading Your Church which is one of the best guidebooks for pastors that I have found. The book covers just about every area of church life and gives specific advice for each of these areas and ways to measure how well your church is doing in those areas. Those of us in church leadership are always looking for ways to evaluate how well our church is doing, and I believe this book provides some very helpful means of doing so.

Most churches want to grow, but many of them are not very intentional about being inviting to new people. The authors point out that first-time guests are primarily looking at six areas of your church when they visit.

1. The friendliness and warmth of the church. I know your church is the "friendliest church in town." I've heard it for years, but is it actually true? After 14 years of worshiping in different churches almost every week I can tell you that many of these churches are not actually very friendly towards outsiders. They suggest if your church has less than 25 percent of first-time guests return in six weeks or less, your church may have a problem in this area.
2. The character of the worship service. People want integrity and meaning in worship. They want to experience the presence of God. I was recently talking with an individual whose family is seeking a new church to attend. He told me that he wants to feel something when he goes to church. They are still visiting churches.
3. A place for children. This will be the most important issue for some who visit your church. They want a safe and secure place for their small children, and a church that will teach moral and spiritual values to them.
4. An adult program. Contrary to popular wisdom, many adults are hungry for spiritual meaning in their lives. There is also much interest in the person of Jesus. Furthermore, many adults are looking for answers to their questions about marriage, finances, coping with loss, raising children among other things. The more programs a church has to address these various interests, the more outreach opportunities the church has.
5. The church building. Cleanliness is crucial. Landscaping, fresh paint, adequate parking, and clean bathrooms may not be the most spiritual aspects of your church, but if any of these are missing it can be a reason your guests do not return.
6. The church's image. What is your church known for in your community? Are you involved in ministries outside your church? Are you known for doing positive things in the community? Do you allow outside groups to use your facilities for meetings? Is your pastor involved in civic groups and schools in the community? Or, are you better known for your inner conflicts and for the things you oppose? It will be very difficult for a church to grow if it has a poor reputation in the community.

As you look at each of these six areas, how well does your church stack up? Are there some intentional things you can do to improve any of the six (or all of them?)? Making those improvements might mean that you will begin to retain more of your first-time guests.

Making your guests feel welcomed

As I mentioned yesterday, my wife and I spent the previous week vacationing in Panama City Beach. We've gone there nearly every year for many years. We enjoy the beaches, and there are several restaurants that have been our favorites for years. I love fresh seafood, and the food and service at these places are always excellent.

However, returning home was another story. After driving three hours we stopped at a chain well-known for their breakfasts. We've eaten there before and had a pleasant experience, but that was not the case this time. Our waitress never returned to the table once our meals were brought out. No refills on coffee, no asking how things were, no bill. I finally went to the cash register to pay, and our waitress asked if I had my bill. I told her she had never brought me one, and she just laughed.

Several hours later we stopped for lunch at another well-known chain. It wasn't the cleanest restaurant I've been in. Even though it was not a rush time, half of the tables had not been cleaned. After waiting for several minutes the manager finally came by and asked if anyone had taken our drink order. He took the drink order, and our waitress soon came for our meal order. The table behind me kept asking her for things he had ordered that she had never brought. My wife's drink was finally brought out, but mine never came until several minutes later, and it was wrong. She took it back and got into an argument with whoever fills the drink orders over my drink. After several more minutes went by and my drink and our food never arrived we got up and told her to just cancel our order.

There are several learning opportunities from these two events. We could focus on a lack of proper training, poor management that wasn't aware of what was happening in their restaurants, hiring people with poor attitudes (it was obvious that both our waitresses had attitudes), a lack of good systems, or a host of other issues. But, I think there is a root cause that goes deeper than any of these.

I think the main culprit was that they failed to appreciate their guests. Located near an interstate they may think it's not important to treat their customers well. Millions of people will pass by and some will stop so who cares if any returns because of poor service? While that might work for a while, eventually people will get tired of such shoddy treatment and take their business elsewhere. And, because both of these were chain restaurants, people will transfer the treatment they received at these restaurants to others in the chain.

Does your church appreciate its guests? Have you trained your congregation how to welcome your church guests? Maybe you think it's not necessary since you haven't had any guests in recent years. Did you ever think there might be a reason for that? I once heard a speaker say that there are many churches a person can attend so why would God send first-time guests to your church if you weren't ready to receive them?

As I've posted here before, I am in different churches nearly every week. More than a few of them treat their guests no better than we were treated in those restaurants. I can tell you that we will not be stopping in either of those restaurants again, and first-time guests will not return if they are not welcomed in your church.

Change or die

About two years ago I met with the pastor search committee of a smaller church to assist them in their search for a new pastor. I usually begin these meetings by asking what they are looking for in their next pastor. The committee chair gave me the answer I hear most often, "We want a pastor who will grow our church."

I did something I had never said before. I asked, "Are you sure about that?" She looked at me kind of odd like I wasn't supposed to ask that question so I continued, "You do realize if you could grow your church by doing what you've been doing, you would already be growing. So what you are telling me is that you want a pastor who will come in here and change everything you've been doing. Is that what you want from your next pastor?" She got a funny smile, looked at the other committee members and said, "Maybe we need to talk about this a little more."

What I said to that committee needs to be shouted out to all churches. I hear church after church complain about their inability to grow, and yet they refuse to do anything different that might encourage such growth.

Change is happening everywhere at warp speed except in the church. I understand that change isn't fun. I'm an old guy. I still have a landline telephone although I communicate much more through my smart phone than I do the phone in my home. And much of that communication isn't through calling people. More and more it's through Messenger, texting, and direct messages on Facebook. That's how people communicate today, and chances are, before 2016 ends I'll have to learn new ways of communicating through social media.

I still get a daily newspaper although I get most of my news from the Internet. In fact, it takes me very little time to read my paper because most of what's in it I read the day before online. I understand that giving up things we are comfortable with isn't easy.

I also understand that if the church isn't willing to make the necessary changes that will reach out to new generations of people it is going to become even more irrelevant to people's lives. It will eventually die. It may take a while, and it might not happen in your lifetime so you won't have to worry about it, but it will die.

But, there is something much more important than whether or not your church remains open. That's the least of my concerns. I am much more concerned about the dozens, perhaps hundreds, maybe even thousands of people who won't have the opportunity to hear the Gospel because your church refused to make changes that would touch their lives.

What needs to change in your church? I don't know, but I would challenge you to find the walls that exist in your church that is keeping people out and do whatever it takes to remove them. How can you identify those walls? Maybe you could ask some folks who don't attend your church if there is a reason for that. Maybe you could ask some folks who used to attend there and have left. Maybe you could ask your own young people who attended there as children but have chosen not to return as adults.

Two warnings. Don't get mad if they tell you the truth as to why they aren't attending your church, and don't ask if you are not willing to make some changes.

What does your church measure?

A couple of weeks ago I was selected to receive a new book by Cheryl Bachelder, Dare to Serve: How to Drive Superior Results by Serving Others. Bachelder is the CEO of Popeye's Louisiana Kitchen. When she became CEO this was a business that was in trouble with its franchisees, investors, and customers.  Although I've just started reading the book, I've already found some great leadership principles that can be applied to church settings.

One of the things she discovered is that the company was not sure how bad things were because they lacked the data to understand exactly how they were doing. About the only thing they measured was dollar sales because that was what royalty payments were based upon. Bachelder realized that the company had to begin measuring other things that were important such as speed of service, market share, restaurant operating profits, and other metrics that would help them better understand where they stood. As she said, numbers don't lie. You may not like what you find when you begin to measure what you're doing, but it's the only way to know exactly what is happening.

As I read that I began to wonder what churches measure. As a former pastor I know many churches measure attendance figures and financial giving, but beyond that many of them measure very little. Without firm data they may think they are doing OK or they may fear that things are not going well, but they really can't be sure.

A few years ago a church called me concerned that it had been plateaued for the past few years. I obtained their annual reports and quickly found that they had reported a steady decline in attendance over the past 20 years. In that two decade period their average attendance had decreased by about 50 people. Because no one had ever ran the numbers, the church wasn't aware of what was happening in their church.

What should a church measure?

• A church that believes in the Great Commission should be measuring the number of people who make professions of faith. In some churches that might be measured by the number of baptisms, in others they will have to find a way to measure this. If a church claims it believes in the Great Commission but never sees people come to faith in Christ, something is wrong.
• A church needs to measure the giving in the church as one way to measure the spiritual growth of its people. Christians who are growing in discipleship should be growing in their financial giving.
• Churches need to measure the number of their first-time guests and the number of those guests who return for a second and third visit. If the number of returning guests is low this is an indication the church needs to work on hospitality.
• Churches need to measure the number of people involved in Sunday school classes, small groups, or whatever program used in the church to develop disciples.
• Churches need to measure their capacity space. A sanctuary or parking lot that is at 80 percent capacity should be considered full. Seldom will such churches see additional growth until these barriers are addressed.

There are far more things that churches should measure than can be mentioned in this post. For a more thorough listing, and the reasons why such measurements are important to a church, I highly recommend What Every Pastor Should Know: 101 Indispensable Rules of Thumb for Leading Your Church by Gary McIntosh and Charles Arn.

One last thought from Bachelder...measurements matter only if you plan to act upon what you learn. If you don't intend to deal with any issues you find, you might as well not bother to measure. But, if you plan to use the data you gain from such measurements to make whatever changes need to be made, then determine what you need to measure and develop a team to immediately begin gathering that information.

How will the world know?

Several years ago I read of a new pastor in a community who began to make friends with some of the people in that community who did not attend church. As his relationship with these folks developed he asked each of them why they didn't attend church. He invited four of them to share their stories with the congregation he served. For four weeks each of them in turn shared their story of why they did not attend church.

One was the local sheriff who told the congregation that his department was called to the homes of as many Christians as non-Christians. He felt that if what they believed was true it should change the way they behaved.

The next week the speaker was a lesbian social worker who grew up in a pastor's home. As a child she had witnessed the difference between what church people said they believed and how they acted.

The third person was an official from the local school system. He could not understand why Christians were known more for what they opposed than for what they supported. His experiences with Christians had been mostly negative.

On the final Sunday a local waitress spoke. She told the congregation how everyone at her work hated to work on Sundays. They found church people to be rude and demanding, their children out of control, and to be very poor tippers. As she explained, she can't raise her children on Gospel tracts.

As you might expect, not everyone in the congregation was pleased with this series of messages. Some walked out never to return. What this pastor wanted to do was to show the congregation how unchurched people often saw those who did go to church, and how this influenced their thoughts about both the church and, more importantly, about Christ.

I developed a sermon using this story called "How will the world know?" Scripture is clear that people will know we are Christians by our love. The way we treat one another as well as those outside the church has an impact on how others view the church and Jesus Christ. The way we live our lives will often be the first gospel message some people will hear, and in some cases they will not be interested in hearing a second.

More of us needs to have the courage of the pastor in the above story. I'm sure it pained him to hear the stories of those who were not involved in church. Yet, if we do not ask to hear those stories how will we know what we need to change in order to reach more people? What stories might you hear if you began to ask people in your community why they are not involved in a church? How might you use that information to improve your church's outreach?

Good intentions are not enough

Last week I was listening to a Dave Ramsey podcast when Dave began to interview John Maxwell.  Maxwell said something that continues to play over in my mind.  He said that many people have good intentions but they never do anything with intentionality that will make those good intentions happen.  I can't get those words out of my mind.

Think of all the New Year's resolutions that have already been forgotten.  People have good intentions to lose weight, stop smoking, exercise more, attend church more faithfully, read their Bible each day, etc., but unless they take some intentional steps to make these things happen, it is highly unlikely anything will change in their lives.

As I work with various churches I hear them talk about all the great things they want to accomplish.  They share with me their dreams for ministry and their desire to impact their communities through their ministries.  However, in most cases these things never occur.  They never do anything with intentionality that would enable those things to happen.

I frequently hear from church leaders that their churches need more leaders, but they never do anything to develop leaders.  Few churches, especially smaller ones, have anything in their budget for training.  Most of the churches I work with have no training program in their church except for Sunday school.  They don't send their lay leaders and potential leaders to workshops.  Nothing intentional is done, and yet we continually hear complaints that our churches need more leaders.

As I shared in last Friday's post, most churches say they want to grow.  What are they doing with intentionality that would produce that growth?  In that post I referred to the book What Every Pastor Should Know: 101 Indispensable Rules of Thumb for Leading Your Church by Gary McIntosh and Charles Arn.  Here are just a few of the rules they recommend for attracting new people to your church.

• Offer at least nine entry events per year for effective community outreach.
• Provide a minimum of two side doors every year.
• Train at least 10 percent of your people in friendship evangelism each year.
• Each worshiper should have an average of nine or more unchurched friends or family members.

If you don't know what an entry event or side doors are, you should.  That alone may be enough for you to want to read this book.  The reality is that it is increasingly difficult to get unchurched people to come into the church through the front door (worship services).

Each of these rules, and most of the other 97 rules, will not happen accidentally in the church.  We must be intentional about doing each of them.  This does not mean that we have to start tomorrow doing all 101!  Your church may only be able to do 2-3 at first, and that's OK.  Determine which 2-3 will give you the best opportunity to accomplish your vision for ministry and start with them.  But, do something with intentionality!  Otherwise, we are left with only good intentions, and we all know where they lead us.