Dear Church, We Won’t Be Back! And Here’s Why....
My husband and I are new to town and we’re looking for a church home. We visited your church three months ago and we’ve never been back. And I know for certain that we won’t be joining your church.
Why?
There are some very specific reasons–things you do that just didn’t work for us. For example.... Read More
Sad to think that your satire might reflect an all too true and common reality.
ReplyDeleteCharles,
ReplyDeleteIt is good to hear from you.
As you say, what Christine Yount Jones describes in her post is "an all too true and common reality." According to one of Thom Rainer's podcasts, guests decide whether the church is right fit for them within something like the the first eleven minutes after they arrive in the parking lot
I believe that it was Rick Warren who wrote, "All kinds of churches are needed for all kinds of people." No one church fits everyone. For this reason I post a lot of articles discussing ways that churches can raise their visibility in the community.
There may be a lot of people in a community who might fit with a particular church but who never darken its doors because the church is invisible to them. It may be on a well-traveled highway into town with a big sign in front of the building but it still is invisible. Ask around town and no one has even heard of it, much less knows where it is.
One of the best ways to raise a church's visibility is for church members to get involved in the community. Church members are the best advertising (and unfortunately the worst advertising) for their church. Members of the community may start thinking, "There must be more to that church than meets the eye." They may give the church a try and discover that it is a good fit for them. But if the members of the church keep to themselves and do not go into the community, no one may ever know their church in in the community.
When church members become involved in the community, they may discover that the community consists of more than the folks that go to church and those who will never ever go to church. This second group is actually a fairly small group. There are far more people with whom church members can have a gospel conversation and who will accept an invitation to church - even here in the Bible Belt.
The challenge is getting folks out of the pews into the community.