In a 2008 survey by LifeWay, they discovered of 1,684 adults who had not “attended a religious service in a church, synagogue or mosque, other than for a religious holiday or for a special event such as a wedding or funeral at any time in the past six months” revealed that only 49 percent would visit in person if they were looking for a church. By contrast, 83 percent of church switchers in an earlier survey said they made an in-person visit when they “actively searched for a new church.”
Significantly, more than half of un-churched people would follow a recommendation from family, friends, neighbors or colleagues if they were looking for a church, but 24 percent said they didn’t really see themselves using any of the usual ways of finding a church, as reported by Transworld News (http://www.transworldnews.com/NewsStory.aspx?id=44244&cat=13)
Now this is not a “recent” article or survey, but the trend has not changed. The fact remains that if we are going to reach the un-churched, while the message stays the same we must change and update our methods. In many ways the Church is trying to reach the world using methods that were developed some thirty plus years ago. The world has moved forward in its development of social interaction and communication. While, many churches today would fail the modern day litheness test, refusing to bend from old traditions to reach modern day society. Persistently, we find that the Church is chasing trends rather than creating them.
People in society today confess the need for a faith in their lives but more and more are not looking at Christianity as their primary choice. This is a growing disease in our society and is a direct result of faulty outreach and evangelism strategies. Most churches today rely primarily upon active visitation as their source of evangelism. Not that they are actively visiting people but that people who are actively visiting and looking for a church come to a service. The sad fact is that, most often a visitation to a service is a result of a “believer” seeking a new place to worship. People who are in the world and do not yet know Christ as Lord are not looking for a church. Yet, we set back week after week and wait for our great worship service or the fantastic expoundings of the pastor to be the drawing card. They may be a draw to a believer but remember, the lost person doesn’t care about what the pastor is saying on Sunday morning. Now I’m not saying that no one ever comes to or visits your church because they aren’t looking for something i.e. Christ, but let’s be honest it is a rarity.
So what do we do? Well, I’m not going to pretend to have all the answers and be able to present them in this blog. There are volumes of books on the subject of which my feeble mind cannot even begin to compare. But for starters let’s look at these things:
Christ said in Luke 14:23 “….Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled.”
Here are a few ideas:
- Witness as Christ
a. Non-offensive in truth
b. Speak in love
c. Serve then share!
- Be real and genuine and be who you say you are
- Be a person of integrity
- Encourage members of your Church to share the gospel!
- Create non-evasive ways and strategies to share faith and invite members to your church
a. A friend of mine has a great ministry called prayer stop. It’s a great way to reach people by simply praying for them, allowing them to come to you rather than you making a quick gospel sales pitch.
b. Create strategies to serve the needs of your friends, neighborhood, and community.
c. Create events which are “World” inclusive that cause interaction with the Church.
- Disciple and teach your members and new believers to effectively defend and share their faith.
- Simply invite the lost to come and when I say this, often it takes more than an invitation in passing and must be repeated in love and not in nagging.
- Make use of social networking effectively {Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, Tangle, You Tube,etc}
- Have a nice attractive website for your church
These are just a few quick ideas that come to mind. I’m sure you will come up with better. The main point is to make people feel comfortable with you when pointing out their uncomfortable position of not knowing Christ. If your conversations become adversarial you will not make a connection. You must make the connection first, and then encourage the individual in the ways of the gospel. A pointing finger makes people look the wrong way, you need people to listen to the message you are sharing and most often it points back to self. People will come to Christ and to Church more often if they feel comfortable, loved, and wanted. Bottom line, if you want your church to grow, then you must effectively get outside the walls of your Church.
Bryan K. Taunton
Exec. Director FootWash Ministries
Encouraging word. We as a church are moving in the direction you point to in your blog. If we are not making relationships with the unchurched and unsaved they will never darken the doors of our churches and the will never effectively hear the gospel.
ReplyDelete