Are you the leader of a Christian congregation? Here are a few different ways to attract people to your church this summer, so be creative and faithful in the approaches that you take. For some churches, it seems like COVID lockdowns shut them down for good, as attendance dwindled and budgets suffered.
However, churches that were able to offer virtual worship services through software like YouTube or Zoom thrived during the lockdown periods. If you find that your in-person attendance is still lower than ever, try to continue your virtual worship options, as they may be more attractive and flexible for your congregation.
That way you can continue to preach the good word of God and your congregation can feel the holy spirit while viewing your meetings in their homes, which makes their individual homes a sacred place of worship. One of the best ways to keep your congregation coming to church is to identify and address their needs as a community.
This may require some time and effort on the part of the minister and teachers. You may need to go out of your way to be involved in community activities so you know what the families of your congregation are interested in and concerned about.
If you are able to do so, you will be able to share messages of faith and encouragement with them that apply directly to their concerns and needs. Your congregation, in turn, will feel that you truly know them and want to help them and will be encouraged to continue in their worship traditions. If COVID lockdowns taught churches anything, it taught them the need to connect with congregation members over social media.
This is a way to speak the language of the younger generations, in a sense. Most of the younger parents and youth in your congregation likely spend a good amount of time on social media each day.
I can tell you this… the greater the trials I faced… oh greater was the joy from the freedom and grace I embraced!!! People have chains of bondage they need to be broken from.
They are looking for an experience with God but they need to know that God sees greater worth in them than man…. I truly wish for a better platform for discussion on these matters, and so please hear my desire for this question to be received in a posture of love, curiosity, and humility.
Why do so many Christian leaders have a tendency of reading the above Scriptures you mentioned only through the context of the local church gathering? What would it look like for some of our biblical mandates for discipleship to extend beyond the walls into every day life to allow the gathering to be free for its intended purposes?
Thoughts anyone? I would say its because the role of said church leaders is mainly to tend the flock. Since many do not work outside of pastoral work and work is one of the places one most meets those not of the faith and forms meaningful relationships , it can be difficult for them to connect with people and bring them into the church, since there tends to be a stigma associated with ministers, pastors, priests, etc. I have always viewed it as being more our job to help be a missionary to the direct world outside of us, while a pastors vocation more involves the church he belongs at.
I think we should bring people to the church, and their job is to welcome them, as well as minister to the church itself and encourage us to live our faith. Perhaps I am mistaken though. Therefore, they might be focusing solely on things in the context of the physical church since that is their role in the world.
Well said and i got a lot of information. My concern is the skill into the global church in reaching out to other people, we have become more of taking care of the people inside and less of the people outside. Ours is small but one of the Donors passed away.
Rethinking is needed here, I could tell more things but it would be a long post. I made it a point for 6 months to stay after service and have coffee and try to connect, it was so incredibly painful and finally after 7 months I introduced myself to the pastor who never said hello to me. That is so sad that you were made to feel that way.
I certainly would not want anyone at the church that I attend to feel that way. I understand that families and groups of friends often tend to communicate more freely within their group. However, for example, I always try to personally invite others within the church to join meetings, activities, etc. Our minister greets everyone as they leave. I hope you find another, more welcoming, and engaging church to be a part of.
Christine, Sorry that you found it difficult to engage. Here is what I recommend. Take it or leave it from a random guy on the internet. What if you made yourself the hospitality person? Meaning you sought out new people and disenfranchised people and did everything in your power to make them feel welcome.
In fact, the way you notice the pain in being disconnected tells me that you would be a great catalyst for making meaningful community. I am glad this article mentioned that people want transformation over information. I wish to join a church that can implement this effectively. I think that a church focused less on information that all attendees know and instead focuses its efforts into the transformation of the people attending would be a church that I would enjoy going to. Our main focus is reach to unreached with Love of Christ.
Millions of Non- believer need of knowing about the truth and Love of our Lord Jesus Christ especially the poor people are deprived one. EGM Pakistan is a Humanity base organization and working for the development of the human beings, its major object is to mitigate the effects of poverty, disease , illiteracy and disasters.
I want to invite you with great love and encouraging words to come to Pakistan , and bring the Good News of Lord Jesus with people of Pakistan. The Free Methodist Church is very conservative. I have no problem with contemporary music but Hymns are just as important. I enjoy piano and organ because when you come in the sanctuary you can enjoy the music and get yourself ready to worship.
We do say Praise the Lord, Amen, clap our hands with songs and raise our hands. Interesting article. Methods come and go. The Word of God changes people. The baptism of the Holy Spirit will give you passion for the lost. Methods are many. Principles are few. Methods often change. Principles never do.
Great article. It will be extensively shared. Thank you for this very well written article. May we never lose our first love in pursuit of numerical growth, people approval and relevance or be insensitive or inflexible to operations of Spirit.
Contextualize without compromise. He brings the increase. I appreciate your article, but I would like to know if you are talking about churches in a big city? I am a pastor in a small town and we are charismatic and full of the Holy Spirit but people are not coming to church like they were 6 or 7 years ago.
I just think that what you are saying is a real one sided story and I can only pray that it will happen here again soon. I agree with your comments,Carey.
Keep up the good articles. I think if most pastors would look at a video of their services and do a critical analysis or just pretend they are attending the service for the first time. They would be appalled. And to see the same thing or same ritual each week is not very exciting!
Also, we or the church needs to do what Jesus did. He taught everywhere he went. He was authentic and he cared. He wanted people to know God in a personal way! Words to the wise! That sounds great Rick. Many are partially in the spirit and partially in the flesh. Who can really know? A lot of times what ever you are uncomfortable with is what you call the flesh. Are they any different? Revival Is not supposed to be controlled, but it can be managed!
Just a great article all around. Who wants change? We all raise our hands Who wants To change? The bottom line is how do we reach those who are far from Christ and connect them into a body of believers? Are we willing to sacrifice our personal preferences for Gods mission? Thank you Carey for putting this out there.
We all need a little soul searching after reading this article. Lots of great thoughts and wisdom here. This is needed more now than ever, regardless of cultural changes.
Great article with many great points, thanks for taking the time to write it. I think it means we embrace how people are learning and engaging in real relationships over time. Before the written word became accessible to everyone, we were an oral culture, passing truths along through stories and memorization.
That was no longer the main vehicle once people could access the bible for themselves at any time. This changed the way the brain actually took information in. This changed how people learned and connected. This has fundamentally changed how kids learn and connect with others.
The bible is still the plumb line. Our propensity as fallen humans is to move away from God. I think the post is saying, as a church that is grounded on biblical truth, we will always be what people need but how we share it and engage with them is key because it determines whether or not those people will see it as a need.
Unless the church pays attention to the way people learn and connect from one generation to the next we never really will get the opportunity to share the great news, that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. Being culturally relevant just means we pay attention to what is impacting the hearts and minds of people today, how they learn and connect, and letting this inform us as to the best way to get the truth across.
Naturally, this subject came up and Dr Pope observed that all the ministers had been lamenting their failures which in his judgement were due to their adherence to obsolete methods. He did not pursue the matter………Shortly before his death he said that repeated decreases are the result of our persistent use of worn out evangelistic methods…….. Someone has said that the Churches have an excellent article to offer but they are perfect fools at getting it on the market!
So in how have matters improved? I agree, and may I ask what happened to, and the Lord added daily such as should be saved. SO good. Thank you! No one was passing out flyers— For a really great Experience, join our next meeting three streets down, just past the Baths, and take a left into the dark tunnel. Torches will be passed out to each attendee as they enter…. Say what??? I would like someone to take this seriously and engage with this question. I am a student of history and can tell you lots of information about the early church, but how did the early church replicate?
Is there any lesson to be found for us today? The early church: was not a business nor a Not-for-Profit entity had no tradition to follow had a dynamic passion to love one another as the Master had loved them they focused on loving, not 3 songs and a talk kept Jesus as the Head, not the pastor nor the board Sought to live and walk by the Spirit in obedience to the Master. The early church: Suffered Died Fled Served others Rejoiced and most of all, Loved each other and those in the world around them no matter what since their faith and singleminded focus was the Master, not simply going through the motions for an hour and a half each week or less than each week.
The good news is that there are many who still live this way today. The sad part is that there are many who have forgotten and have focused on distractions such as structures, music, power, yes, and money too. These all have their place but Jesus said,. Seek First, the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these other things will be added unto you. The danger is in reversing the order…. I understand your comments — seeking purity and simplicity of the Church of the Book of Acts.
But one main aspect of the early church was the acceptance of the Gentiles into something that was Jewish in nature. Different culture — different times — message and relationship important — different methods unless you do envangelism in sandals as commanded by Christ. But I do understand you sentiment. But I would also say the Day of Pentecost — and evrything that entails — should be the focus if you are going to look backwards.
My frustration and disappointment is the vast energy and resources we put into the secondary and less efficient approach though not without some seeming success—mostly because God makes all things work together for good—even the imperfect.
Which should NOT be a justification. Everything truly flows from this. They were a persecuted minority with a revolutionary agenda……. Lacking actual historical accounts, I think we can guess at the basics from what the Holy Spirit does now in the best situations.
Those who are mature will lead those who are less mature, and hopefully show the immature that growing strong in faith and knowledge is the best possible life-goal.
Back in the days, overseers bishops were selected based on their great faith that could not be shaken by trouble, not just on their management skill. The governing authorities have changed so that some governments actually base their constitution on Biblical principles. The fullness of the Kingdom is not about the early Church starting all over again but about reaping great harvests of souls ready to meet the end of this world as we know it.
Kingdom sons are born for such a time as this, for whom all of creation is waiting to see because then creation itself will be delivered from its bondage to decay Romans Trying to recreate the early Church in the midst of all that is going backward, not forward. What a great post! In Melbourne, Australia, the traditional evangelical churches are in decline as they seem to be about the head rather than the head and heart.
Liturgical churches are not that popular because they seem outdated and impersonal. Churches like Hillsong, and those like them, have become the growing churches because of the issues you mention in the post. People in Australia want to come to church for an experience of God rather than knowledge about God. They discovered people want prayer time in the service but also things like Alpha courses to invite people to.
Alpha is about knowing Jesus and experiencing the Holy Spirit. Holy Trinity Brompton seem to have picked up from Hillsong how to be contemporary yet be charismatic Anglicans rather than Pentecostal theologically speaking.
The challenge for my church here in Melbourne is how to engage people with the truth of the Gospel with love and grace so that people will experience God, not just learn about the bible text of the sermon topic. Also we have smaller resources which is a challenge but we can offer a good non-downloadable experience.
So we are hopeful about growing in the next few years. Very good. I have been to Lyon, France walked into Cathedrals built years ago — dirty, cold dark — served its generation and empty that Sunday except for a 8 elderly seats inside — then walked around the corner down the alley to the Comedy Club hired by Hillsong filled with young people!
Filled to capacity with people. The Bible is full of super weird experiences when God does things, and meets people, and speaks…. Mel Bladek: Some need to have the spiritual gifts of discernment, of distinguishing between spirits, words of knowledge, and so on. There should also be small group fellowships to facilitate individual growth in a relationship with Christ to offset that. Thanks for sharing this great post. Our church seems to be walking through this dynamic now.
We are an older church that is moving quickly to reaching younger families. And this passionate direction from our team is drawing more people and their spiritual hunger is absolutely refreshing! I guess the biggest challenge seems to be that our older generation struggles to understand how the new method applies to their experiences from days gone by. Any thoughts on how to bridge that growing divide? We want to move forward with connecting unbelievers to the gospel by whatever means necessary short of sin , but we know that God wants to reignite spiritual passion in the generation that has given so much to see it continue for so many generations.
Thanks for the reply Carey and all the great things you do for the body of Christ! Yeah, I heard Peyton Jones say recently that we often forget that the majority of the book of Acts occurs outside in public spaces. May the Lord help us all be creative and bold in bring the Gospel to where people are at.
I wish MORE church leaders understood this!!! Thank you for this post! I have observed these trends here in my ministry context, in South Florida. A very inspiring and challenging word! I fully agree with the idea that heartfelt, authentic worship is more important to the younger generation than its outward dressing What a relief!
Have you heard of UHD? Can you explain this statement a bit more:. Can you think of any examples of where weird is just, well, weird? What is authentic or maybe even quirky and what is off-putting awkward?
Great post and answers some questions I have had on the subject. Can you give some examples? Hope this helps! Would you say this is true for unchurched lost people? Seems like the lost I work with are weirded out by emotionalism. Just wondering. You have to be careful not to overwhelm people…keep things accessible.
Great stuff here. One of your best posts! But your examples of what you intend by these labels i. YES, people want to need to be there and matter. We are recently finding our front center 6 rows filled with collegiate!
Wow, what a difference that makes for our worship vibrancy. And they represent everything you are writing about. Hey, I do have one critique. In the New Testament, there are three consistent distinctions between the words used for teaching and preaching.
And none have anything to do with energy, passion, dynamism, etc. The issues are: Content, Audience, and Purpose. In both arenas, there are places for careful explanation and reasoning. And there are appropriate moments for urgent, passionate calls to action and change.
This audience is for leaders. They too should know better. Thanks for the opportunity to speak in. Thank you for your consistent awareness of trends that affect ministry effectiveness. In fact, some of the most charismatic churches I see are keenly attractional. Great question Brian. Attractional to my mind is a more recent version of the seeker movement of the 90s where churches designed their weekend experiences with the unchurched guest in mind. Often but not always that takes the form of less worship, hosting that explicitly welcomes unchurched people into the room, running everything through a filter with the guest in mind and often but not always topical preaching.
Great post! I watch them almost every week! Go find them. Come up with outreach ideas for businesses in your community. Send church members to appropriate business conferences, and attend similar gatherings and conferences at other churches.
Make a concerted effort to connect with people in your community—and then follow up with them. The real key to attracting different kinds of people to your church is to be intentional about it. Identify your congregational needs and the kind of skills that would meet those needs.
When you identify the areas of weakness and what it would take to fill in those gaps, you can be strategic about the next steps. This is a critical moment for churches, technology is having a huge impact on almost every part of congregational life. Jayson D. Bradley is a writer and pastor in Bellingham, WA.
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