Here's the church, here's the steeple. Open the doors, where are the people?
Every so often I hear somone lament the emptiness of their church on Sunday morning. When I was pastoring in Illinois I would, on a monthly basis, sit around with fellow pastors and listen to their stories about declining attendance. Through much of that 3-year period of time I was able to share stories of growth - nothing on the scale of what some megachurches have experienced - but we grew from 4 people in the beginning to an average attendance of around 50 people two years later. We struggled at the 50 barrier and after losing a couple of families experienced some decline. I saw through my own experience the reality of what I'm about to share here; a reality that ultimately led me to step away from pastoring for a season.
When I hear people talk about the emptiness of their church on Sunday mornings, several questions come to mind.
Question one: Which of the two does your church leadership view to be the most important; drawing a crowd to the church building on Sunday morning or helping lost people throughout the city - wherever they are - find new life in Christ and become passionate disciples?
My own experience and my interaction with other pastors facing the same issues lead me to the conviction that if drawing a crowd to the church building on Sunday mornings to teach them what you know is your primary objective, then you are going to be constantly facing an uphill battle because quite frankly, the vast majority of people in your city don't give a rip about going to a church service. About 70 to 80 percent of your population is unchurched and they are unchurched for a reason and that reason is that they do not view a weekly church service as being a viable antidote to their emptiness. Most of them are very spiritual and are longing to find some kind of transcendent meaning in life, but they don't believe that attending a weekly church service will help them find that meaning.
Now, if you answered my question by indicating that the second option is of greatest importance, then I believe that you are on the right track to seeing your building full; not as the primary objective, but as the by-product of being fully engaged in that which Christ is most passionate about, people finding him.
This may surprise you, but the early church of Acts wasn't particularly interested in growing weekly attendance. They were interested in embodying the Kingdom and introducing their friends and family to the Kingdom. House churches and temple courts filled up rapidly as a by-product of being more passionate about lost people being found than they were about filling a meeting place.
If you hear more crickets than voices on Sunday morning, may I suggest that you shift your focus away from the Sunday morning event and more intentionally toward connecting in meaningful ways with the 70 or 80 percent of non-church people the other 6 days of the week. This brings me to my second question.
Question two: You say that reaching the lost is most important, yet your building is still empty. What are the meaningful ways through which you are connecting with the lost?
I see and hear this all the time. Pastors and church people will say, "Oh we want to see lost people saved. We have an ad in the paper so the unchurched will know where to find us and we all dress casually on Sunday mornings so they'll feel at home when they get here." Let me say this as delicately as I can. That's crap.
Running a newspaper ad and dressing casually does not equate to meaningful connections with lost people. Here's what does:
1. The people of your church should be living their faith as missional ambassadors of Christ 24/7 not just on Sunday mornings. The people around them should see that relationship with Christ is the real deal, not just a Sunday morning costume. If the people of your church are living lives Monday - Saturday that do not reflect what they sing and talk about on Sunday morning then they are not the real deal and are doing nothing more than confirming the non-Christian accusations of hypocrisy.
2. Your church should be spending more time engaged in sheep-behavior instead of goat-behavior. What do sheep do? Jesus makes it pretty clear in Matthew 25 where he said to the sheep, "I was hungry and you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger and you invited me in. I needed clothes and you clothed me. I was sick and you looked after me. I was in prison and you came to visit me. In as much as you have done it to the least of one of these, you have done it unto me."
Goat behavior? Well, goat behavior is what I see in most empty churches. They ignore the hungry, thirsty, naked, sick, and imprisoned strangers around them. Oh they'll feed the hungry, as long as they are a church member who just had a baby or surgery. They'll visit the sick and imprisoned as long as they are faithful Sunday School attendees. But ask the leadership to focus on showing this care to the strangers throughout the city who need to know the love of Christ and you'll hear, "Well, we don't have the resources for that."
During my three years of church planting I saw both growth and decline. During the seasons of growth we were very active in the community. We were doing things like helping people pay for their gas at a local convenience store, serving free coffee and offering free gift wrapping to Christmas shoppers, providing household supplies and clothing to welfare families on a weekly basis, celebrating Christmas by filling our building with impoverished families, serving them a meal, and giving gifts to their children.
A season of decline came as I made the dreadful mistake of allowing my heart to be turned by the opinions of a few and we began to abandon these things and began talking about reducing our care for the poor and focusing on ways to attract people with money. As one prim & proper leadership family put it while in the process of leaving our church, "This place attracts a lot of misfits." When I couldn't couldn't continue turning my heart away from the people outside of our church who needed Christ most - the misfits - I walked away.
I am convinced. Want to see your church filled? Stop worrying about filling your church. Begin investing your lives and resources into the lives of the people in your city who need to see your faith up close and personal. Stop trying to get God to bless what you are doing and begin doing what God has always blessed.
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