Our Thoughts

A factor that is often overlooked by church staff, but one of the most important to a visitor at church, is the Children/Student Ministry. What visitors want to see from Children’s Ministry and the Nursery is twofold—security and genuine care. If their kids have fun, that is the cherry on top. When they drop their kids off, they’re seeking a strong sense that their child will be safe, warmly and sincerely accepted, and seen as an individual child. They want to hear you say their child’s name and see you help the child become part of the group. To them, their child is not just another kid. It’s their kid. They want them to feel special and it speaks volumes if you make them feel that way…but even louder if you don’t.

Not too long ago, I asked some friends who had been looking for a new church how the hunt was going. They responded with how much they loved the ministry of a particular church, but were completely disturbed by how their young children were treated. When they would drop their children off, it was extremely difficult to get the attention of the teacher, and when they finally did, the children were checked in without a smile and “mushed” into the herd. This happened for several weeks in a row, and the same routine happened each time at pickup—only the teacher was not the only one without a smile…the children were equally discontent.

While the pastor preached his heart out and ministry was catered for them, these visitors—who were sure to become workers in the church—could not let their children grow up in that environment. They moved on.

What do your Children Ministries say about you as a church? How are you ensuring that the standards you have in your pulpit clearly exist in other parts of your church?

Here's a truism: people that have had a life-changing experience with God want others to find God in a life-changing way. This is surely true. It is also true that most people that sat in church pews last year never invited one single person to their church. So what is the disconnection?

One of the biggest disconnects we have in the church is that, as leaders, we often forget what it was like to go to church for the very first time. The intimidation factor for a lone visitor in a new church is simply huge. But it is nowhere close to the stress and vulnerability that is put on a churchgoer who invites a visitor. All inviters put their reputations on the line every time they invite someone to church. You can rest assured that your church members will not invite someone if they do not expect a positive outcome. And most of the time, that's why one church isn't growing and the church around the corner is. It has led us to say that "Most Christians are not ashamed of Christ, they are ashamed of their church." Ouch!

I asked a young friend how he was enjoying his church; he admitted that he loved it but was bothered by the fact that the church wasn't growing. I asked him why it wasn't growing; he acted bewildered and said, "I have no idea."

"Yes, you do," I challenged him. "You know why it's not growing."

After a silence, I asked, "When was the last time you invited someone?"

"Well, it's been a long time," he said ashamedly.
"Why don't you invite people?"

He shuffled his feet and said, "I don't know."

"Yes, you do," I said. "The reason you don't invite people is the same reason why your church is not growing."

I could tell that bells went off on the inside. He responded, "Yeah, I know why." He had known it all along. He just had never connected the dots between the challenges of inviting people and overall church growth.

It might be simple. A congregant might be embarrassed about the church decorations, the deep-end-of-the-pool worship, the inexplicably deep or dry sermons or the pastor telling jokes about his wife. The harder it is to invite people, the more challenging church growth is.

You see, I knew my friend loved God and wanted others to experience Christ's love. Unfortunately, most people are not intimidated about being Christians; they are intimidated about inviting people to their church.

The simple truth is that if an invitation is hard to make, for whatever reason, fewer people will be invited. The battle for growth is first fought in the hearts of churchgoers who want to better the lives of those around them. This is actually the desire of the vast majority of churchgoers.

I cannot say this emphatically enough-all true Christians want other people to become Christians. It is planted in them when Christ is planted in them. This means if your church has to beg, push, cajole, offer incentives, or even just remind people to invite others, it is a telltale sign that, for whatever reason, they do not believe the ministry that takes place will make a successful connection with the people they would invite.

This is where the rubber hits the road. Is your church connecting with your community? The main link is through your congregation, and if they think you're not connecting, you won't.

It is no wonder Paul challenged us in advance to "become as one to win one." The ability to relate to our communities and church growth go hand in hand. When a ministry can successfully relate to the people in its congregation in a way that reassures them that their guests will be connected with, the churchgoers will be willing to invite others because they know it will relate to those they invite.

By analyzing the temptations and challenges associated with inviting people to church, we found the following to be true. If a churchgoer can answer these questions positively, then inviting friends and family will not only be easy, it will become a lifestyle. The church will explode with growth! As a side note, my guess is that none of these topics would ever show up on a visitor survey. They require us to look closely in the mirror, as even our closest allies would have a hard time advising us of some of these issues.

1. Will my friend feel welcomed?
   Principle: Hospitality-The atmosphere, nomenclature, and style of service should be inviting and not intimidating to the unchurched.
2. Will my friend fit in?
   Principle: Comfort and Compatibility-Like it or not, invitations and visitor comfort decrease when social or cultural gaps exist.
3. Can I feel confident that I know how the service will turn out?
   Principle: Consistency-People need to know what to expect, because they will invite accordingly.
4. Will my friend get something out of it?
   Principle: Relevance-The message should be relevant and powerful for people at all spiritual levels.
5. Will my friend understand it?
   Principle: Understanding-Jesus taught through practical illustrations. The songs and message should be understandable for people at all spiritual levels.
6. Will anything that could seem strange to the unchurched be explained through Scripture?
   Principle: Sensitivity-Scriptural actions should be carried out with clarity and considerate explanation.

Having said all this, I am convinced of one thing. If members walk out of your service saying, "I wish my unchurched friend had been here," they will start to think about inviting their friend. If a member walks out of your service three weeks in a row and says every time, "I wish my unchurched friend would have heard that," nothing will stop that member from dragging that friend through your doors. The challenging thing is that often, when members walk out of churches, the only thing they can say is, "I wish my other church friends would have heard that."
It's time to evaluate. Are we creating an atmosphere that fosters growth or are we just ministering unto ourselves?

Not sure if your church is engaging? Get your Free Total Engagement Score to see where your church stands.

During my travels serving churches, I’ve noticed that very few churches have a balanced response to what is a core facet of a healthy church: exposure. Exposure is critical to understanding who you are as a church and finding your way. And while I know that there are some church "hermits" out there, there are just as many church "followers" to ensure that there are large crowds on each side of “the exposure ditch.”

Let's start with the underexposed church. These are churches that rarely expose themselves to the world outside their walls, or have limited knowledge as to what’s out there in their own community. Their leaders tend to rely only on their denomination or a few "model" churches to provide insight into how church is done. By not being exposed to other churches in their community and what they are doing, these leaders probably don’t fully understand who they are in the context of the community—leaving them without a sense of how the community perceives them.

In order to fully understand God’s will for your church, it helps to be exposed to what He’s doing in other congregations. This helps each church see the role it can more effectively play in the bigger picture of what God is doing.

If under-exposure is your default, make a point to visit churches that do not match your flavor. Visit growing churches and struggling ones. Do not judge them. Ask yourself, "Why do these church-goers like this? Why is this church successful (or not)? Who is not attending this church and why?" In order to get away from your own church on a Sunday, some pastors might have to commit hard to taking a break. It is difficult to take a break if you and your church are not in the habit. Let me challenge you that every church leader needs an exposure break—an opportunity to see others fighting the same "good fight" they are fighting. Stepping out of the pulpit and stepping into someone else's back row will enhance your perspective in so many ways.

The other side of the ditch is the church that is overexposed. This church tends to chase whoever they feel is the most exciting at the moment. They follow trailblazing churches and often change what they do to match what they think the most innovative churches are doing. The end result is that these overexposed churches never really gain a sense of who "they" are and don’t fully understand that God's calling cannot be borrowed or imitated from someone else. They often read tons of blogs and listen to tons of podcasts.

Overexposed churches are often unconsciously looking for the "silver-bullet" that’s going to take their success to another level. They can end up becoming puppets to church fads—and while they can spout out a who's who list of popular Christianity, they less frequently take a hard, inward look at who they are and let God show them how to commit to who they are supposed to be for their community.

It is critical that we as church leaders get exposure to what God’s doing in other churches. But it’s also critical after seeing what God’s doing in other churches to come back and ask the question, “who are we and how can we learn from this exposure to execute better on who God has uniquely called us to be?” As a result we can use exposure to understand ourselves better, communicate our DNA more effectively, and become more deliberate—instead of constantly reinventing ourselves.

Perhaps an approach that might work best is to pre-define seasons of exposure—moving inbetween months or years where you are pursuing exposure deliberately, followed by extended periods of head-down execution of what God is showing you. 

As you think back on whether you have been over or underexposed, what next season do you need to step into? 

We often run into a church that is in transition, looking for decisiveness on tender topics... "Should we have multiple worship styles?" "Do we go more acoustic?" "More Hillsong?" "What about the hymns?" "Why are we not attracting certain groups of people?"

These are the issues I tend to love the most. The reason I love them, is because I like to dig into the heart of the issue. I love to go beyond the surface "love for old hymns" and ask, "why do 'these' people like 'these' songs?" I am convinced that the answer is almost always deeper than we expect. 

As we have dug into this time and time again, one clear trend appears...

People gravitate to the worship style in which they experienced their high-water-mark with God.

I do not care if it was banjo-led worship. If that is what you experienced your closest connection to God with, you will long to hear the banjo played like this yet again.

Our love for our favorite genre of music is a heart's attempt to reach back to these special times. For example, older folks like older songs, but not simply because the songs are older. To these people, to any people, the worship style they like the most tends to be the style in which they felt closest to God (I am partial to some Rich Mullins myself). 

We were working with a church recently that was struggling with this change. By listening, we picked up on some interesting undertones. It led us to propose that if someone wants the songs sung today like they were thirty years ago, this person is more than likely struggling with two things when someone tries to bring about change:

1) Their greatest moments with God were in their past (instead of looking to find fresh times with God in their future). This is an area where we, as leaders, have a responsibility to guide them to search out their future close moments with God.

2) Their inability to learn all the words to all the new songs that we do in our A.D.D. song rotations (and small "very cool" overhead text) just makes them want to give up.

With this in mind, we worked with the leadership to cast vision for fresh experiences with God and to teach them a short list of new songs over several months. When we arrived back at the church 7 months later, the over 70 crowd were as much or more engaged in modern worship than the twenty-somethings were.

It would have been easy to write the older crowd off or to give them their own service with their own style. It took courageous leadership to look past their initial complaints and take them to a new place in worship. But isn't that what leadership is all about? Leadership is about taking people to a place they should go in spite of where they want to go.

What it created in this church's older crowd was a longing for new places with God, instead of just a pursuit of past places. That is a beautiful thing. As leaders, what are we pursuing and where are we taking those we lead? Are we allowing them to camp out in their past, or are we challenging them to pursue God afresh today.

Where is your congregation? Maybe it is time to... "Sing to the Lord a new song." Psalms 96:1A

Have you ever noticed that the average designer looks like they are in the band? Ever notice the odd coincidence that so many music people also dabble in design? Ever wonder why? Let me play a few chords of the common bond between music and design... When a musician begins learning, let's say... guitar, she first learns how to play the notes, but then begins to learn on a higher level how different notes and sounds make up the songs that create different moods. Soon, the developing musician learns the chords that stir people up, slow them down, and make them wax melancholy.

The longer she plays guitar, the more she learns the characteristics of the sounds and is able to see the direct correlation between chord and emotion. She learns how to use her instrument to create whatever reaction she desires. She can make the audience laugh, cry, bang their heads or squeeze their lover's hand—all with the choice of notes and the combination and speed thereof. A great guitarist is someone who has mastered the elements of music and combines them like a mad scientist to create specific response. She does not merely play the guitar. She plays the audience.

How different is design? Instead of using the tools of notes and timing, designers use color and shape to instigate a response. In the same way, they combine elements time after time and begin to learn the responses they create in the hearts and minds of the viewer. This correlation between the musician and the designer is a simple bond... the study between creative inputs and human outputs. Great chefs, great comedians, great interior designers all have it—it is an innate drive to know an audience and bring elements together that would captivate them in some way.

The reason a guitarist often makes a good designer is that he/she has already strengthened their sense of deliberative mood setting. They bring the same root logic into a new medium and they are far ahead of those that are just starting to hone that gift. The challenge, as it is with musicians, is that they often only learn to play their songs for just one group of people. Sure, you know how to make a 20-year-old sing a worship song, but can you master the sounds of the 60-year-old's worship set? In the same way, many designers can only play design tunes that reach certain age groups. They are not masters of their craft, but yet masters of their target audience.

To the musician and designer: never stop studying the correlation between your elements and the response that follows it. At the same time, never stop expanding the reach of the notes you play. In doing so, you become all things to all men... reach them.