In this post on some of the shifts taking place in the American Church, I want to tie into some of what I posted last week. In my last post, I discussed the shift taking place in church attendance. One of the factors in that shift has its roots in technology. This brings us to a shift in the focus of the church. People are attending church less often because they don’t see the benefit of attending. And often times, there isn’t any real benefit in church attendance. Why would I get out of bed on a Sunday morning, get dressed and go to a local church if I can sit at home in my pajamas and watch some great worship, preaching or teaching on my TV, computer or phone? This brings up the shift that is taking place in churches by necessity. The experience of attending a local church must be greater than just the content alone.
Great content can be found anywhere on the web. So in order to continue attracting people to our churches, we must make the experience greater than simply great music and an engaging sermon. There must be something else. Something that answers the question for you: Why would anyone want to come to my church? As we discussed last week, it is simply not enough to expect that all Christians will come to church weekly. That mindset has shifted in our culture. We need more than just an expectation that people’s sense of Christian duty will drive them to our churches week after week. What are some of the things that will attract and keep more people?
A sense of something bigger. People – and especially younger people – feel a need to be a part of something bigger than themselves. People don’t need more entertainment. They can find entertainment more now than at any other time in history. They don’t need to be entertained in church. They need a sense of God. People can find great content online, but they can feel like they are a part of something greater than themselves spiritually only through attending a local church. The church as a whole is shifting toward a more focused sense of mission as opposed to vision. Knowing why you exist is becoming more important that the methods by which you carry out that mission.
Community. People can enjoy great content online, but they don’t get a sense of community by streaming a service from a church on the other side of the country. Even younger people who have grown up with technology and who have a different definition of “community” than us older folks, want real, genuine community. The trend of multi-site churches has reinforced the idea that people actually want smaller, more intimate settings for church. If you want more people in your church, you need to place more emphasis on things like small groups, discipleship classes, and ministries that cater to specific needs, such as single parenting, marriage, and finances. If we’re talking about attracting more young people to the church, the most positive church experiences among millennials are relational.
An opportunity to serve. One of the things that you absolutely cannot do by streaming church on Sunday is to be actively involved in the mission of the local church. You can only do that through attendance. Depending on the level of involvement, you may even be required to attend more often than you normally would. The key to active involvement though is not simply plugging bodies into positions. That may actually lead to less attendance. The key is to find people’s passion and plug them in where their passion lies. To do this may require some up-front work on the part of the church, but it is well worth the investment of time and, in some cases, a little money. At our church, we use three tools to help us identify passion. We use StrengthsFinder to help us identify natural talent and abilities, and we use the True Colors personality test to help us identify personality types. We also use the Saddleback Spiritual Gifts test to help identify spiritual gifting. I am not involved in any way with these products. I am just giving you the tools that we use. They may or may not be suitable for your use. Once we have identified a person’s natural abilities, their spiritual giftings, and their personality types, it becomes much easier to plug them into a ministry that they will enjoy being a part of. If they enjoy doing something, chances are that they will burn out less often, show up more often, and be better equipped to do the work of the ministry than if we had just plugged a ministry hole with a body.
Of course, there are many other factors that affect a dwindling frequency of church attendance. Quality child care, friendliness of current members, and relevance of not just the message, but the overall experience to their lives. As the baby boomers age out, a younger generation shifts into place in our churches, as it did when our parents grew older. While THE church will always survive, if individual churches are to survive. there must be some further, intentional shifting toward this younger generation. I’ll address that in my next post.
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