Why do people go to church?
I’ve written previous Ethical Musings posts on this subject,
including Why
bother with church? and Time
to market the church.
More recently, the Gallup poll has conducted some excellent research
on the subject. I especially commend this post by fellow priest, Jon White, Why people go to
church found on the Episcopal Café website. Jon helpfully summarizes the
research, which has strong implications for congregations that wish to grow
numerically.
My last post
discussed the question of what was Jesus’ brand. If we believe that others
along with us should follow Jesus and that part of following Jesus is to gather
regularly with God’s people to worship God, deepen our spirituality, build
community, and to serve others then having an attractive brand is vital. Even
more important is to have a community that attracts and successfully integrates
newcomers. This requires:
·
Practicing genuine hospitality.
We must learn to welcome the stranger, including the stranger in conversations
and what’s happening without causing the stranger to experience an unwanted
level of attention or any other type of discomfort.
·
Removing barriers to entry.
Integrating a newcomer into an established group – for example, a small
congregation, study group, or other gathering – requires recognizing and
dismantling the group’s barriers to entry to permit newcomers to feel welcome
and then to join. What are barriers to entry? Inadequate signage (who likes to
ask for the location of the restroom?), insufficient parking (get old-timers to
park at a distance), steps that keep the handicapped out – these and other
barriers block entry.
·
Offering substantive value
for time spent and money contributed. This explains why people rate good sermons
their highest priority in the Gallup survey about why people go to church.
·
Congregants honestly
sharing their successes and failures in modeling their lives on Jesus. Who
wants to worship with a congregation comprised entirely of hypocrites who claim
to model their lives on Jesus but whose words and actions blatantly and
consistently reveal their hypocrisy? Conversely, who wants to worship with a
congregation who allegedly gather in Jesus’ name but who can point only to
their failures and never to their successes?
·
Pervasively focusing on helping
people to apply lessons from scripture to daily living (do not confuse this
with the prosperity gospel!). Attendees, both new and old, seek help with their
daily lives.
·
Giving people instruction,
encouragement, and opportunity to cultivate their spirituality. This is at the center
of what it means to be church. Otherwise, the church becomes a social club,
social service organization, advocate for social justice, or other type of
non-profit. All of these are good but lack the distinctive spiritual focus of a
church.