Where did everyone go?

From a Previous Blog: (I’m skipping over #4 for now)

Make sure that you have a vision of not only increasing membership, but also attendance. If people do not come anymore, find out why. Did they move? Is there a problem with transportation? Hurt feelings? Find out and fix it. Have a team solely responsible for this. People who feel led to minister to others through comforting words or who can also find solutions will make good members for this team.

I’ve seen churches where the membership gives up when attendance starts to fall. They decide that there is nothing that can be done about it. The “family” or the “clic” that is running the show has run the show into the ground and there is nothing that they can do about it. In these cases, it takes someone who will stand up and get together a group that is louder, bigger and most passionate than the trouble makers. Then they start to change the way that things are done, instituting ministries that reach out to the community and draw others back.

But sometimes churches falter and no one really knows why. One problem is that the pastor hasn’t done as suggested in an earlier blog and surrounded himself with people who are “in the know” in the community, so that they can alert him to any problems that they see arising.

Other times, it is simply that the ministry doesn’t meet the needs of the community. Use the guidelines that I gave earlier and fine tune your ministries to what is needed in your community.

Lastly, some churches become stale and too comfortable in what they are doing. They become a “family” that winds up being “exclusive” instead of being “inclusive.” People start to feel left out, no one asks how they would like to be an active participant in the church, so they wander off, many times fed up with church to the point that they don’t seek another one to attend.

The pastor realizes that they have gone missing, and many times he/she may not know the circumstances surrounding their disappearance. This is when he should go visit them, or have the elder/deacon assigned to them pay a personal visit (I’ll cover this in the next blog). Be upfront. Be blunt. Ask them to be blunt. But don’t be offensive or take offense at what they have to say. Use their words to consider what needs to change. Was it their perception? Or do they have a point? Stand back and observe the ministry/person/committee that they are talking about. Do you see the same things becoming apparent. Take action to correct the problem before it runs someone else off.

Have a visitation team that goes out to people who are unchurched or who have left the church and talk with them. Show them that the church is actually interested in them. Many times this is enough to draw them back. Once a visitation member builds their trust, they may confide things that no one was aware of before.

Keep a dialogue going with these people. Only by working on trying to correct problems and preventing them from happening again can a ministry be successful. Will there never be problems? NO. There will always be problems as long as there are humans. But there will almost always be solutions also. That is why Jesus died on the cross for our sins and then was raised from the dead. A solution was needed. God has given us examples through His word and through the life of Jesus. It’s time for us to put them into action.

What are you doing here?

This past weekend we were in Virginia and planned ahead of time to go to an Easter Sunrise Service. When we got to the place where the service was being held, a lot of the people looked at us strange. Like, “why are you here?” Even though we were supposed to be worshipping with other Christians on a special Holy holiday, they made us still feel like outsiders. Only 2 people actually spoke to us. Neither one of them was the pastor of a local church that was holding the service. May God bless those two.

Sometimes we wonder why our churches don’t grow. People visit, and no matter how they might be dressed, or you may not recognize them from the surrounding area, do you look at them like, “what are you doing here?”

Do you take any time to go up to them and introduce yourself and acknowledge them, or do you simply wonder why they never come to another service? I can tell you why!

When people make you feel like that, you have no reason to go back to the church. Your church gets labeled as being full of hypocrites because you are not friendly, it doesn’t matter if you are shy or scared to approach new people. It’s how you are perceived.

People wander into a bar, and chances are someone will start up a conversation. The bartender will ask them what they want to drink. And usually someone who is seated at the bar near where they are standing will start up a conversation.

So if partiers and drinkers can be friendly, and the church is unfriendly, why do you think the bars are full and the churches are empty?

People do not come to church anymore out of habit or respect to God. Most of them could care less about God. And why should they? When they go to church, all they will see is people standing and fidgeting during singing and prayers, acting like they are bored to death. Then some people even start to nod off during the sermon.

Bars have dancing. Bars have music. People will ask you to dance with them. Sometimes they may even get you to sing at a bar, especially if there is karaoke. So why go somewhere once a week where the atmosphere is different? Bland, boring, and anyone can tell that everyone in the place (and sometimes the pastor/priest) would rather be somewhere else.

We have got to get back to worship. We have got to include people in our worship. You see that someone is obviously struggling with something, and is sitting all alone. Get your rear end off of the seat and go sit by them, or stand by them if that is the case. Take their hand and hold it. Put your arm around their shoulder, and let them lean on you and cry if they need to. START PRAYING FOR THAT PERSON!!! It doesn’t matter what their trouble is. It doesn’t matter if they NEVER TELL YOU what their trouble is. Start praying. Ask for the Holy Spirit to come and give them peace. Beg God’s mercy upon them and whatever situation is going on in their lives. PRAY FOR THAT PERSON! THEIR FAMILY! THEIR JOB! THEIR HOME! COVER ALL OF THE BASES!

BE AN EXAMPLE!   Let other people see what you are doing, and they will know that this is a church that cares, and hopefully they will come to know that you serve a God that cares. Don’t wait for later. Do it then. It won’t be disruptive if they are silently weeping on your shoulder while you lift up silent prayers to Jesus.

If you see someone sitting by theirselves, go sit with them. It doesn't matter if they are there for the first time or the one-thousandth time. Go let them know that someone cares! God cares! And I would hope that you do too!

Just before Jesus was captured by the Romans and crucified, He was in the garden praying to His Father. He had asked the disciples to pray with him, but they fell asleep, maybe even figuring that He could handle it on His own.

Are we going to be like the disciples? Are we going to leave someone alone to bear the burden and anguish that they are going through, or are about to go through?

Let’s stand up and stand with our fellow brethren. Let’s start to be available to our brothers and sisters and anyone else who is around us. The world is hurting bad enough without Christians adding any more hurt to anyone else, especially in our churches.