Home Outreach Leaders Articles for Outreach & Missions 5 Tell-Tale Signs Your Church Is Geared to Insiders, Not Outsiders

5 Tell-Tale Signs Your Church Is Geared to Insiders, Not Outsiders

“This is good coffee, brother.”

“Amen. Hallelujah.”

“Let’s fellowship together.”

Um, none of this is a good way to be a welcoming church. Why not just talk at church the way you talk at the office or at a football game or on a Saturday by the pool? (Actually, if you talk like that normally, you probably don’t get invited out too often.)

Here’s what’s actually at stake: If someone has to learn code to join your church, you likely won’t have many people joining your church.

Our challenge is to reduce the human barriers that keep people from Jesus, not to erect new ones.

And, no, being weird does not mean you’re being faithful. It just means you’re being weird.

5. Music That Lacks Guts

Many churches have made the move toward a more contemporary style of music. But most churches haven’t moved far enough. The reason? Fear.

Your church is too contemporary to make insiders happy, and your approach is still too dated, irrelevant and unengaging to capture the imagination of unchurched people. You’ve made as many changes as you think you can navigate without alienating your existing membership, but not brought about nearly enough change to really engage outsiders.

As a result, you are in no man’s land. In an attempt to please everyone, you have pleased no one and are not being a welcoming church.

A lot of leaders often compromise what they want to do because of fear of the backlash of their core members. So we convince ourselves we’re contemporary, even if we’re not. We’re just holding off the war over music as best we can.

If you think your church is contemporary, just check out the current Top 40. My guess? Your definition of what sounds contemporary and the the average 30-year-old unchurched person’s understanding of what sounds contemporary are worlds apart.

I’m not saying we need to sound exactly like today’s top 40, I’m just saying don’t fool yourself into thinking you’re culturally engaged when you’re nowhere near it.