2. Make Church Entertaining
If your church service is the equivalent of a sleeping pill, unchurched people might as well stay in their bed. Don’t be afraid of making your church fun. You can make your church fun without watering down the Scripture or becoming an entertainment-only experience. I wrote a post about the entertaining church HERE. Just remember—fun is a value and is valuable. Most people don’t have much fun, so let’s make their church experience fun.
That probably means they can’t leave feeling guilty without hope, either. That’s NEVER fun.
3. Be Helpful Outside of Sunday Morning
Your church has a wealth of content, but most churches only offer it on Sunday morning. Find new and innovative ways to help people in your community (or the world) beyond a Sunday service. Stream your content. Make your messages available via podcast or the web. And do it with a level of excellence. Speak at business leadership gatherings (about leadership, not Jesus). Serve the people in your community THROUGH community organizations (not your church).
Last thought: People want to try before they buy. Nobody believes your church is any different than what they experience previously. Make sure you provide a way for people to see and experience your church BEFORE they attend your church. That’s a great way to help the unchurched in your community overcome an obstacle to attending your church. At Watermarke, we leverage North Point Online and In Case You Missed It for this exact purpose.
Church Attenders:
As a church attender, you can impact the unchurched directly and even more personally than most church leaders.
1. Build a Relationship Before You Make an Invitation
Nobody wants to be a project—especially a religious project. Jesus works more through relationships than church invitations. So build a real and committed relationship with unchurched people that MIGHT lead to faith conversations in time (God’s time, not your time). And know going in it might be the most difficult friendship you have ever experienced.
2. Be a Christian Before You Make a Christian
Christians have a perception problem—and for good reason. The best thing we can do is to BE the kind of Christian we are hoping to help others become. Our behavior and life says more about our belief than anything we will ever say. If people get you know you and desire to be like you, eventually they will be willing to go where you go (i.e., CHURCH).
Let’s stop saying “people just aren’t as committed anymore” and start looking at our churches and life in the mirror. I bet, if we take an honest look, we will all find something that is working against our desire to reach those far from God in our community.
I’ll be back leading leading a church on Sunday. And I hope to do everything I can to reach the unchurched in the process. How about you?
This article originally appeared here and is used by permission.
