1. Do a survey of anyone who visited in the last year.
Ask them why they stayed or didn’t stay. Ask them for ideas they have to improve a visitor’s experience. Ask them how they found the church. Be prepared for some hard answers, but you may discover things you aren’t seeing.
2. Do a church wide/or leadership wide half-day brainstorming session, depending on the size of your church.
You want enough people to have a wide range of ideas, but not so many that you never get anything accomplished. I’ve done this with 12 and I’ve done it with 100. That’s getting a little large, but you don’t want to exclude people who are genuinely concerned and want to help the church.
I prefer people who have positive dispositions, but you need a range of thought. You might even bring someone in to facilitate this process. Many times there are answers in the room that come from collected thinking. Ask, why aren’t people staying and what can we do?
You may need to do a second half-day, perhaps with a smaller group, to summarize and make conclusions from the feedback of the larger group. In my experience, you will produce some key thoughts from an exercise like this which will spur momentum, in addition to creating renewed energy among these key leaders. (But you’ll have to act on some of the suggestions.)
3. Pay a community member (or a professional consultant if you can afford it) to “secret shop” your church and give you honest feedback.
You can often find someone to do this free of charge simply to help the church, but there are professionals who know what to look for in a church visit. Many times, we can’t see what’s missing on our own.
The bottom line is that you’ll have to do something intentional to get the answers you don’t have.
There are good church consultants out there if you want to take that step. Let me know if you want some names and contact information. But, keep asking the questions you’re asking. Our mission as a church hasn’t changed, but the culture around us is changing rapidly. We must continue to grow as church leaders in order to continue to make new disciples.
Praying for you.
How would you respond?
