4. Encourage people to fall in love with your mission, not your methods
The reason change is so difficult in many churches is because members fall in love with methods, not with mission.
A method is a way of doing things: programs the church runs, the style of music, the architecture of a building or facility, a staffing or governance model.
Those are all simply methods that can and should change with every generation or even more frequently.
The mission is what you’re doing (like reaching people with the love and hope of Jesus), and it never changes.
The more you focus on the mission, the easier it is to change the methods.
5. Smile more
I know ‘smile more’ sounds trivial. But just look around you. Hardly anyone smiles.
If the Gospel is good news, you would never know it from looking at many Christians.
I have to remind myself when I communicate to smile more. It’s not my natural facial expression.
A smile can make a huge difference in almost any relationship.
So smile more and remind your people to smile more. Honestly, this makes a huge difference in how people perceive you.
6. Stop fighting
I have no statistics on this, but my guess is in-fighting has killed more churches than moral failure has.
Christians, it’s hard to convince the world that God loves it when we constantly fight with each other.
If your church is fighting, there should be zero mystery as to why it isn’t growing.
7. Pay much better attention to first-time guests
I’ve never heard of a church whose members claimed they were unfriendly.
In fact, most church members are stumped as to why people don’t like their church because they’re so ‘friendly.’
But being a ‘friendly’ church can often mean you’re friendly to each other, not to guests.
Change that.
Make sure guests feel genuinely appreciated, welcomed and that their questions are answered. This does NOT mean making them stand up in the service or other socially awkward things like that (see point 2 above).
It does mean treating guests the way they want to be treated.
8. Treat your volunteers better
Many leaders fall into the trap of thinking that great leadership comes only when you can hire a great staff.
Nonsense.
You have a great team—they’re called your volunteers. And as I outlined in this post, you can pay your volunteers in non-financial currencies.
If you create a healthy volunteer culture, you’ll be amazed at how well your volunteers serve.
No matter how big you get as a church, you will never have enough money to hire all the staff you want. And you will always need a growing group of passionate, committed, aligned volunteers.
I write an entire chapter on creating a great volunteer culture in my book and video series, Lasting Impact: 7 Powerful Conversations That Will Help Your Church Grow.
The bottom line? Passionate volunteers create a passionate church.
