How Do We Get People To Church?

How do we get people to church? I know this sounds like a strange question. I’m not actually sure it’s really the question we need to be asking, but I do pose it because of the continual concern of the steady decline in church attendance (or at least our worries with it in the West). In fact, just recently, Gallup recently reported that U.S. church membership has fallen below 50 percent for the first time. This is mainly due to the rise of the “nones,” that is, those who claim no religious affiliation.

So what do we do? I think our natural tendencies are to ramp up the music, develop some creative preaching techniques, create new small group environments and if possible, upgrade the online worship experience. Now I’m not against any of these things. In fact, I think they are important. However, when we wonder why people stop coming to church, or never consider attending in the first place, I think there is something larger at stake.

A couple of years ago I stumbled upon an article by Mike Glenn. In it, he addresses his personal concern about the drop in church attendance and like the rest of us, begins to wonder why. His conclusion? People don’t come to church because the church community itself has no more experienced the transforming knowledge of Jesus than the world around it. He writes:

We went to church and were entertained and impressed, but we never met Jesus. Now, when the world comes to our churches we don’t have anything that matters because, well, we don’t know Jesus either.

Perhaps instead of focusing on saving the world, the church should first focus on finding its own salvation first. I’m convinced when we find Jesus again the community will find the church again.

So I ask once again, what do we do? Well, according to Mike Glenn, we get to know Jesus. We fall in love with him once again and allow our relationship with him to change everything about us. And when that happens, church attendance will take care of itself.

Russell Moore just a few weeks ago wrote of the same concerns as Glenn. The reason he cites for the rise of the “nones” and why they are vacating the church is not because “they are secularists, but because they believe we [church attenders] are.” Moore goes on to write:

If people reject the church because they reject Jesus and the gospel, we should be saddened but not surprised. But what happens when people reject the church because they think we reject Jesus and the gospel? If people leave the church because they want to gratify the flesh with abandon, such has always been the case, but what happens when people leave because they believe the church exists to gratify the flesh—whether in orgies of sex or orgies of anger or orgies of materialism? That’s a far different problem. And what if people don’t leave the church because they disapprove of Jesus, but because they’ve read the Bible and have come to the conclusion that the church itself would disapprove of Jesus?

We are going to have to get back to knowing Jesus. I’m convinced that we don’t know him as well as we think we do. The story of Jesus talking to Zacchaeus up in a tree is not just a cute children’s story. Yes, I think we should tell it to children, but there’s much more happening in that encounter than we usually talk about. The same is true for all of the stories of Jesus. We just need to encounter them afresh. And as we do, my prayer is that they will rewrite our own life story.

So let’s get to know Jesus. Let’s allow him to change us into the people we were created to be from “in the beginning.” And let’s also talk about him with others as well. I’m sure we all know someone who needs to hear that Jesus brings life and hope and love and healing. He and his ways are good. So let’s pick up our cross and follow him for as we do, I think we might find the world realizing that its the church community where they want to be.