A year or two ago, these folks would have spent Sunday mornings sleeping in,
mowing the lawn, reading the paper.
Now they are going to church – and a researcher from Southern
Baptist Theological Seminary wants to know why and why they picked the church
they did.
A year or two ago, these folks would have spent Sunday mornings sleeping in,
mowing the lawn, reading the paper.
Now they are going to church – and a researcher from Southern
Baptist Theological Seminary wants to know why and why they picked the church
they did.
Thom Rainer is dean of the Billy Graham School of Missions,
Evangelism and Church Growth at the seminary in Louisville, Ky. In search of
the answers to his questions, Rainer has interviewed new members at growing
churches to find out why they chose that church over others and what that church
is doing that works.
Among the answers he has found:
It is not because of the churchs name. In this
crowd, denominationalism does not cut it, Rainer notes. The denomination often
played no role at all in the persons decision to choose a particular church.
These new Christians want to know what a church believes
in and want it to stand for something clear. Thus, churches need to “be
clear in conviction about biblical matters,” Rainer emphasizes.
Many of those who joined a church had had some previous
contact with organized religion, had come to church now and then in the past
and were not ignorant about religion.
Two main factors in persons deciding to return to church were
the pastor and the preaching, Rainer reports.
For instance, one woman voiced her unhappiness with what she
described as “pop psychology” preaching.
“What really frustrated me was that I had a deep desire
to understand the Bible, to hear in-depth preaching and teaching,” she
told Rainer. “But most of the preaching was so watered-down that it was
insulting to my intelligence.”
Many of those who started coming to church did so because someone
they knew invited them or started talking to them about God, Rainer says. Sometimes,
that invitation came at a particularly fertile time – perhaps when the
person was struggling to cope with a job change or divorce or death of someone
close to them, had young children or had encountered some kind of shift in life
that had them thinking about spiritual matters.
But others came back to church with no invitation and often
for reasons the person could not fully explain, Rainer says. They said they
just felt drawn to faith.
Rainer is releasing his research in a new book, “Surprising
Insights From the Unchurched and Proven Ways to Reach Them” (Zondervan).
It is the latest in a series of books he has worked on involving church growth
and evangelism.
In this effort, a research team from Southern Seminary obtained
the names and telephone numbers of new members from “effective evangelistic
churches” – those in which at least 26 people had become new Christians
in the last year and that had produced at least one new convert for every 20
members of the church.
During the subsequent interviews, the researchers talked with
353 “formerly unchurched” people from seven denominations, most of
them conservative. They included Assembly of God, Evangelical Free Church of
America, Nazarene Church, Presbyterian Church of America, Southern Baptist Convention,
United Methodist Church, Wesleyan Church. Researchers also talked with persons
from independent and nondenominational congregations.
The selected people had not attended church for at least 10
years – except sporadically. Nevertheless, they recently had become active
in a congregation.
In addition to such members, researchers also talked to more
than 100 pastors from growing churches and 350 people who had been Christians
for a longer period but who had moved to a different church, often because they
had moved to a new community.
Rainer explains he hopes the insights gleaned from these conversations
can help congregations that want to draw in new Christians and not just bring
in people who are church-hopping.
Much research already has been done on how to reach the unchurched,
Rainer notes. He also acknowledges that some people simply will not go to a
church, even one provides exactly the things they say they are seeking in a
congregation.
Why is this?
“I have no idea,” Rainer says. “We have been
surprised to find how few (will start attending church), even when they readily
admit this church has everything they want.”
Nevertheless, the new Christians interviewed in this study
– those who did become active in a church – offered some specific
suggestions about what worked for them. Based on their answers, Rainer encourages
churches to emphasize:
Personal evangelism. More than half of the new Christians
said that someone from the church they joined talked with them personally about
Jesus – and that someone often was not the minister. Many said that someone
from the church came to see them within a month of their first visit to the
church.
Friendliness. People notice when a congregation is friendly,
such as when there are signs telling them where to park, when someone is there
to show them how to get to the sanctuary or the nursery and when people make
an effort to greet them, Rainer says.
“Most church members believe they are friendly, when in
reality they are friendly only to those whom they already know,” the seminary
professors study suggests.
Excellence. Visitors notice and appreciate when a church
is clean and efficient, Rainer notes. They are turned off by restrooms that
are dirty, nurseries with old and broken toys and church services that seem
disorganized or boring or do not start on time, he adds.
“Many unchurched people measure the quality of a church
by the quality of child care,” the study reports, noting they especially
want nurseries and preschool programs that seem safe, secure and clean.
High expectations. “Sometimes, the conventional
wisdom to reach the unchurched has been to lower expectations, to tell guests
that we really do not expect anything of them,” Rainer says.
“Such seeker friendliness may be effective for a short while, but it seems
to be a sure formula for a wide open back door,” he concludes. (RNS)