The Real Reasons the Unchurched Do Not Attend (What Your Church Can Do About It)
I'm going to share another blog this week that couples with last week's blog about evangelism. Please give it a read and I will make a few comments at the end.
Do people who attend church regularly have different perceptions of the church than those who do not attend regularly? We wanted to know how both the churched and the unchurched feel about the church.
The Church Answers Research team conducted a large, national study. After comparing the church with the unchurched, we found new, surprising insights.
The unchurched don’t attend mainly because of indifference and not because of busyness or antagonism.
We asked the unchurched why they do not attend church regularly. As expected, a variety of answers surfaced. However, clear themes emerged. They are not upset with the church or too busy for the church. They are mainly indifferent about the church.
On the survey, the unchurched could select up to three reasons why they do not attend church regularly. Their answers are sorted from most common to least common.
The top two answers point to a level of indifference. Non-attendees do not view church as necessary, or they simply got out of the habit of going. The third reason is expected. A portion of non-attendees have different beliefs than those of the Christian church. However, the fourth reason returns to the theme seen in the first two answers: They are indifferent to issues of faith.
Notice the lower percentages for previous bad church experiences (16%), being too busy (15%), or not feeling welcome (11%). What some may believe are hurdles are not that much of an issue. The unchurched don’t think they are too busy, and they are not antagonistic towards the church. Issues like divorce (5%) and poor health (4%) hardly register on the survey.
The catalyst for the unchurched to start attending church is both a spiritual and personal connection.
What is the prompt? What causes someone to start attending church? The answer to indifference is intentionality. The unchurched start attending to grow spiritually and because someone invited them. It’s the combination of spiritual and personal connections.
The survey asked the unchurched why they would start attending church regularly. They could select up to three answers.
The themes in the data are clear. The unchurched start attending regularly because of spiritual prompts: growing spiritually (32%) and God told me to go (20%). The spiritual prompt is coupled with the personal prompt. The unchurched also start attending regularly because someone invited them (22%) and a spouse wants them to go (17%).
As we have seen throughout several decades of research, it’s not good music or charismatic preaching that draws the unchurched. Those factors tend to enhance transfer growth (as seen in the subsequent finding). What the unchurched need is guidance by the Holy Spirit and a personal invitation. While the former is only a work of God, the latter is easily accomplished by any size church in any location in the United States.
Churched people tend to care more about worship style, programming, and denominational preferences than the unchurched, but the top reason churched people attend a particular church is because someone invited them.
The church and unchurched alike attend a particular congregation primarily because someone invited them.
While worship style, location, programming, denominational preferences, and preaching quality have great impact on a churched person’s decision to select a congregation, the top of the list is a personal invitation.
This new data supports our research findings from the last twenty-five years. A personal invitation is the most impactful way to motivate someone to start attending church.
If you go to the link at the beginning, you can download the entire report from their website.
Here's my big takeaways for New Life and for you as individual members:
1. If the community around us sees us as unnecessary, whose fault is that? I'll help you out: it's our fault. If we are making so little difference and impact in the world around us that pagans see us as irrelevant, then we are doing something wrong. When Jesus ministered among the pagans, they cried out, "Everything He does is wonderful!" They should have the same response to us. So how do we become relevant to the people around us again? I'll give you a hint: it has to be more than "thoughts and prayers."
2. Most people are interested in spiritual things, and many of them will come to church if they're invited. You can have spiritual conversations that can lead to people joining you if you pay attention and work at it. James shared a testimony this past Sunday about a spiritual conversation he got to have with a co-worker because he befriended him. Cheyenne's sister told Cheyenne she wanted to ask me some questions about Christianity because she trusts me. Why does she trust me? Because I've treated her with care even though she is doing things she knows I don't agree with. We just have to have the mindset of mission.
3. 80% of people will attend a church close to them (15 minute drive or less) if someone invites them.
So here's our mission: Make a meaningful difference in the lives of the people near us, have spiritual conversations with them, and invite them to church with you. Does that sound familiar? Oh yeah..."Let your light shine before all people that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven." Who said that?
SONGS FOR SUNDAY
Come Thou Fount
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bvYJL6WhuY
Same God
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yse43TUrces
More and More of You
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5hHxIWbxXI
...and we are learning
Fear of God