Two Simple Reasons Why People Are Leaving (or Avoiding) Your Church

Over the years, I’ve seen article after article with a title like, “Why Are People Leaving the Church?” (Millennials, men, teenagers, anyone under 60, etc.), or “Why Aren’t People Coming to Worship Anymore?”

I’ve read one bullet list after another, each one different, and I’m pretty tired of it, honestly. It’s really not that complicated. I’ve boiled it down to two (count ‘em - 2) simple reasons. The first addresses us as individual believers, and the second is about what we do together as “church.”

And, before I get into it, let me affirm that there are many places where people are entering the church eagerly. They are finding joy, and peace, and answers, and life in those places. I think about the many new faces that we’ve seen in our church over the last several years. But in those places where I’ve seen people running the other way, here are the two simple reasons. I challenge you to come up with one that doesn’t fall within these two:

1. Individually, our faith hasn’t made us different from the world around us.

We are “good people,” but so are they. We work hard, pay our bills, love our families, and believe in God. And so do they, but without the time commitment of church involvement.

But we still gossip about the failures and sins of others -- right outside of the room where we just studied God’s command to never use our words to tear others down. We still get angry over little things, inconveniences. We show more passion for our sports team or our political positions than we do for the Savior who died for us.

When we get frustrated, angry, or feel slighted, the words and attitudes that come out of our mouths are rude and hurtful and coarse... so far removed from the words and attitudes of Jesus that others could legitimately question our salvation.

We still worry openly about our problems, as if God isn’t really in charge. We still complain and grumble and find fault. We hold on to our hurts and nurse our old wounds instead of choosing total forgiveness (which is the only kind there is).

Churches fire their leaders like an NFL team fires a coach for not winning enough. There is no collaboration, no thoughtful discussion, no effort to work together to demonstrate what happens when the hearts of Christ-followers are aligned in love and effort... just worldly power plays and backroom politics.

We spend more on our pets or our vacations than we give to God. We don’t live a life of radical sacrifice. We don’t love God with all of our heart, soul, strength, and mind, and we don’t love our neighbor a fraction as much as we love ourselves.

We are going to heaven, but could care less if we lead anyone else there.

2. Collectively, we are self-absorbed. 

When someone walks through the church doors, we immediately think about how they can help us, rather than how we can help them. Most of what we do is designed to please us, rather than reach them.

We’ve turned the weekly worship gathering into a stroll down memory lane... but those people don’t share our memories, so, for them, it’s a boring slide show of someone else’s past. They’ve got their own stories to tell, but we never ask and listen.

We have our traditions to protect. They don’t really advance the gospel, but we will castigate anyone who threatens to do things a new way. And we mark our territory, getting angry if we don’t get to park in our spot, or sit in our usual seat, or meet in our favorite room.

We have a catalog of unwritten rules -- about clothing and hair and tattoos and parenting and how to talk and what opinions are acceptable. That wouldn’t be so bad if we could keep them to ourselves, but instead we must point out to the violators the error of their ways.

In our church finances, we will spend tens of thousands on stained glass, but only hundreds (maybe) to feed hungry children. We will spend hundreds of thousands on buildings and nothing to rescue children from human trafficking.

We will wonder why we don’t have more children in church, but we haven’t renovated our children’s area since 1960... “I mean, my children are grown, so why should I care? A musty smell never killed anyone, as far as I know.”

In Conclusion...

I could go on and on, but it boils down to two great missing loves. We don’t love Jesus enough to change who we are, and we don’t love others enough to change what we do. So why, in God’s name, would we expect anyone to be drawn to this?

Jesus said to the church in Laodicea, “Because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I am going to vomit you out of my mouth.” Why would we try to serve the world something that Jesus finds nauseating? ...and expect them to happily lap it up?

So that’s my simple two-item list of “Everything You Need to Know About Why Your Church is Dying.” I propose that there are no other reasons than these two. But I welcome differing opinions.

Let me know when you want me to come coach your church toward real love and commitment!

Fixing the Weakest Link - Strengthening People’s Ties to the Whole Church

If you’ve been involved in church life at any level of depth and for any length of time, you’ve seen it… even if you didn’t recognize it.  It’s a domino effect: an active member of the congregation is lost, and several other people suddenly disappear.  There is a cure for this. 

I’m not talking about a conflict in the church.  I’m talking about normal changes:  a church member moves to a new community, a pastor leaves for a new ministry position, a church member dies, that beloved member of the church family goes to a different congregation to be with grandchildren or to help with a new ministry… and then several other people whose circumstances have not changed suddenly stop attending.

This problem is very visible when a church’s pastor leaves.  Attendance suddenly and dramatically drops.  If you ask around, you find that those folks aren’t going to a new church.  They are just absent.

The problem is that so many of our church participants are not connected to the church “family.”  They are only connected to one person or family in the church.  For instance, a new pastor arrives, and the church is delighted when he goes out and connects with a several new people who begin attending.  But those folks are not connected to the church family.  They are only connected to the pastor.  And when he leaves, their connection is gone and they become inactive.

I’ve also seen it in a family’s involvement:  there is one strong faith leader in the family.  The other family members are there because this one person is their connection to faith and church, their inspiration, and probably also their spiritual care-giver.  And when he or she dies or becomes unable to attend, that whole family disappears from church life.

A pastor leaves, a member dies, a family moves to a new town… and the network of people that were connected primarily to them (rather than to the church family as a whole) drops out of regular participation because their main tie to the church is gone.  Our failure to help them develop numerous ties, numerous relationships, is a shameful failure of Christian fellowship and love.

There is one cure for this weakness in the church:  small groups designed for mutual care and mentoring. 

And don’t tell me that Sunday School works this way.  The vast majority of Sunday School classes do not really work to build deeper relationships (especially with newcomers), care for the needs of members in crisis, and mentor people toward spiritual maturity.  When those things happen, it’s usually because someone in the class is taking personal responsibility for that class member.  In other words, this one person is that single connection between the other person and the church.  And, again, if that person leaves or dies, the other person’s one connection to the church is gone.

Some churches may also try to solve this problem with deacon ministry - assigning each member their own deacon.  But I have not seen this really build additional relationship ties, and I still see plenty of people who disappear from active participation and not a single deacon even knows they’ve dropped out, much less why.  Additionally, small groups care for each other regardless of whether someone is on the church membership roll.  But the deacons’ “care list” often excludes non-members who attend - the very people who most need deeper connections to the church family. 

On a side note, I believe that having people with just one or two connections to the church actually invites greater conflict.  If you've only got one tie to the church, you might be tremendously protective of that one tie, regardless of what's right or wrong, what choice is best or worst.  We are encouraging polarization when we don't help people develop multiple, deep ties within the congregation.

But if we can get people into small groups - groups designed to build relationships, to care for people in crisis, to mentor them through the seasons of life - then their connection to the church family won't be "thin" or fragile.  And they won't disappear just because one person leaves or dies... even if that person is the pastor.

So how does a traditional “Worship + Sunday School + Wednesday Prayer meeting church” make the move to small groups?  The health and future of the church, and most importantly the long term connection of new people in the church family depends on it.

Ministry to Single Parent Families - The Measuring Stick for All of Our Ministry

Remember the story of Hagar, the mother who had been thrown out into the desert by Abraham and Sarah to fend for herself and her son the best she could?  Remember how she didn’t think she and her son were going to survive?  In this story from Genesis 21, Hagar provides us a powerful picture of the loneliness, struggle, and feelings of hopelessness that some single parents may experience.

Some of my recent study has reinforced a long-held conviction about ministry:  Churches should intentionally, aggressively, and consistently shape their ministries to target the needs of single parent families.

Statistically, somewhere between 70% and 95% of single parents and their children are not connected to any church family.  We are failing to reach these adults and children whose needs, struggles, and stresses are crying out for the love, support, encouragement, and assistance that a truly caring church family could offer in abundance.

The single parent household is a growing segment of our population.  A recent news story reported that 80% of the households in Richmond, Virginia were single parent households.  The number of single parent households has basically tripled over the last three decades.  Some might think this is just a problem among racial minorities, but in North Carolina, 30% of “Non-Hispanic White” children are being raised in single parent homes.  I hesitate to bring race into the discussion, but I know we have a tendency to say, “Yes, but that’s ‘those other people.’”  This is everyone’s issue, and, regardless of the ethnicity of the children, this is every Christian’s concern.

Think about the needs a caring church family could meet: 

• Providing a single parent with some “emergency contacts” to get a child home from some activity or to take them somewhere when the single parent is double-booked or held up at work or by an unexpected crisis.
• Giving them opportunities to be with other adults for conversation and to talk through problems in a place where their children are being cared for and are having fun.
• Providing them with love, acceptance, and encouragement in a world where they may feel judged or looked down upon by others for their family circumstances.
• Supplying them with home-grown vegetables in the summer, or buying a few extra items for them on your regular food shopping run, to stretch their grocery money.
• Showing them that, while they may feel forgotten and alone with their burdens, God remembers them and God’s people remember them and are eager to reach out in love.
• Planning and scheduling our ministries so that we don’t make it harder for them to participate -- making sure we consistently provide childcare or ministry groups for their children, and that we don’t expect them to be at the church building so much that they don’t have time to take care of the household tasks they are carrying alone.

So how do we do this?  A good beginning point would be to examine every activity we offer and every ministry we plan by asking, “How easy would it be for a single parent with a toddler and a 3rd grader (or 7th grader) to participate in this?”  And if the answer is “not very easy,” then we scrap it and go back to the drawing board.

And, if anyone should say, “Why are you leaving out the two parent families in your strategy?” the easy answer is: these parents are over-booked, too.  If we plan events with the stresses of single parents in mind, our two parent families will also benefit from that new approach.  It’s a win-win. 

We are in the "win" business, right?

Disgruntled Christians - Don't Give Them the Church Steering Wheel

Yes, folks, every church has them – those people who believe that the Universe should be configured exactly the way they want it.  If anything is not to their liking, they will raise “holy heck” to try to get their way.  And the question that indicates the health of your church is this:  How do you deal with chronically disgruntled Christians? 

I recently read an article on the Harvard Business Review site by Rosabeth Moss Kanter entitled “Nine Do's and Don'ts for Dealing with the Disgruntled.”  Her advice is directed toward the business community, but much of it applies to church life, too.  She shares,

Early in my career, when sharing a vacation house with a group of friends, I learned an important lesson from a classic book by anthropologist Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger: It takes a lot of people cooperating to keep things neat, but it takes only one disgruntled dirt-monger to mess things up. The task for everyone else is not to let them.

I’ve been amazed over the years at how quickly some churches, and church leaders, will cooperate with that one dirt-monger in the church who wants to “mess things up” for everyone else.  When a church or church leader believes that “everyone must be happy” in the church, they have empowered that one unhappy person to control the entire church… no matter how unhealthy, unbiblical, or selfish their perspective might be.

Jesus had no trouble allowing people to be very unhappy.  He let the Rich Young Ruler walk away unhappy.  Lord knows the Pharisees and other religious leaders walked away downright angry many times.  He even allowed his closest friends and followers to dwell in frustration with Him at times.  Jesus did not lead based on what made others happy, but what accomplished God’s great mission.  And when we do anything less, we trade the church’s mission and purpose for self-centeredness, even if the self-centeredness is not personally our own.

Any wise parent who has dealt with immaturity knows this:  you get more of the behavior you reward.  When we see that parent who gives in to their child’s temper tantrum in the toy store or on the candy aisle at the grocery store, we all know… They just taught their child that temper tantrums are effective tools for getting your way.  They just helped create a “family terrorist.”

Long ago, I made a promise to myself that I would do my best to NOT reward negative behavior in the church.  And I’d like to invite you to join me in that pledge.  Here are some practical ways to keep that pledge:

1. Stay focused on our life-changing mission.  Catering to complainers is a time-wasting and mission-killing distraction.   When that person begins demanding X, just ask, “Is X why God put us here?  Will X help us reach an unreached world?”  Or if they are complaining about Z, just ask, “Is Jesus as upset about Z as you are?”  And above all else, don’t stop the train.  You are on a God-given mission, a journey toward a goal.  If people don’t like where the train is going, we have to have the courage to tell them it’s OK for them to get off the train, but we’re not changing destinations. 

2. Respond with a positive story.  No, the complainer won’t care, but the other people standing around will leave with a positive picture in their minds that is more exciting than the negative one that the disgruntled person was presenting.  Compared to the stories of mission and generosity and sacrifice and love and hope that fill the life of most churches, most complaints are amazingly trivial.  By telling your positive story, you help put the complaint in context.  Doing this is also a way to obey Paul’s command to focus on “whatever is pure, honorable, pure, lovely, excellent, worthy of praise…” (Philippians 4:8).

3. Do not ever become their pawn.  Why are they telling you their complaint, rather than going to the person with whom they are upset?  Why are they telling the Sunday School class rather than bringing it up at the business meeting?  Because whiners, complainers, and dirt-mongers want others to do the dirty work for them.  If you refuse, if you just say, “Sounds like you need to talk to (person responsible),” it lets them know you won’t be their personal problem solver.   In other words, you’re saying to them, “Grow up and act like a responsible adult.”  This one change would dissolve 90% of church conflict. 

Also, don’t spend time telling their story for them.  If they want to spread their negativity, make them do it themselves rather than helping them.  The only exception to this is if you want to coach others in being ready for a positive response: “Fred is complaining about the Pastor’s purple tie again.  I told him that if God didn’t like purple, He shouldn’t have created crepe myrtles.  After that, he just walked away.”

4. Be assured that the real issue is not whatever they happen to be complaining about.  If you took those folks and plopped them down in another church, they’d just find new things to complain about.  And don’t think that church is the only thing they complain about.  There is some source of discontent deep down inside that is the real source of their complaints.  Maybe somewhere along the line (like in the candy aisle at the grocery store 50 years ago), they got the idea that the outside world should conform to their wants and wishes.  Ultimately, it’s the same sin as in Genesis 3 – “I want to be the real ‘God’ around here.”

The bottom line is that temper tantrums should not work in an organization whose agenda has been set by God Himself.  Loving people does not mean catering to them, as Jesus clearly demonstrated. 

When standing before a powerful and disgruntled group, Peter and John showed their commitment to God’s mission over human preferences when they said, “Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God’s sight to obey you rather than God” (Acts 4:19).  What Rosabeth Kanter learned when sharing that beach house with friends is true of working together in the church: "It takes a lot of people cooperating to keep things neat, but it takes only one disgruntled dirt-monger to mess things up. The task for everyone else is not to let them."

Constitution Consternation

There are few aspects of church life that seem to produce more aggravation, conflict, and institutional paralysis than the Church Constitution.  I’ve waded my way through many of them over my years in ministry.  The typical church constitution and by-laws is a train wreck of clumsy language, inexplicable rules, and outdated structures.  When I read a church constitution, like an archeologist digging through the relics of the past, I can spot the old bones of previous church conflicts in which the church tried to legislate peace and harmony rather than doing the high and holy work of becoming “one in spirit and purpose” (as Paul says in Philippians 2).  And most of the rules are designed to prevent problems rather than accomplish a transforming mission.

I know some of us feel as if we'd like to chuck these extra man-made documents and just stick with the Bible, but there aren't any Scripture verses that tell us who is supposed to order the Bible study books and turn on the heat for Wednesday night activities.

Here at First Baptist in Wallace, it’s time to do a complete overhaul of our church’s Constitution and By-Laws.  We need a much simpler, more open structure that makes it clear what we’re trying to accomplish together, and how we plan to get there.

I believe that, before we list any officers, committees, or procedures, our constitution should contain a declaration of what values we want our organizational structure to champion.  Here’s my list of church-transforming values:

We value accomplishing God’s mission:
Our guiding documents should explain how each officer, team, committee, and program is expected to help us accomplish our shared mission.  If we can’t find a connection between that group and our mission, then that position or committee is a waste of our people’s energy, time, and God’s gifts, and it ought to be eliminated.

We value trust and openness:
Let’s select leaders whom we trust and respect, then set them free to make decisions under the leadership of the Holy Spirit.  Rather than requiring them to seek various levels of approval, rather than failing to trust them in how they use their budgets, we should only require that they keep us informed on how they are accomplishing their part of our shared mission.  And let's have leadership processes that are open and clear to everyone - no insider secrets, loopholes, and hidden processes.

We value accountability:

Every leader and team in the church exists to serve, not to rule.  As servants within the body, we need to be accountable to the body.  Teachers must effectively teach.  Deacons must faithfully minister.  Teams must accomplish their indispensable part of the mission.  So there should be very clear points within each position of responsibility at which those leaders and teams demonstrate that they are faithfully handling their part of our shared mission.  Servants need to know there is a time and a place to show what they've done with the Master’s entrusted talents.

We value growing new leaders:
Some churches have a very stagnant leadership structure.  Year after year, the same people control the same key parts of the church’s leadership structure, perpetuating the same perspectives.  Even in a rotating structure, they take their year off, and then end up right back in the same committee as the returning chairperson.  This stifles creativity, shuts out potential new leaders, and creates an unhealthy dependency.

Once we lay this foundation of values, then we'll know better how each leader and team should function in order to see these values lived out in the functioning of our part of Christ's body, the Church.

Do you have some foundational values that you think should shape and guide our structure?  Share them!

Teens: Fearful, Stressed, and Over 90% Lost

I'm preparing the Bible study for our Sunday night youth event.  The theme is "fear."  So as I research, I run across this statement:

Teenagers today are the most unreached people for Christ in the nation. Less than 10 percent of America's youths have accepted Christ as their Lord and Savior. (BuildingChurchLeaders.com)

That's shocking, sobering, and heartbreaking.  Out of 10 teens, on average only one of them knows Jesus.  This group of people who are at a point in their lives when they are making choices that will influence the course of their lives, who are forming the values that will shape their attitudes, their marriages, their parenting, their happiness... they are doing all of this without the benefit of God's grace, wisdom, truth, and guidance.

And as I read on, I see that they have some very real and legitimate fears they are wrestling with:

They fear that they will never have a happy marriage and family.  They want to find that person with whom they can spend a lifetime, but they don't see much reason for hope around them.

They fear that they will be a victim of violent crime.  Seeing the threats of terrorism, the closeness of gang violence, the reports of shootings even in high schools and on college campuses, and the many scenarios of violence portrayed on TV, they see violence as inescapable.

They fear that they will never achieve financial security.  The high unemployment rate, the college graduates who cannot get a job, reports on the quality of public education and the escalating cost of higher education, the highly competitive college application process and job market... all of these make them wonder if financial independence -- much less prosperity -- is something within their reach.

They fear rejection and loneliness.  "Will I be accepted?  Will I be loved?"  Many teenage girls question, "Will I have to have sex to be accepted?"  ...which, to me, is equivalent to "Can I only be accepted on the basis of providing sexual services?"  No wonder provocative clothing and obsession over body image is so prevalent among teens today.

We shouldn't be surprised that another study (here) finds that anxiety and stress-related disorders spike in these years.  And living in chronic fear as a teenager can result in someone living the rest of their lives as fearful adults.

And, all the while, we as God's people have help for these teens.  We have answers to these questions.  God provides us with the promises needed to live in a dangerous world, with the wisdom to make wise choices among so many options, with the assurance that He's working out His plan for us.  We have a faith to offer than can overcome their fears.  But we're not getting the job done.  Just 3 miles from our church's building is a high school full of hundreds of the most unreached people in our nation who are dealing with some of the most life-changing questions they will ever face.

Jeremiah looked at the terrible spiritual condition of his people, and the potential blessings that were waiting for them.  He compared it to everyone being sick in a place (Gilead) where healing medicine was readily available, and he wrote (Jeremiah 8:21-22):

     I hurt with the hurt of my people.
         I mourn and am overcome with grief.
     Is there no medicine in Gilead?
         Is there no physician there?
     Why is there no healing
         for the wounds of my people?

Are there no answers for the teenagers of Wallace?  Is there no light for their darkness?  Is there no guidance to remedy their lostness and searching?  There most certainly is.  It's found in Christ -- His love and grace, His acceptance and purpose, His truth and peace.

Lord, set us on fire with a passion to share the healing medicine of Christ with the hurting teenagers all around us.  

Post-Debate Head-Deflate

We just finished watching the Vice-Presidential Debate, and it made one powerful, completely non-partisan impression on me.  This political contest, and most of the contests I witness today, throw around such a tidal wave of conflicting statistics, conflicting cost figures, self-serving government-speak terminology, conflicting timelines, and unverifiable personal experiences -- which are then filtered through various media outlets who have their own preferred interpretation -- that the average viewer / voter has little hope of knowing the whole story.  We can only pick a sampling of claims, check them as closely as possible, and then extrapolate that veracity to the rest of the issues and to the honesty of the candidates themselves.  And it seems to be common practice for candidates to tell you only the part of the story that furthers their position, when knowing the whole picture makes their statement much less persuasive.

It reminds me of a commercial on TV right now where a spokesperson sits next to a stack of "survey results" (i.e. poorly stacked copy paper) about 5000 sheets high and she says, "We asked doctors if they would recommend a low calorie energy drink for their patients who use energy drinks.  They said 'yes,' so buy our drink!"  But my translation of that is, "We asked doctors if their patients should consume more junk calories or less junk calories.  They said 'less,' and we want you to think that means they like what we're selling."

I don't really have a political point to make, but it does make me wonder: When those outside the church hear us talking about our faith, do they hear us "spinning" things to cover over the questions we can't answer, the doubts that even believers struggle with, our failures at trying to live by a standard that is humanly impossible?  Do they feel confident, when we invite them to "vote with their lives" for following Jesus, that we haven't hidden the struggles and difficulties, and only presented the "perks"?  If I do that, like some Politician for God, as they stare at the thick Bible which may or may not verify my claims, shouldn't I expect them to just write me off?

I guess, as a spokesman for my Savior, the answer is up to me.  Lord, I don't want to talk anyone out of following You, but I want to be honest about the blessings and struggles of the journey.  You didn't sugar-coat things or hide the challenges, so why would we?  Help me listen to the Spirit of Truth as He shines His light on the words I say.