Your Front Door is the Reason Your Church Isn’t Growing
In my experience with churches small and large, there’s a common misconception about church culture and growth that is understandable, but also very harmful because of how deceptive it is. The basic idea is this: if worship and preaching are the main “ingredients” of a church service, and the church isn’t growing, the problem must be that your worship leader isn’t cool/talented enough, or else your main teaching pastor isn’t funny/relevant/trendy enough. This is probably an oversimplification, and there are infinite variations of this, but this basic mindset infects all of more than we’d like to admit.
The problem is, this mindset itself is a massive oversimplification. It basically assumes that if you have a good “product,” people will “buy” it. And what are the main “products” of a church? Why, the tangible elements of a service, of course — preaching and worship. And it’s easy to see why we fall into this: generally speaking, the churches that are growing and baptizing people and seem to be influencing the world are churches whose preachers are incredible communicators- funny, engaging, edgy, risky, relevant to Millennials… their worship teams are all loud and dark and led by those same trendy Millennials with beanies and smart lights and vocoders… you know it’s true. Think of the churches and leaders we tend to look to as examples: Andy Stanley and NorthPoint, Brian Houston and Hillsong, Bill Hybels and Willow Creek, Steven Furtick and Elevation, Bill Johnson and Bethel, James MacDonald and Vertical Church, Matt Chandler and The Village… the list could go on for days. Most of us tend to pick one of those “models” of church and try to emulate their “product”; whether that is the “darker, louder, and smokier” model, the “modernized hymns and expository preaching” model, the “geared-toward-outsiders-open-with-a-classic-rock-song” model, or something else… we tend to pick a model, preacher, or worship style that speaks to us and try our best to duplicate that in our worship services.
There’s many problems with this line of thinking, but let me isolate just one: what you see in these big, growing, influential churches in their podcasts or worship videos is only the tip of the iceberg. That’s a cliché, but I don’t know of any other area where this is more true than in church life. You can take a model and duplicate it exactly, and you may have some success, but something won’t feel right unless you go far beneath the surface of the model. Beneath the surface of the iceberg we know as the “Sunday morning experience” is called Culture. I’ve heard it said that “culture eats vision for lunch.” Truer words ain’t never been spoke.
Your church’s DNA, its culture, is what will keep people coming back and inviting their friends and giving generously when the offering bucket comes around. If you’re having to beg your people to invite friends to church, teach on stewardship thrice a year or guilt them with Malachi 3 constantly to get them to give, your problem is not lights or sound or that your pastor doesn’t have frayed jeans. Your problem is culture. And culture starts at the top. As Julius famously quipped to Gary Bertier in the amazing film Remember the Titans, “attitude reflects leadership, captain.”
It’s not enough just to have good preaching and good worship, although I highly recommend having a consistent quality of both in your services. If your church is shrinking, that’s a good place to start. Start doing both of those things well- consistently- and you’ll likely stall the nosedive. But if you want to grow- if you want to take ground from the enemy and be a part of God’s kingdom advancing, you as a leader will have to do the hard work of culture building. What do you want the church you lead to look like, to feel like? What do you want the reputation of your church to be in the community, amongst outsiders? It’s easy as a leader to either put pressure on your own performance, that of your fellow leaders, and even, God forbid, on your volunteers: “The church is plateaued because I’m not a good enough preacher,” “attendance is stagnant because my worship pastor leads too many hymns,” or not enough hymns, or because we don’t have the budget to spend on a new sound system…
Baloney. All of it. The truth is, healthy things grow. If your church is stagnant, it’s because the culture is unhealthy in some way. Folks will come to hear a mediocre preacher and a plain vanilla band play decent covers of Chris Tomlin’s Arriving album if they feel like they belong, if they feel welcome, if they feel part of a community. I’ve seen it happen. I’ve watched churches with mediocre “talent” but killer culture and systems grow exponentially beyond other congregations in the same neighborhood with better talent but a toxic or stagnant culture.
I’m convinced that the common mantra of “getting fed” has very little to do with lights, music choice, or sermon topics. The real question is, do people experience the presence of God in our worship services? If not, why not? God’s spirit doesn’t reside in a particular decade of music, or in smoke, blue lights, and a worship pad playing in the background. These are all just tools we use in the service of building a culture that people can experience God in.
Are people “getting fed” at your church? If not, sure — maybe the sermon prep can get better, and maybe the band can improve. Those concerns are legitimate. But probably it’s deeper than that. How do visitors feel when they walk in the front doors of your church? Can they find a seat? Do they know where the kids area is? Will anyone engage them in a conversation the whole time they are on the church property?
Everything we do in church matters. How the parking, greeting, and usher team interact with folks matters. Oh, how much it matters! Quit spending money on cooler gadgets for the worship center and focus your attention as a leader on the intangibles of your entire service, from parking lot to parking lot… do it for one month, and watch what happens.
