Podcast Episode #222
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A descriptive look at six church practices that are fading in many North American churches. These fading practices cross almost all theological and denominational lines.
Some highlights from today’s episode include:
- Few churches do Sunday evening worship well. Most don’t do them well or don’t do them at all.
- So many churches did away with programmatic evangelism, but never replaced it with any other evangelistic efforts.
- The majority of churches in North America do not have anything intentional in place for local evangelism.
- If people are joining a church, there’s a natural assumption that it’s evangelistic. But most times, it’s not.
- Mark Dever and the IX Marks group have helped bring the importance of regenerate church membership to the forefront.
- The Millennials are moving the church to an outward focus more than any other factor.
The six church practices that are fading are:
- Sunday evening worship
- Programmatic evangelism
- In-home visitation
- Easy membership
- Inwardly busy church
- Seasonal revivals
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Feedback
If you have a question you would like answered on the show, fill out the form on the podcast page here at ThomRainer.com. If we use your question, you’ll receive a free copy of I Will.
I am surprised that you say that “easy membership” and “inwardly busy church” are fading. I was of the impression that both of these are traits of a sick church, based on your books The Autopsy of a Diseased Church and I Will, where you say that 50% of churches are sick and dying or up to 90% showing signs of sickness.
It would seem that if these two traits were indeed fading, we might be experiencing some rejuvenation in the Church. These traits need to go! And are not going fast enough!
The first three are also symptoms of going the way of cultural dictates and allowing easy believe-ism and low expectations. “We do not want to put people on the spot and make them uncomfortable!”
The last one should not be needed if the members are acting as members, with love and accountability, and are equipped and empowered for ministry and evangelism, and encouraged to live this as a lifestyle as we should be.
Andrew –
The first two are fading because they are symptomatic of sick or dying churches. As those churches die, those that remain are outwardly focused churches and high expectation membership churches.
Thanks for today’s podcast. You asked about Sunday night services. We started a monthly Sunday night service at the request of the praise band (a group of millennials) who just wanted an opportunity to worship in a less formal, all contemporary format (our main services are blended). We call it “The Hour.” While the service lasts an hour the event has grown to include an additional dinner hour. It started because the musicians would eat before the 7pm service and, eventually, others wanted to join for dinner and it became a thing. Normally, someone would have a short message with a video component. Either the pastor (me) or the youth pastor. It started as a fun worshipful time that we could be totally creative with. We’ve enjoyed doing it and inviting friends to attend.
Thank you, Jerry. Great example.
No offense but that is a very sad list to read. Our church still has Sunday evening services and we pack it out with all ages. People even get saved on Sunday nights and we are a traditional Southern Baptist Church with traditional worship. I think one of the reasons why Sunday nights have died is because churches don’t make them worth coming back for. The sermons are reduced to sermonettes and people don’t put their all into it. We make our Sunday evening services as powerful as Sunday morning and the people come. As for evangelism I fully agree because the drop in baptisms nation-wide shows. Once again that is sad as well. We still go out and knock on doors in the community as the Bible commands and it still works. We don’t draw them in by putting on a dog and pony show we just lift up Jesus and the people come. The church as a whole is going down the tubes spiritually if you ask me because people are trying to entertain and become spiritual celebrities instead of just being the church.
No offense taken. The list is descriptive, not prescriptive.
I’d like to add:
yelling from and beating on the pulpit. I hope it is gone permanently.
altar calls. Many churches have come up with something besides the long invitation at the end of every sermon.
Your list is spot-on, IMO. Here’s what happened at FBC Pelham, since Pastor Daven came about 14 months ago:
Sunday evening worship: Re-instituted as “The Gathering” at 6pm … a praise chorus or two, followed by an hour of teaching by the Pastor.
Programmatic Evangelism: Discontinued some time ago.
In-home visitation: morphed into “Operation Unite”: in which teams of two visited every member on the rolls. Ever. Member. Visiting choir members, Deacons, teachers, Deacons … everybody including the pastor and other ministers. That program allowed us to remove quite a few dead people, folks who had joined other churches, folks we could not find, people who have moved away, etc. About 500 in all.
Easy membership: We now have a “Discovery Class”, 3-1/2 hours including lunch, which new members attend (enthusiastically, I might add). They can join by simply saying so after the class.
Inwardly busy church. We have a lot of things going on, but most focused outwardly like a Jobs Ministry, Operation Recovery (addiction, personal loss, etc), Hope Center Counseling Ministry, etc.
I feel pretty good about FBC Pelham. We had over 200 people join in the first year of our current pastor and ministries.
Curious, what is Lifeway’s top evangelism program these days? What did they replace FAITH with?
LifeWay has been guilty of the same thing as churches with no evangelism programs: we did not directly replace FAITH. Our challenge is to work within the rules of our denomination. We are not the entity assigned evangelism. That is why FAITH was called a “evangelism discipleship” program. Regardless of assignment, we are proceeding on several fronts with new evangelism emphases.
Looking forward to what you come up with. Thanks!
I agree with your list. A 7th fading practice is the corporate prayer meeting during the week…a sure sign of lack of health.
So true!
Hey guys,
I’ve heard you use the phrase programmatic evangelism a few times in a few blogs. I don’t want to assume that I know what you mean.
Oh, hang on. I’ve not listened this time, just read. Maybe it’s in the audio.
Good post. However, Jesus told us to “make disciples”, not “make converts” or “make church members”. That is the hard part, those people are very hard to count.
“Something to replace these things?” How about we quit trying to create “methods” of church growth, and simply make disciples?
I know, easier said than done.
In response to the podcast: We are doing a number of different things as it relates to local evangelism. We have two different intentional strategies where the goal is not to make “converts” but to help our church members simply be obedient in disciple-making. It seems like the Lord often blesses churches numerically when the church is obedient to go make disciples where they live, work, learn, and play. Not always, but often.
Hey there,
Responding to the programmatic evangelism replacement question. We’re in Africa so I’m aware that our circumstances are difference to the American church experience (although we’d fall into the 9 Marks network of churches you spoke about on the podcast so we’re not so disconnected from your narrative as to be irrelevant).
5 years ago when we planted we took our members through Way of the Master. We didn’t see much traction amongst our members so we decided that staff would lead by example. We started looking for evangelistic opportunities in our community. Now, 5 years later staff goes on a weekly basis and addresses a public High School’s, Primary School’s and a Private Christian School’s weekly assembly. We go 3 times a week to address waiting patients at a local clinic. Once a week to address the members of a local police station. We street preach twice a week.
And the result? This year the ladies of our church have started an outreach program to a local clinic, other members have started a soccer outreach, a chess club, we have a good portion of our membership joining the street preaching in supportive roles and generally personal evangelism is healthy.
At our church we have replaced programmatic evangelism, like F.A.I.T.H., with twice per month kindness outreaches in the community. This new “program,” or whatever you want to call it, allows us to involve anyone who shows up with a willing heart. We do something for people in the community and offer to pray for them, then if possible share the gospel with them. We have have reached nearly a hundred people for Christ (baptisms) in the past year while doing kindness outreaches as our primary outreach.
Excellent. Thanks, Justin.