Podcast Episode #231
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Discuss a recent post on church outreach and how it has changed over the past few decades.
Some highlights from today’s episode include:
- We still need personal contact with non-members for evangelistic reasons.
- The first place people come into contact with your church is likely no longer the worship service but the church website.
- As much as things change, one thing remains the same—the gospel still works.
- When it comes to evangelism, do something.
- Most of the time, multi-site and multi-venue are done to intentionally reach new people, not accommodate existing members.
- Growing churches have shifted from a “you come” posture to a “we go” one.
The seven shifts we are seeing in church outreach are:
- From in-home visitation to lunch or coffee shop visits.
- From newspaper ads to Facebook ads.
- From worship services to the church website as the front door.
- From complex gospel presentations to simple gospel presentations.
- From multi-service to multi-venue and multi-site.
- From attractional to going.
- From national and international giving to contextual giving.
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“6. From attractional to going.”
Seeing that gifts are given to church members for the building up of the Body of Christ, and that includes preaching and pastoring, and also that lost people are never commanded to “come to church”, that one ought to be #1.
With a star.
You are so right, Bob.
Is there an archived podcast that talks about how to make multi-service/multi-locations integrated into one congregation? What are tips to build inclusiveness? Is the reality that milt-locations tend to become a church within a church and end up spun off into a separate congregation/church?
I was surprised by #6 – From attractional to going — “Growing churches have shifted from a “you come” posture to a “we go” one.”
Is there a trend that growing churches are “going” and not “inviting”? How do you identify this as a “trend”?
In your previous post you noted, “Many churches have invested significant resources in attracting people to their worship services or to some big event. More resources are now being expended on members going into the community. Hands-on ministry and small group connections are becoming a more normative approach to reaching people today.”
How much more resources? How are church budgets reflecting this shift to “going”? It seems to me that a lot of resources (particularly for buildings/staff) are still being spent by churches to fund the weekend worship gatherings and getting people to come.
What indicates this is “a more normative approach to reaching people today”?
In the podcast you spent 28 seconds explaining this shift and stated, “This is millennial based…. Instead of just saying ‘y’all come’ – now the trend is we are going into the community to make a difference…Not just expecting people to come.”
I am curious what research this is based on. It seems that the majority of churches emphasize an invitational strategy and they are designing worship services to connect with non-attenders (sometimes referred to as ‘unchurched’). Many believers see their evangelistic responsibility is simply to invite people to church.
Is this really a trend? (how many churches have you identified that are spending more resources on going than creating attractional services?)
I wonder if you could do another podcast on this trend or write another blog post that unpacks this even more.
It would be so encouraging to discover that there are a growing number of churches that are growing through this shift in strategy.
I love it when smart listeners and readers ask us to explore topics. I hope we can get to your well-articulated questions shortly, Dave.
Thanks Thom!!! I look forward to learning more from you.
Thom, you talked about Evangelism Explosion, is that a book or where can I get that at?
The large churches are deteriorating and the new movement churches are going up this is because the large churches are holding tradition teaching and the new movement church are revealing the works of Jesus Christ physically. I am among those new movement churches. I would like to invite you to join me.
Thank you.
I believe (as a Gen X’er) that my generation started making some of these shifts. For example, the move away from in-home visitation and meeting in Starbucks was well under way before most Millennials were even out of high school. I’m not sure it matters who did what, but I feel left out in the cold–like we’re the forgotten generation. I see this trend across a number of podcasts and blogs by various leaders. There’s a lot of talk about Boomers and Millennials, but I don’t think I’ve even heard the phrase “Generation X” used in months.
You mention that newer churches reach new people faster because relationship patterns have not been developed like in older established churches. Could you point me to where that statistic is found? I’ve been searching for that for our leadership team and can’t see to locate it.