Tip 6. Effective Discipleship (Shutting The Back Door in Your Church, Blog Series)

In this blog series, I’ve identified 9 tips to help keep people from leaving your church (i.e., shutting the back door). I believe all 9 are important. In this post, I’ll address tip number six:

TIP 6. Effective Discipleship.

What’s your discipleship strategy?

Hopefully you’re not stumped by the question. If so, you’ll definitely want to read on!

This question is one of a few that must be answered by every church. It’s one of the primary reasons we EXIST as a church. It goes back to that whole “go and make disciples” bit from Jesus!

Within the context of this blog series, we would say evangelism brings people into the church, but discipleship is what grows their faith. Beyond spiritual growth, however, discipleship plays a big part in keeping people at your church (i.e., shutting the back door).

Lack of effective discipleship is one of the primary reasons people church hop. We hear excuses like, “I’m not being fed,” which is often a cop-out, but behind that excuse is often a discipleship system issue.

Tip 5. Relevant Preaching (Shutting The Back Door in Your Church, Blog Series)

In this blog series, I’ve identified 9 tips to help keep people from leaving your church (i.e., shutting the back door). I believe all 9 are important. In this post, I’ll address tip number five:

TIP 5. Relevant preaching.
Preaching is part art, part science.

Every preacher has a style (the art) and an approach (the science). Discovering your style takes time – especially if you listen to specific preachers consistently. It becomes easier to mimic the cadence and style of your favorite communicator than to discover and own your style. Maybe we should address this at some point.

But approach is different. Approach is science. Approach is that intentional side of preaching where you pre-determine what you hope to accomplish in and through your sermon. Often, your approach determines your outcome. In fact, the results you see today are a direct result of your approach.

Tip 4. Consistent (not boring) Experiences (Shutting The Back Door in Your Church, Blog Series)

In this blog series, I identified 9 tips to help keep people from leaving your church (i.e., shutting the back door). I believe all 9 are important. In this post, I’ll address tip number four:

TIP 4. Create a consistent, but not boring, experience.

In general, people resist change. We like knowing what to expect. We enjoy consistency. But only when it’s excellent, of course.

Restaurant chains work hard to create consistent offerings. Even individual restaurants understand that inconsistent experiences drive customers away. Retailers need consistency in their offerings. Consistency is important because consistency keeps people coming back. And in our churches, the same is true.

Tip 3. Create Memorable Experiences (Shutting The Back Door in Your Church, Blog Series)

In this blog series, I identified 9 tips to help keep people from leaving your church (i.e., shutting the back door). I believe all 9 are important. In this post, I’ll address tip number three:

TIP 3. Create a memorable experience.

Take a minute and consider some of your most memorable experiences?

There’s a good chance your best experiences then are the stories you love to tell now. The moments where you were touched. Moved. Wowed. Or maybe you just experienced something better than you anticipated (like Disney!).

Tip 2. Allow Anonymity (Shutting The Back Door in Your Church, Blog Series)

In this blog series, I identified 9 tips to help keep people from leaving your church (i.e., shutting the back door). I believe all 9 are important. In this post, I’ll address tip number two:

TIP 2. Allow for anonymity.

Have you ever been forced to know or be known?

I once attended a church where every person I saw wanted to become my friend. To shake my hand, introduce themselves, and hear my life story. Seriously. I began walking with my head down as to not make eye contact with anyone in the hallway. But that was just the beginning. In service, we were forced to not just say “hello” to a neighbor, but to have a full on conversation with a FEW neighbors. Again, I looked down and away from my neighbors, which is hard to accomplish over 5 minutes time.

Tip 1. Relationships Matter (Shutting The Back Door in Your Church, Blog Series)

In the previous post, I identified 9 tips to help keep people from leaving your church (i.e., shutting the back door). I believe all 9 are important, but in this post, I want to address one of the more critical back door shutting mechanisms.

TIP 1 – Prioritize relationships.
Consider for a moment the power of relationships. How many churches have you seen (or attended) where people stay in spite of bad preaching and lack of leadership? Why do people stay? I’ll tell you – relationships. While an engaging, relevant environment might attract people, it’s ultimately a relationship that makes them stick.

Shutting The Back Door in Your Church – Blog Series

What causes people to stick in or stay at your church?

Let me ask it another way: How do you shut the back door in your church? I talk to church leaders all the time who are trying to do just that. They believe their front door is open (which we should address at a later time), but they are losing as many people as they gain. In some cases, they are losing MORE than they are gaining. This is a huge problem for many reasons:

How Can We Lead From Here to a Preferred There?

Maybe it’s just me, but few things frustrate me more than knowing what could be against what is; yet not making progress.

But I’m guessing that’s not just me – it’s probably every leader reading this post. Most leaders I know have some version of a preferred future in mind with a desire to lead people there over time. In some ways that’s why we are leaders! Leadership is about influence, and in most cases, influence towards something specific. A vision. A destination… A preferred future.

And again, for me, the more untapped the potential, the more frustrated I get when the progress is slow or nonexistent.

Here’s my current example: As a pastor in a large church, one of our greatest untapped potentials is in generosity. In conservative estimations, if every family who attends our church frequently gave ONLY 5% of their household income to their church (that’s half of what we would consider a tithe), our annual revenue stream would increase 400%. And that’s VERY conservative. It could increase 6, 7 or maybe 10 times! In my case, that is millions of dollars – with a capital “M.”

5 Ways You Can Better Question Leadership Decisions

Have you ever questioned a decision made by leadership? Maybe EVERY decision made by leadership?

My guess is everyone’s answer is “yes” to the first question! For those of you who answered “yes” to both, we’ll write another post for you soon!

Everybody at some point questions those in leadership. In some cases the questions are warranted. But in every case there is a danger in not knowing what we don’t know. Let me explain by pointing to a recent news article published in the NY Times, and then we will circle back and try to learn something together.

3 Tips to Leverage Social Media at Church (Plus 1 to Try)

Have you ever twitter-complained?

With some companies, it’s the only way to get their attention! With some, they never seem to hear, do they?

I recently visited Six Flags over Georgia (it’s a theme park in the Atlanta area, and before you ask – don’t go) with my kids. It was a terrible experience in many respects. Think Disney – then consider the inverse – and you’ll have Six Flags over Georgia.

While I was searching the park for an open drink retailer, dumbfounded that on a 93-degree day in Atlanta virtually every drink station was closed, I tweeted my frustration.