Why People Choose (Fill In The Blank) Over Attending Your Church

It’s a new year and many people came back to your church on Sunday. They will be there for a few more weeks before they quit church and the gym simultaneously. But not EVERYBODY you invited attended church, did they?

You’ve invited them over and over and they still refuse to come.

You’ve offered to buy them lunch after the service, but they still don’t show.

You know they need help with … marriage, parenting, purpose, grace, salvation, et. al. AND your church could be the answer, but they still have excuses to miss every Sunday.

You have tried everything.

Why won’t your unchurched friends just come with you to church ONE TIME? Why won’t they accept your invitation just ONCE?

While there is no “one-size-fits-all” answer, there are certainly some common reasons unchurched people resist church invitations and solutions we as church leaders and attenders can implement.

I recently experienced one of the most prominent reasons to miss church. The last Sunday of the year, our church is closed. We take the day off to give our staff and volunteer base a day to relax, recharge, and spend with their family and friends. So as I woke up on 10:00 a.m. Sunday morning, I caught a glimpse of what most of the world experiences on a Sunday – rest. No alarm. No rushing to get ready. No yelling at the kids. I eased into the day, and it was great. Life is so busy. We are all over-committed. We are all tired. Most families are just as busy on Saturday as during the week. So Sunday becomes the ONE day to actually rest. To sleep in.

But that’s just one reason. Here are a few more you know to be true:

The 17 Best Books I Read in 2014

I love to know what friends and peers are reading. I’m always on the lookout for great books to stretch my theology, skills, and leadership ability.

With that in mind, here are the books I loved the most from 2014. Note these are my favorites… I’ll spare you the full list!

25’ish Books I Hope to Read in 2015

I have a love/hate relationship with goals – especially New Year’s goals. But one area where I always try to set goals is in personal and leadership development. More specifically, I try to begin every year with a list of books to read.

And this year is no different. Here are the books I’m planning to read in 2015.

Putting The Mess Back in the Manger

I love the Christmas story. It’s so beautifully poetic. We always read the Christmas story from Luke 2 to our kids on Christmas Eve. It’s part of our Christmas tradition. We eat homemade pizzas while we read. We love to drive around after dinner and see all the Christmas lights in our neighborhood, too. There’s a place nearby that somehow creates a light show set to music that you can hear on the FM dial in the car. No idea how that technology happens! We open presents from each other, then head to bed awaiting Santa (AKA, I’m up most of the night). It really is the most wonderful time of the year.

But while it’s full of wonder, twinkling lights, presents, and homemade pizza (at least in our house!), the story has lost a lot of its inherent messiness and dirt today. When we think of the sites, sounds, and smells of Christmas, twinkling lights, holiday tunes, and pine tree scents come to mind. But the sites, sounds, and smells we associate to Christmas today couldn’t be further from the first century Christmas experience.

Think about how the first Christmas came to be:

Does Working for the Weekend Work Against YOU?

AT A GLANCE…

Read this if…
You sense there is a connection between time and momentum.

This post in one sentence…
Does time away take away? From our momentum? From our progress? From our purpose?

How you can engage…
Create a “Can’t Stop Won’t Stop” list of your own and share it with me in the comments below. And share this post with others who might need to consider the idea, too.

POST:
Is it good to take time off?

I know, I know… sounds like a trick question. But let’s think critically for a moment. Is taking time off ALWAYS a good thing? Loverboy sang “everybody’s working for the weekend…, “ but does working for the weekend ever work against us?

An Observation that Initiated the Question:

I recently took time away from writing. Outside of a few random posts, I didn’t blog for a couple of months. I didn’t really write anything. I won’t bore you with the reasons, but I was excited to get started again. I felt ready to pounce on a blog post like a lion stalking prey. I was mentally refreshed (or so I thought). I assumed two months away would allow me to come back with ideas upon ideas. It was going to be a landslide of great writing. After all, every time I write, I use up an idea; so taking a few months off should in theory create a backlog of options.

So Your Idea Isn’t Perfect…Big Deal!

AT A GLANCE…

Read this if…
You have ever hesitated try something, start something, or develop something.

This post in one sentence…
What should you do if you want to launch something new, but your something doesn’t feel ready?

How you can engage…
Share this specifically with people who have great ideas and need to move forward. Or any perfectionist you know! Lastly, leave a comment with your start story. I’d love to read about your experience.

HERE WE GO…

I have always loved Seth Godin. I’ve probably read all of his books. His blog. Basically everything Seth says resonates with my marketing inner-self.

Seth talks a lot about launching new stuff. He famously labeled it “shipping.” Seth’s stance is simple: “Ship often. Ship lousy stuff, but ship. Ship constantly.” I love that, even though it scares me to death.

Honestly, Seth’s encouragement is the reason I launched a blog. I partially wanted a new, fresh space to ideate and create content, but I also knew launching a blog would be an exercise in “shipping” something. Most likely, shipping something lousy, but at least shipping something.

Recently, I was reminded how true Seth’s stance really is. I was looking over some old blog post and I wanted more than anything to rewrite and republish them all, apologizing to anyone who accidentally endured these early writings in the process. As a blogging newbie, I didn’t know what to write about. I didn’t know how to blog. Once I posted all my Kindle highlights from a book. Who wants to read 5 pages of my highlights!?! And I was not a good conversational writer. For two years I had only written academically (insert incessant footnotes here…), and nobody enjoys reading a textbook! I had no clue how to take the oral communication skill I was developing and transition it to the written word. But I battled through the resistance (another concept I’ve embraced from Seth) and shipped. And I’m glad I did. I still feel sorry for my early readers, but I’m glad I pushed through. And while I’m still not an expert blogger or great writer, I’m learning and improving with each subsequent little shipment.

How to Reach the Unchurched Right Now.

How can your church reach unchurched people right now? That question is mission-critical as a church. It stands to reason investigating churches already finding success with unchurched people would be a great start. After all, if they have cracked the code, we can just borrow the combination. So most church leaders set off to investigate […]

Discovering What You Were Made To Do.

What do you really love to do? I mean REALLY love?

If you’re anything like me, that question provokes thoughts, not necessarily of roles or positions, but of specific moments. Moments in time where you felt alive. Experiences that you would love to relive again. Tasks where time seemed nonexistent. Hours past as minutes.

This is an idea that I’m processing currently. Most of the time people introduce ideas once they are solidified in their mind. That’s not the case here. I’m still marinating, but here is where I am (at least right now…).

The strengths movement ushered in by Marcus Buckingham and Donald Clifton has brought questions like this to the surface more now than ever. It’s an important question for us each to answer. Finding our sweet spot makes us both happier and more productive, which benefits both our organization and us. We should be more successful working out of something we love. Eventually, we might even find the perfect seat on Jim Collin’s Good to Great bus. Feels like we are building to an inspirational “never work another day in your life” quote, huh?

The Secret Sauce of Volunteer Recruitment and Retention.

How do you recruit and keep great volunteers?

If you have a growing church, no doubt this is a growing concern. At Watermarke, we have grown from around 500 to 5,000 in 5 years. And while that is certainly exciting, it comes with several challenges. Volunteer recruitment and retention is toward the top of the list. During our fastest growing years, keeping up with volunteer needs was an overwhelming task. If you were to look around our church today, however, you would see:

1. Children’s ministries full of women AND men, most serving weekly, leading small groups and connecting with kids and their parents in meaningful relationships.
2. Student ministry environments with men and women serving weekly who also attend multiple weekend retreats and summer camps with their students. Many use a portion of their vacation time to be there.
3. Nearly as many MEN as women serving with children and students.
4. Both churched and unchurched people helping park cars, seat guests, execute our services, and answer questions.
5. In some areas, more volunteers than is required. In other areas, a wait-list to serve.
6. An annual volunteer retention rate well over 90%.

As church leaders (or leaders of any volunteer-dependent organization), we know volunteer recruitment and retention is a top priority. We are always looking for new and innovative ways to capture the hearts of the disengaged while keeping the hearts of those already participating. It’s a challenge. But there is a solution.

7 Bad Reasons People Leave Churches.

I wrote a post a few months ago called “5 Good Reasons You Should Leave Your Church.”

This post struck a cord with many, but it hit me after publishing that while there ARE many good reasons to leave a church, there are some equally bad reasons, too. My guess (based on experience) is most people leave churches for bad reasons more often than for good ones. So as a counter to the previous post, here are a few terrible reasons to leave a church:

1. I’m not being fed.

Every pastor LOVES this one. If you are leaving a church because you’re not being fed, be prepared to leave the next church you attend, as well. As Christians, we should progress overtime to “self-feeders” and “other-feeders.” If you see feeding as the church’s job, you will always become “full” at any church over time and feel the need to seek out something new.

Just like an infant grows and becomes independent, we as Christians should not rely on the regurgitated food of preachers as our only source of feeding. “I’m not being fed,” is code for “It’s your job to feed me.” And it’s NOT the churches job to feed everyone equally. Most Christians just need to pick up a fork and feed themselves. That’s the best way to learn self-feeding.