I grew up going to church (and please don’t tell me “church” is people not a “building” or a “service” because I know that since I grew up going to church ) so I’ve been encouraged to invite my friends to church many times. By “encouraged”, I mean prompted, urged, compelled, cajoled, coaxed, coerced, shamed, and threatened. According to tradition, my status as a disciple of Jesus requires that I become a sales representative for my local church brand.
Church membership is like signing up for a Multi-Level Marketing business. I got scripts for reading to prospective customers. I got swag to hand out (mugs, shirts, water bottles, stickers, etc.) to prove my generosity. And I got dozens of suggestions for how to disguise my recruitment efforts as “relationship building activities” (because they don’t care what you know until they know you care).
Armed with all those evangelism tools I started my invitation campaign and to date, have invited almost nobody to church. And apparently, I’m not the only one. The question of why church members don’t invite others to church seems to be on the lips of every church leader in America. According to Thom Rainer, the top ten reasons are as follows:
I mean no disrespect to anyone who finds any of the above reasons accurate and adequate. If your personal reason is on the list, I’m not trying to talk you out of it. I grew up in church so I know a list of 10 reasons is too long. Church People want to find the ONE correct answer to the question so we can get busy convincing everybody else that they’re wrong. (You probably want to argue with me about that, don’t you?)
My reason for not inviting people to church is not on the list. I’m an outlier with a perspective that doesn’t match mainstream, conventional wisdom. When I mention it to other Church People, they get weird expressions on their faces and then ignore me. My reason “doesn’t compute,” so expressing it usually causes the conversation to end. The reason I don’t invite people to church is:
I’m not required to invite people to church.
KA-BOOM! Like I said, “Does not compute.”
Christianity was never about inviting people to church. Christianity is about inviting people to Christ. We’ve distorted the Great Commission. Jesus didn’t say, “Go ye into all the world and preach about your awesome Sunday morning experience.”
Inviting people to church is quite literally inviting people to ourselves. Church is OUR music, OUR preaching, OUR classes, OUR programs, OUR doctrine, and no Jesus. We, the church, have made the church into an idol. I didn’t see Jesus’ name mentioned anywhere in the list of reasons for not inviting people to church. Did you? (No. You didn’t.)
That’s because Jesus isn’t an important part of church culture. We’re selling an experience, not a savior. There’s a fierce competition taking place among congregations. The best church culture wins. First prize is a full parking lot on Sunday morning. And that’s when inviting people to church starts unraveling.
Notice number “6” on the list – ” There are too many people at church.” We have fused “Church” and “Jesus” together. We can’t separate the Son of God from his Bride. Nobody would ever say, “There are too many people following Jesus.” But since we can’t tell the difference between Jesus and Church, we sidetrack the Gospel to focus on man-made concerns.
I’ve been told that excellence is required to be effective. Top-notch preaching, music, and programming are necessary to proclaim the Gospel. All of that is well and good. If your method of reaching the lost is flashing lights, thumping music, and barefoot preaching; go forth and make disciples. But stop trying to convert me to your religion of culture. I won’t worship your idol.
The reason people don’t invite their friends to church is, deep down, they know church is irrelevant to their friend’s lives. Church is just another organization that makes demands on their time and resources. They know their friends aren’t looking for something else to do during the week. And they know there are other churches with cooler music and hipper preaching. People don’t invite their friends to church because they know church doesn’t solve any problems.
I don’t invite people to church because church is not Jesus and I think we all agree about that. But let’s not talk about it.
“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
Matthew 28:18
15 Responses
Well, I am not much of an evangelicalist. So I cannot say I have invited people to my church. However, we probably should do so when we can. Consider. Matthew 28:16-20. We are suppose to disciple believer. We need to spend our lives learning how to love and obey God. Churches exist to support the Great Commission.
I agree completely. If Sunday morning church services prioritized making disciples, I would enthusiastically endorse them.
So why do we even go to church? Like we were never told to invite people to church, we were also never told to go to church ourselves. Spiritual entertainment is all church is, I don’t care if your are talking about today’s churches with their modern worship styles, or churches 50 or 100 years ago. The buildings are even set up like theaters and the program is in the front. Of course the rules are very clear…believe the creeds and don’t question the Bible if you do you are not welcome anymore. I think Christians ought to wage a protest and stop going to church and just connect with people as we are going into the world.
I had to flee my church because of someone who was invited, who never should have gone!
The person was strongly urged to come (by others – not me – who saw this troubled person and just knew church would be the solution. No – she was diagnosed as an extremely dangerous obsessive, homicidal Schizophrenic, and was committed multiple times.) She was shunted over to me, because others just knew I could help her. (No, I couldn’t.)
I was in church because of my love for Jesus Christ. Mrs. Chainsaw saw me, and made me an idol. (She even dressed exactly like me and had her hair cut like mine. Uggh!)
When I tried to dissuade her from her focus on me and to look to Jesus, she had to kill me. Worst nightmare of my life being stalked by a murderous person I would swear was possessed. I had to leave church since that became her happy hunting ground, learn high intensity self-defense, get orders of protection (meaningless), and endure for years until she killed herself. She never did search for God – she only wanted human idols she could control.
No, I never invite people to my church.
I sort of don’t even have one, now; courtesy of the invited creature from hell.
(Fortunately, I have my prayer closet…)
Thank you for your post, John. I feel mildly less of a failure for not (MLM) evangelizing.
I was just getting ready to suggest number 11 should be, “Because they’re a homicidal schizophrenic” but you beat me to the punch.
I had a vaguely similar experience this year, but the individual was already an integral part of the community. The evil effects of such an individual can wreak terrible repercussions on into the future. Interesting how in both yours and my scenario the second you start to seriously direct these people to Christ, the demons come out to play. Church gatherings would be a lot more exciting if Jesus was made the central and integral part of the service more often.
My church markets itself as a “seeker church. This has always confused me, why should you have a church for people who aren’t in Church? The most frustrating part of a attending a “seeker church” is that members are spoken to like their only job is to get other to attend.
Yep, and wait on them hand & foot, and endure watered down theology lest we offend them aka while we redefine the point of church: to edify Believers. That’s why seeker churches are a self-fulfilling prophesy; they become relevant to no one but seekers…and cease to be a church! Didn’t Hybels admit the seeker “experiment” was a failure?
When a church adopts a business growth model mentality, SURPRISE, it ceases to be a church and becomes a business. Churches are supposed to edify Believers, who then go and reach the lost around them, who then become Believers, who attend church to be edified to…. When we think God and His Bible aren’t sufficient to convict & edify, we resort to man’s ideas for growth and we get cookie cutter “churches” with hipster pastors, garage band “musicians” & “vocalists” who think volume increases (or makes up for) abilty, light shows, and baby Christians who know nothing (for years) but Jesus loves me and church is a cool place to snag a free designer coffee and rock out for an hour (just an hour, gotta keep on schedule for the next show) while somebody takes care of their kids cause that whole parenting thing is so hard when the kids are off school BOTH Saturday and Sunday. Yeah, been there, done that, left that. There’s a bunch of people these days looking for a real church but they’re increasingly difficult to find among the cookie crumbs.
Are you in my head? I’ve pretty much thought of everyone of those things.
Ha! I know a big group of people, from various parts of my life, and we are ALL in your head. We all keep searching for a church that hasn’t been affected in some way by this craziness so we can “invite the rest of the group to THAT church.” 😜😂
It’s unfortunate, but I think you might be searching for a very long time.
Spot on, and I completely understand how this might make people uncomfortable. But discomfort can bring change.
The problem of contemporary liturgy is that it is basically a consumer good, oriented towards the person attending, who sees no point in being there. A couple of generations ago the purpose of liturgy was to give honor to God as a community, and it was considered an obligation of justice and obedience to God’s commandment.
Yes, you “got something” from it, but the something was a result of a correct relationship between God, individual, and church which was renewed in liturgy.
Totally agree about church being a consumer good. Most of the church leaders I’ve spoken to will admit that’s a problem. Then, in the next breath, they tell me the solution is “better worship” or “more serving in the community”. In other words, give the consumers what they want.
i was surprised years ago when a friend told me about her husband’s seminary experience. He went “for fun” to learn the Bible in more depth, as he, being very intelligent, already had a successful profession. He and his classmates had the option to become pastors by choosing from various different “tracks of study” many of which had very little Bible study required. I was suddenly aware of why so many pastors could be swayed by man’s rather than God’s ideas about the purpose of church. And this was over 10 years ago so I think it’s safe to say the problem isn’t better today. Look at Sunday School curriculums from 50-70 yrs ago; most church attendees today couldn’t begin to answer what yesteryear’s high school kids were taught. Bibles are available everywhere now and yet no one knows what it says. But everybody knows which church has the best coffee bar!