Church Redone - Always Reforming

10 Ways To Insult and Disrespect Churchgoers

It’s been a while since I first wrote about the numerous ways churches thwarted my efforts to discover them. I thought it was time for an update and so I’ve decided to share 10 ways pastors/churches insult churchgoers and the cities they are called to serve. I’ve experienced all 10 of these first-hand and some are more serious than others. My intent is to simply offer insight to the many pastors out there who always welcome a visitor’s perspective. So don’t take it too personally, unless of course I happen to be talking about your church, in which case I’m so sorry you made the list.

So here you have it, 10 Ways to Insult and Disrespect Churchgoers:
Read more

How Not to Build Community at Church

It seems that 10 Ways to Keep Me From Discovering Your Church inspired Adam at AskingY to take a look at ways in which individuals keep from building community in the church. While my article focused on ways the church thwarts visitors, Adam’s takes on ways that individuals thwart making connections.

Regrettably, I think at different times I’ve been guilty of every single item on this list. Are you holding back community?

Here’s the first five…

1. Keep Conversations Short
2. Always sit in your “assigned” seat
3. Avoid New People
4. Come in Late
5. Leave immediately after the service (or early)

See the rest of the list and Adam’s commentary at 10 Ways to Avoid Building Community Within the Church .

10 Ways to Draw Me to Your Church

In response to my 10 Ways to Keep Me from Discovering Your Church, Church Redone reader Andy Raffalski sent in a list of 10 ways to draw someone to a church. I’ve included his list below (in bold) along with my comments.

1. Pursue me : Being pursued by a church can be either helpful or scary. The helpful form is for a church to be responsive and to make a genuine effort to connect. The scary form of pursuit is when it turns into stalking. Churches will spend thousands of dollars to send a missionary around the world or for a local marketing campaign, but don’t return an email from a seeker or follow-up with an attender who’s absent from activities. If someone shows interest in Christ and the church, go after them. If someone is already part of your church, don’t let them fall to the wayside.
   Read more

10 Ways to Keep Me from Discovering Your Church

I’m now a few weeks into looking for a new fellowship body and I’ve come up against many barriers that churches have in place to keep me from easily finding or connecting with them. There are a couple local churches that have completely vexed my efforts to learn more about them and after 2 weeks and several hours of effort, I’ve stopped trying to reach them. The reality is most people, myself included, are probably not going to attend your church if they can’t find any information about it beforehand. Other churches I’ve managed to find and attend, only to be thwarted in my efforts to learn more or get connected. This is all part of what I call church discoverability, which includes initially hearing about a church, learning more, first attending and initial connecting.

So if your church’s goal is to make it painfully difficult to be discovered by new people, here are 10 real ways I’ve experienced that churches keep from being discovered:
Read more

Knowing when to change

My life is replete with change. I move apartments just about every year and have made several state-to-state moves. Even within ministry I have experienced numerous changes as God has grown me and moved me about to different opportunities. However, having change thrust upon you and independently recognizing the need for change are two very different things.
Read more