Offer it and They Will Come - The Biggest Myth in Your Church!
Jesus’ primary directive to his apostles and disciples before he ascended into heaven was to “go and make disciples of all nations.” Jesus added that they should “baptize them and teach them to obey all the commands he had given them.” Jesus’s instruction to his followers was filled with a lot of action verbs - go, make, baptize, and teach. So how did we turn that proactive disciple making decree into a reactive scheduling of worship, Bible studies and service, once a week, month or quarter?
John tells us at the end of his Gospel that “there are also many other things that Jesus did; if every one of them were written down, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.” (John 21:25) So, I guess my question is how do we think that our disciple-making tools can be limited to the weekly sermon and pastor Bible Study?
Unfortunately, one of the great myths that the church in the USA has perpetuated since the early 1900’s is the idea that “if you build it they will come.” It was a strategy that worked wonderfully during the post World War II era until the late 1970’s; build a church in the middle of a community and open the doors. That strategy lost its effectiveness in the post Vietnam war era and unfortunately, the churches that were built on that foundation are struggling to connect with people on this side of the COVID pandemic.
In the last 100 years, we also transposed that “growth” strategy to our disciple-making process. We would simply schedule a Bible study, promote it in the bulletin and newsletter, and then set out the folding chairs hoping that “they would come.” But people in the 21st century are looking for more, to not only be taught Bible history and lessons but to engage with their purpose in life.
A good example is today’s young people, Generation Z, ages 10 - 25. They have grown up in school , even public schools, to earn service hours for recognition, requirement, and even to graduate. The 19 to 21 year old college fraternity students I work with perform more community service hours each semester than I did in my entire 4 year career in the mid-1980’s (I mean, Gordon Gecko was our hero back then). Many of these students still view service as a requirement to be satisfied, but many more have adopted over the years an altruistic motivation to give back. But very few of these students grew up in a church where serving your neighbor was affirmed as a proactive way to become disciples of Jesus and given an understanding why we serve in the first place.
Today’s culture, post-COVID Pandemic, has also been conditioned to engage with information, media, and learning in new ways, at all age groups. During the COVID Quarantines when churches, schools, government offices and many businesses were closed to the public, we had to communicate, learn, and transact in digital channels. We did our jobs, went to school, worshiped, and consumed entertainment all online in our homes. Who needs an encyclopedia (Gen Y and Z, just Google it) when you can pull out your phone and ask Siri or Alexa a question and they will find you the answer, and probably an explanatory video or two as well!
Many churches embraced (most were forced to use) Zoom and other streaming technologies to deliver worship and Christian education during the shutdowns. But they were simply packaging the same worship and the same Bible studies and broadcasting them online, as if you were sitting in the room. And as soon as the quarantines were lifted, they raced back to the sanctuaries and fellowship halls for worship and Bible study. But the culture has been transformed and people demand to control their engagement with and consumption of work, learning, shopping, and entertainment. Meaning they want to view and learn on their own time on their preferred media.
The biggest shortcoming of our ‘build it and they will come' disciple-making strategy that is glaring in this new culture is we spent decades forcing our congregations to engage with their own discipleship on our terms. Worship is Sundays at 11am, Bible Study is Tuesday mornings and Wednesday evenings, Service Saturdays are the second weekend every month! We have always asked our people to fit their round pegs (discipleship goals) into the church’s square holes (discipleship programming).
If the Church expects to continue to make an impact by making disciples, as Jesus commanded, then we have to adapt our methods to reach people in a new culture. PLEASE NOTE, I DID NOT SAY ADAPT OUR TEACHING! The teaching is not the problem, as a matter of fact it's the solution that more people need to embrace. What we have to adapt are our attitudes about, delivery methods for, and goals regarding making more disciples in the 21st century!
Stay tuned for the next blog post if you want to dive deeper into building a 21st century discipleship church.