The Comeback
I love a good comeback story. I’m the guy who almost never quits on his favorite sports team when they are down. Why? Because I’ve seen it too many times before. The impossible comeback happens all the time, and it reminds us that it’s not over until it’s actually over. There’s always a chance!
Many church experts (including myself) believed that once our churches were able to gather again in-person that the church would rally, mount a huge comeback and that people would return to our church in droves. Like a boomerang, our people were going to return because they always come back. But the hoped-for great comeback story of the Church has yet to be written.
I held out hope that at certain key transition points, we would experience the great comeback. I said, “When we are finally off zoom, people will come back.” When they didn’t come back, I said, “Just wait until Christmas Eve. That will help re-establish the rhythm of worship again.” After our smallest Christmas Eve gathering ever, I said that people would return if we moved our worship time from afternoon back to the mornings. Nope. Finally, I said, “Don’t worry, once we get to the fall and the kids are back in school and people stop traveling so much, people will start showing up.” But the great comeback simply hasn’t happened.
The Acknowledgement
One Sunday morning, while setting up chairs and musical equipment with Dustin, our technologies guru, he painfully reminded me of all the times over the last year that I had gotten it wrong by saying that people were going to start coming back. This was not the first time that he had told me that we needed to let go of the past and stop focusing on the people who were no longer with us. For a while he had been saying that we needed to shift our focus and our energies to two things:
- The people who had decided to come back (present).
- The new people we want to connect with (future).
A shift has been taking place in me slowly over the last year and our sound engineer helped accelerate that shift. I no longer expect the great comeback and I acknowledge the truth that these people are probably not returning at all. Maybe there will be a great comeback story for our church, but it will likely not be written by those who left our church during the pandemic and then suddenly returned. Perhaps the comeback story will be written by those people who have already returned and by the new people that our church managed to connect with because it was focusing on the future instead of looking to the past.
The Why Question
In my work with Cyclical Full Circle, helping churches that are in various stages of decline, I have had many conversations trying to answer the why question. Why aren’t people coming back to our churches like we thought they would? As you can imagine, this is complicated and the answers are endless. But one thing that nearly everyone seems to agree on is that the pandemic has served as an accelerator to quicken the pace of problems that have long been present in our churches, even before Covid.
Looking at what we know from experience (as the data is not yet in to support it), we can see that the vast majority of those who have not come back to church are people that were more causally committed to the mission of the church pre-pandemic. Those that disappeared are more likely people who were simply consumers of religious goods and services prior to the pandemic, and not fully engaged in the mission of your church. Does this ring true in your church like it does for the church that I pastor?
In contrast, most of those who have come back are people that were highly engaged in our church’s discipleship pathway and engaged in the mission of the church pre-pandemic. The reason that these people have come back in the first place is to be a part of the mission of the church. These mission-engaged folks are not simply consumers of religious goods and services. They represent a hopeful opportunity to move into a new future on mission together as a new church post-pandemic.
The Good News Opportunity
There is no doubt that we, as church leaders, will need to have a safe space to grieve the loss of relationships because so many people have not come back. I have already written on that subject.
But the question remains, what do we do about the folks that have not yet returned? I know what I did. I tried repeatedly to get them back and without exception was met with less than truthful responses. But I know better now. Here are a few suggestions about what we can and should be doing:
1. Accept and embrace your new church
The people that show up to your next worship gathering, your next missional opportunity, your next community group–this is your new church. Accept and embrace this truth in order to move forward on mission together.
2. Focus on the people who have come back
We must gratefully celebrate those who did came back. What a gift it is that some people have chosen to return to our church. As leaders, we need to find ways to be present in their lives and find ways to disciple them.
3. Go on mission together
Churches in decline often grow more insular when dealing with crisis, while healthier churches will maintain a strong outward focus. Invite people to join the church on mission in your community and beyond. Engage people by being clear about your church’s why and its unique purpose or reason for existence. Engaged people are passionate people, and passionate people will not only help further the mission of your church, but are also more likely to share your church with others.
4. Give ministry away
You are likely left with the people who were the most engaged pre-pandemic. Often during times of significant change and transition, churches will experience what I call “staff creep.” Staff will take over leading in areas that were once led by the saints of the church. Can you challenge each staff member to give something away in order to encourage higher engagement? Engaged people will show up!
Reflection
- What is keeping you from accepting and embracing your new church?
- How have you tried to get people to come back? How successful have these efforts been? In what ways are you still continuing to focus on the people who have not yet returned to church?
- How are you celebrating and investing in the people who stayed?
- What opportunities can you envision for going on mission together in your community?
- Is your church clear on the reason that it exists?
