Q&A: Moving from Consumer to Participant?
Q:
A ministry like Guest Services seems to enable a consumer culture within our church. How can we move people from consumer to participant?
[From a recent One-Day Workshop]
A:
Let’s be clear: there’s nothing wrong with having consumers who show up to your church. Jesus’ ministry was largely made up of consumers: those who were seeking what they got from him rather than being in a relationship with him.
But Jesus wasn’t satisfied to leave people in their consumeristic state. And your question is a good one. Here are four ways to think about this:
1. Have a clear pathway for your guests.
From your earliest interaction at your first-time guest tent, you need to let guests know their next step. Certainly, a return visit is the most immediate step: they need to come back if they’re going to do anything else. But what after that? A newcomers’ event should be the first item on the agenda, which helps lay out the map of how they can take steps of further involvement.
2. Let them know exactly what you’re about.
At your event that you’ve designed for newcomers, you’ll serve your guests the best by laying out who you are. You don’t need to give the exhaustive 87 year history of your church. You don’t need to lay out your elder team’s views on infralapsarianism and how it intersects with the age of accountability. You do need to stress what makes your church…well, your church. Do you push small groups? Tell them. Are you all about ministry teams? Don’t hide that behind door #7.
3. Don’t soft-sell what you want for them.
As a part of #2 above, you should detail the things that are a big deal to your church family, and – should they choose to stick around – should become a big deal for them. I’m not confusing this with the essentials of the faith and matters pertinent only to salvation, rather…what helps people feel like they’re a part of your particular church’s mission?
For us, one of our values is “We send every member.” For years, we illustrated that in our newcomers’ event by putting a passport application in every participant notebook. It was an in-your-face way of saying that we wanted our people to be on a plane in the next two years, participating in a short-term trip with one of our overseas church planters.
4. Continue to call them up and out.
Everything in points 1-3 should lay the groundwork for what is to come. If you are a church of small groups (not with small groups), newcomers should expect that they’ll be nudged to a group again and again. If you’re a church that focuses on the surrounding community, people shouldn’t expect to get a free pass on serving in underserved neighborhoods.
Every church has a mission. Your church has a particular mission that God has called you to lead out in. How will you help your new-found consumers become participants in that mission?
Want to submit a question for a future Q&A post? Ask it here.
