Posted on Monday, January 16, 2017

How Guests Become Regular Attenders at Your Church

by Joshua Reich

Have you had a guest come to your church and seem excited but never come back? Maybe you had a big day on Christmas, Easter or Mother’s Day (our three biggest days), only to have no return guests? Maybe as a pastor you feel, “We’ve had a lot of guests, but no one seems to be sticking.”

What’s going on?

The reality is, your church competes with a lot on a Sunday morning, and that competition is not other churches.

It is being outside, kids’ sports, sleeping in, football, errands, a slow morning, catching up, working out.

So how do you make a guest’s experience one where they return and become a regular attender?

Answer this question: Does your church environment communicate something positive?

Does your church environment communicate something positive?

When a guest shows up, here is what is running through their head:

Am I already here? Is there anyone else like me?
Were they expecting me?
How uncomfortable am I going to be?
Are they going to ask for my money?
How long will this last?
Will I have to do anything weird?
Will I feel stupid if I don’t know what to do?
Will my kids be safe?

8 things every guest at your church is asking.

If you don’t answer these questions for guests, they won’t want to return. Their defenses are too high.

Here’s a way to break through those: Create a church environment that says, “We’ve been expecting you.”

Create a church environment that says, “We’ve been expecting you.”

Here are some ways to do that:

1. Signs. The moment you think you have enough signs as a church is the moment you should buy some more signs. You can never have too many signs at your church.

A guest should be able to navigate your church without asking anyone where anything is.

A guest should be able to navigate your church without asking anyone where anything is.

I know this sounds uncaring, and you want community and want them to talk to you and let you know that they are there, but they don’t want to let you know they are there. They want to let you know they are there when they are ready to let you know that they are there.

You should have signs where the bathroom is, the auditorium, the front door (I can’t tell you how many churches I’ve been to where the door wasn’t obvious), and where kids and students meet.

2.Give them something. One of the fears that a guest has is that a church wants something from them. So, give them something. Throw them off balance. Thank them for being there. They could’ve been anywhere, but they used their time to come to your church. So thank them.

Give them a gift and don’t make them give you a name and email to get it. Just give it to them.

We have a gift bag that we give to guests with some fun things in it and some information about our church. We put them on a table that stands by itself with no one manning the table.

Remember, let guests make themselves known when they are ready to do so.

If they fill out a connection card, we send them a Starbucks gift card to say thanks again.

3. Security for kids. One of the questions a guest has relates to their kids, and this is a big deal in our culture. I’m blown away that there are still churches that do not check kids in and give a tag to parents. When you do this, your church is communicating, “We know everyone here.” That is completely unwelcoming to a guest.

You wouldn’t put your child in a childcare at a YMCA without getting a tag. Why should church be any different?

A tag communicates safety and security, which are enormous desires for parents when they arrive at church.

4. Talk directly to them in the service. Many pastors when they stand on stage seem to be oblivious to guests. They talk only to the insiders. This communicates to a guest, “We weren’t expecting you.”

When you talk to guests, you speak directly to them. You also tell your regular attenders that we expect guests to be here. You can do this in the welcome when you tell them how glad you are to have them. Invite them back at some point in the service. Also communicate how long the service will be as that is one of their main questions. In the sermon or scripture reading or singing (which might be new to them), you can say something like, “You might be new and maybe you aren’t sure that Jesus exists. Here’s something to think about.” Or, “Here’s what you can do in this moment while we sing or take communion.”

All of this communicates care and we expected you to be here.

4 ways to help a guest become a regular attender at your church.

Posted on Tuesday, October 4, 2016

11 Ways to Know You’ve Settled for a Mediocre Marriage & the Other Top Posts from the Last Month

by Joshua Reich

If you are new to my blog, welcome. Be sure to subscribe to the right so you don’t miss anything. If you’ve been around awhile, thanks for sticking with me and reading on a regular basis.

In case you missed them, here are the 10 most read posts of the last month to help you as a parent, spouse, leader and pastor:

Posted on Thursday, August 25, 2016

How to Recruit and keep the Best Volunteers

by Joshua Reich

If you get a group of pastors or church leaders together and ask them about their biggest challenges, volunteers and leaders will come up. The idea of recruiting volunteers is overwhelming and difficult at times. There never seems to be enough people, and the ones who are serving are often tired and feel like they are the only ones serving.

In light of that, there are some crucial things to keep in mind as you invite people to use their gifts and talents at your church and keep them engaged in those roles. Note, the words you use are incredibly important.

5 ways to recruit and keep the best volunteers.

1. Know who you are and what you need around you. Many times we are simply looking for a warm body, and no one wants to sign up for a role that anyone can do. When you are inviting people to use their gifts, you need to know if they fit who you are, the team you have in place and the role you are inviting them into. This means as a leader you need to know your personality, strengths and weaknesses so you can effectively build around you. You need to know the makeup of people already on your team, what kind of personalities they have and what is missing. You also need to know what kind of people you need on your team.

2. Don’t say no for anyone. This is easier to do than you would think. We have a need or opening, and we have in mind the perfect person. But they are busy, so we don’t ask. Yes they are busy, but that doesn’t matter. Don’t say no for anyone. Let them say no. Remember, if you don’t ask you rob them of an opportunity. Who knows, they might say yes.

3. The most high capacity and talented people are busy. This is a truth that took me awhile to figure out. The most talented and high capacity people in your church are probably busy, but that’s because they are high capacity and talented people. Notice, I didn’t say they were doing too much, I just said they were busy. They do a lot because they are talented and have a higher capacity than other people. Just like #2, these are the people you want but won’t say anything to. Don’t. Ask them.

4. Don’t be afraid to ask. Hopefully you are picking up on a theme of what it takes to get the right people on your team at your church. Ask.

Remember: People don’t sign up to volunteer because of a big announcement; they say yes because someone asked them.

People volunteer because someone asked them.

We have this idea in churches that if we show enough videos, make enough pleas from the stage, guilt and shame, then maybe people will sign up. But you don’t want those people. They won’t stay, and then you’ll have people on your team that don’t fit and don’t want to be there because they signed up because they felt bad.

Now I’m not saying you don’t use announcements, but they aren’t as affective to building your team as you often think they are. They help make a need get on someone’s radar.

But the people you want are the people you need to ask.

I said this to a room full of volunteers at our church once and got some pushback. Then I asked everyone to raise their hand who served on their team because of a stage announcement and who served because they were asked by someone. Over 90% served because someone asked them.

5. Why you do something is more important than what you do. This is how you get people on your team and keep people on your team.

When most team leaders invite someone to join their team, they talk about what they’ll do, how they’ll do it, expectations, etc. Those are all well and good.

But people only serve and stay because of why you do something.

In fact, this is one of the biggest reasons volunteers burnout and quit; they don’t remember why they are doing something.

Volunteers burnout and quit when they don’t remember why they are doing something.

One thing I do every week is pull every volunteer at our church together and remind them in just a few minutes why we are doing something. That it will be someone’s first day at church today, and we need to be ready for that. I also thank them for what they do and how hard they work.

One of the biggest reasons volunteers quit: No one has thanked them recently.

When was the last time you did something nice for your team? When was the last time you said thanks to them?

5 ways to recruit and keep the best volunteers.

Posted on Wednesday, May 18, 2016

9 Things I Learned From Preaching About Homosexuality

by Joshua Reich

Recently I preached on the topic of sexuality, specifically homosexuality, and what the Bible says about it. I’ll be honest, for me this sermon felt like a dark cloud waiting for me as I thought about our series through Romans. While I love preaching and don’t mind when people disagree with me, this topic feels different in our culture.

Let me be vulnerable for a minute. This topic is one reason it took me so long to preach through Romans. Sadly, one reason is because of fear of what people would think of me and our church. The other is because I didn’t know if I could talk about it in a way that didn’t make me sound like a jerk. I’m convinced if I had preached this sermon two years ago, the tone would have been radically different, and that grieves my heart to think about what I used to sound like, but also grateful for the work of God in my heart.

Now that I’m done with that confession, I hope you’re still reading.

If you are a pastor, you should preach on this topic. If you will, here are nine things I learned that you should keep in mind:

9 things to keep in mind when you preach on homosexuality.

1. Your people are curious. If you’re a pastor, you get the question, “What do you believe about homosexuality or gay marriage?” on a weekly basis. I know I do. People are curious. Most people think they know what Christians think, but most Christians aren’t even sure what they think. Why is there so much hate around this topic? Why do Christians treat this sin differently than others? Is that right? Did God make someone that way? Do I attend a gay wedding? How do I respond to a friend or child who says, “I’m gay”? All of these are questions they have.

2. Your tone matters as much as, if not more than, your content. Your content matters, so before you email me about that, it matters. A lot. You need to be clear and say, “This is what I think the Bible says.” In fact, as one friend told me, “Your church will remember your tone more than your content after this sermon”, and I believe that is true.

Your tone matters as much as your content when you preach on homosexuality.

3. Your language and tone tells your church how to communicate it. Not only are you training your church what to believe about homosexuality, but you are also training them how to talk about it, what they will sound like. You are teaching them how to treat people in our culture that they disagree with. Christians are notoriously terrible at this. We post stuff on social media on a whole host of topics without ever asking, “How will a friend of mine who disagrees with me take this?” If you don’t have a friend who disagrees with you on homosexuality or some other closely held belief, that is a problem.

You teach your church how to talk about a topic when you preach.

4. Your language and tone tell people who struggle with same sex attraction what kind of reaction they can expect from your church. This to me is one of the most important things about this entire topic and how to preach on it. Sitting in your church every week are people who love your church and are trying to love, or trying to figure out who God is, and they are wondering, “What do I do with these feelings? Do I talk about them in my small group? Can I ask my pastor about it?” You are telling them, “If you bring this up, here’s the reaction you can expect.” My hope is that my church will be a safe place to bring up this or any other struggle. It helped me to talk with friends who are gay and ask them about their story. How did people react? I also asked, “If you walked into a church and this topic was being talked about, what would you want to hear or not hear? How can I communicate what I think and not sound like a jerk?” These were incredibly helpful conversations.

What kind of response would someone struggling with same sex attraction get at your church?

5. It helps to preach through a book of the Bible. I don’t know if I would choose to preach on this topic if it wasn’t in a book of the Bible I was preaching through. In fact, I wouldn’t choose to preach on most topics, because like all pastors I have the topics I like to talk about, and those are usually ones that aren’t uncomfortable or things I’ve conquered in my life. That’s why preaching through a book of the Bible is so important. It makes you unable to skip things. I couldn’t just breeze over these verses. Also, it helps in prep. I knew for over a year that this topic was coming, so I was able to get articles, books and other resources to work through in preparation.

6. This is a gospel and worship issue. This topic is incredibly divisive for a number of reasons. It is a political battlefield as it relates to rights. (I think that’s a different topic, so when I preached on homosexuality, I stayed away from that.) It is also incredibly personal because most people are related to someone or are friends with someone who is gay. This is all about the gospel and worship. Here’s why: Is Jesus Lord and King? If so, then it matters what he says about this. If not, then we are back to exploring the gospel and what Jesus said. (And yes, Jesus talked about homosexuality, so don’t let someone tell you, “Jesus never mentioned homosexuality.”) Additionally, marriage is connected with the gospel throughout the Bible. Whenever we talk about it, we are talking about the gospel.

Homosexuality is a gospel & worship issue.

7. As passionate as you are about homosexuality being a sin, be that passionate about greed, gossip and adultery being a sin. Yes, I believe that the Bible calls a homosexual relationship a sin. I don’t think struggling with same sex attraction is a sin, just like being tempted isn’t a sin. Acting on that temptation is a sin. Getting drunk, ruling your life, trying to control your world, gossip, letting the opinion of others drive your life, being a workaholic, finding your identity in anything other than Jesus, the Bible calls all of those sins that Jesus died for. Yet Christians don’t put up a sign about that when they protest. If you are going to talk about this and be passionate, as so many are, be just as passionate about those committing adultery and being greedy as well. The Bible puts them all together. In fact, when Paul lists homosexuality in Romans 1, he also lists more than 10 other sins with it.

8. Think through redemption for someone in light of this topic. I’d love to say I have a clean answer on this, but I don’t yet as I’m still thinking and praying through it. Now that gay marriage is legal and happening more and more, what does redemption look like? What happens for the lesbian couple who has kids and they are rescued by Jesus? But if you are a pastor, you need to start wrestling through that and thinking about what gospel redemption looks like for those in gay marriages. In the same way that this conversation in our culture is becoming more and more complex (as letters continue to be added to LGBTQIA), this idea of redemption will become more complex.

What does redemption look like for a gay couple?

9. Get over your fear. Maybe you aren’t afraid. If you aren’t afraid when you step into the pulpit to preach on homosexuality, you are probably going to sound like a jerk. Maybe not, but probably. If you are afraid, get over it. Pray through it, talk with friends, your elders, study up and get on stage and preach.

9 things to keep in mind when you preach on homosexuality.

Posted on Monday, May 2, 2016

When your Church Should Move

by Joshua Reich

When it comes to real estate, the old cliche of location, location, location is king. Your location matters. There is a corner near my house that no matter what restaurant goes into that corner, it never survives. I’m sure you have something like that in your city.

The same is true for churches.

Location matters.

The location of your church is one of the most important decisions you make as a pastor.

Not only in terms of space and what kind of ministry you can do, but what and who is around you.

If you attend or lead a church, I want you to think for a minute about where your church is located and who is around that location. The people who live there, are they old or young? Hipster or middle age? Are they wealthy, middle class, below the poverty line, or a mixture? Think in terms of nationality and ethnic backgrounds.

It is easy to overlook this as a church and keep humming along.

A good missionary, though, thinks about who is around them.

Now the second question: Who are you as a church and as a leader best suited to reach?

This is a hard question and can feel like you are picking and choosing who to reach (which you aren’t). You are simply asking who you are as a leader and who your church is.

Often God lines up who we are with where we are.

I have a friend who planted a church in a bilingual community where almost everyone lives below the poverty line. Why? He grew up in a community like that and understood the struggles. I have another friend who planted in one of the most suburban places in America. Why? He grew up in one of the most suburban places in America and understood the idols and struggles of that community.

Here is the tricky part: What if who you are best suited to reach is not where your church is?

What if who you are best suited to reach is not where your church is?

This happens to older churches who watch a neighborhood change around them.

You have two options at this point: one, change things to reach those around you, or two, move to where those people and cultures live.

The question a leader and a church must answer is which path to take. Both can be right.

While this is something church planters and missionaries think through as they embark on their leadership, this is something churches and pastors must continually consider as their church grows and ages. This is being a good missionary as a leader, and as your city changes it will mean some changes to your church and maybe even some hard decisions.

Your church might be in the wrong location if…

Posted on Wednesday, March 30, 2016

Living and Leading in ‘The In-Between’

by Joshua Reich

As a leader you will often find yourself in the in-between times of life and leadership. What I mean by the in-between is that you know where you are going personally, your dreams and goals; or with your church or organization, you see the vision, the place. But you can’t go there yet. It might be timing, it might be that you need more finances, more leaders, maybe you are needing to allow people time to train or get used to the idea.

Whatever it is, the in-between time is tough to not only live in but to lead in.

It is tough to lead and live when you’re stuck in the in-between.

Leaders feel this when they know their church should make a change, kill a program, add a staff member they can’t afford or change locations, but they are in a waiting period.

The in-between.

We know this feeling when we want to complete school, start dating someone who isn’t there yet, get married to a person who isn’t ready.

The in-between.

It is the pain of longing to have children that never happens. It is the late nights as we wait for kids to fall asleep, to start listening or to simply grow up and move out so we can get to the next season of life.

The in-between.

Many of us live our lives longing to be in the next place.

Do you wish your life was someplace else?

In the in-between, you know where you are going, but you can’t talk about it with everyone. You need to wait for more information, for things to fall into place before you let people know and clarify things. A leader lacks influence when he says, “In eight months this change will happen. So we’ll just wait until then, but it’s coming.”

In the in-between you can get antsy and frustrated because it isn’t getting here. The frustration also comes from seeing things as they are when you know what they will be like, and you have to wait for it. That’s not easy. It means biting your tongue, grinning and bearing some things until it’s time.

The in-between is also a time that your faith is stretched, you learn about your impatience, your lack of belief in the power and control of God as you wonder why He is taking so long, as if His timing is not perfect.

Leadership in this time is difficult because momentum is easily lost. The reason it can be lost is because you as the leader have moved into the future, but you can’t talk about it yet. Consequently, you are running out of steam on where things are. You have to stay mentally engaged in the present, where God has you and your church.

The in-between time is also the time that grows us the most. That’s the blessing of it. Without it, we can never get to the place God wants us to be. It is easy to despair in the in-between, but if we do, we miss the point of it.

How to live in the in-between.

Posted on Tuesday, February 16, 2016

How to Not Have a Big Day at Church

by Joshua Reich

Big days are crucial in the life of any church. They are a launching pad to something new. Whether that is a new ministry season, a new sermon series, sign-ups for small groups, classes, VBS, starting a new church, or moving to a new location, all of these are opportunities for a big day and creating new momentum.

That’s what a big day does. It starts something new. It creates or sustains momentum.

Big days don’t just happen. They must be planned for. If you aren’t careful, though, you can miss these crucial opportunities.

Yes, the Holy Spirit brings momentum that you can’t create and can’t explain. Yes, the Holy Spirit wants your church to grow and reach people who don’t know Jesus. This means there are things you can and should do to work with the Holy Spirit to have a big day. You can also do things to make sure you don’t have a big day.

Here are six ways to not have a big day:

6 ways to not have a big day at your church.

1. Don’t tell anyone. If you want to have a big day, if something new is happening at your church, tell people. Their lives are busy, they aren’t always thinking about church, the new series, new program or new opportunity. Many times this is how things happen in a church. New sermon series, no one knows. New groups are getting started, there isn’t a clear path to them.

If you don’t tell anyone about your church, no one will know you exist.

2. Don’t preach on a felt need topic. If you want to create a big day around your Sunday service, you need to preach on a felt need topic. This doesn’t mean you go gospel light or don’t preach from a book of the Bible. You can launch a series on Romans and make it a big day, but you have to be creative with it. People don’t show up to your church because you are starting a series called “Romans.” Think through: When the people from my church invite someone, what will they say?

What you preach on is a crucial reason people show up to your church.

3. Create zero buzz. Big days and buzz go hand in hand. This might be having a photo booth, a giveaway, food trucks, a baptism, anything that is different from a normal week to create a “this is special” feeling.

4. Just expect people to find your church. If you look at most church websites, it can take awhile for you to find where they meet. In fact, I knew of one church that moved into a new facility, and yet the front page of their website had their old address for several months as where they met, after they moved into their new facility. Most churches simply expect people to come looking for them. That rarely happens. Most people aren’t choosing church; they are choosing football, hiking, skiing, the lake, sleeping in or running errands.

Want your church to die? Expect people to just find it on their own.

5. Don’t give anyone in your church a reason to invite someone. The reason your people aren’t inviting anyone to your church is because you haven’t given them a reason to invite someone. I know you have told them, maybe guilted them, but people invite their friends to something worthwhile. If you can’t remember the last time someone invited someone to your church, or you can’t remember the last time you did it, ask why not? What is keeping them from taking that step? Are you doing something wrong as a church? Do your people feel weird about inviting people to your church?

If you don’t give people a reason to invite people to church, they won’t.

6. Don’t pray for it. New people, momentum, people beginning a relationship with Jesus, marriages being saved, and the chains of addiction being broken come from the Holy Spirit. If you don’t pray for it, a big day will pass you by. You can plan, be creative, give away a car and nothing will change.

Posted on Friday, February 12, 2016

In Honor of Valentine’s Day

by Joshua Reich

In honor of Valentine’s Day, I thought I’d share the top 10 marriage and relationship posts that Katie and I have written over the years. Thanks for learning and growing with us over the years. Bookmark this page to use as a resource you can come back to. Katie and I hope this helps take your marriage to the next level.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Posted on Wednesday, February 10, 2016

How to Invite Someone to Church

by Joshua Reich

It can be awkward inviting someone to church. We have fears about the relationship changing. What if they think we’re weird, or worse think we’re just friends with them so we can invite them to church?

Yet the reason you attend a church is, somewhere along the way, someone decided to take a risk, to take a chance and invite you. They knew that everything would change if you heard about Jesus, if you saw life-changing community unfold before you and thought, “I have to invite this person to my church.”

But how do you know if it is time to take that risk? How do you do it?

First, how do you know if you should invite someone?

There are clues to listen to when you talk to someone. Andy Stanley calls these “the not cues.” When you hear a person say something like, “Things are not going well.” Or, “I’m not prepared for…” Or, “I am not from here, we just moved to the area.”

When you hear any of these, you know it is worth the risk. Often the person who says these things is searching for something. They may not think it is Jesus, but it is.

Another way is to know what your church is preaching on and finding someone who would benefit from that. Maybe your church is doing a series on marriage, and you have a friend who is struggling in their marriage. Invite them. It might be a series on apologetics, and you have a friend who loves to argue about religion or has questions about who Jesus is and why Christianity is true. Invite them.

Once you decide to take the risk, and hopefully you do, the next question is how. That is an awkward moment. I remember this past Christmas inviting a friend to church, and when they didn’t come I thought, “Great, now it’s going to be weird.” Usually it isn’t. I saw them a week later, and it was fine. Life moved on, so don’t fear. I’ll ask them again.

You can call, text, email, share a Facebook event page or talk to them. Hand them an invite card. Take them out to lunch afterward to answer questions they have or simply to hang out with them. Be sure when you bring them to introduce them to people. Especially your pastor; he’ll love to meet your friend.

Let me end with this.

You never know when a simple invite can change a life. Hopefully your life has changed because of attending your church. This is a chance to change someone’s life and eternity, to help them see the life found only in Jesus.

Posted on Thursday, January 14, 2016

How to be a Team in Marriage

by Joshua Reich

Many times when I talk to couples who are frustrated in their marriage, how their spouse reacts to or helps/hurts them in reaching their goals comes up.

A common cause of frustration and arguments in marriage.

I’ve heard couples tell me, “We’re getting divorced because she is holding me back.” One woman told me, “He just isn’t on board with what I want to do with my life, so we’re going our separate ways.”

This is easy to do.

After all, didn’t we get married so we could have a teammate help us accomplish what we want to accomplish?

The cycle in marriage becomes about what we want and the goals we have in our heads: completing school, starting a business/church, certain financial benchmarks. When our spouse doesn’t get on board they are just dead weight getting in the way.

I realized a few years ago that I had made our marriage and family all about my goals. I’m a pretty driven person, and so we moved to Arizona to plant a church. We talked together about what this would mean, but as our kids started to get older, I realized that in my goal setting and drivenness, I left little room for Katie to explore her goals and dreams.

Does your spouse have room for their dreams in your marriage?

Now there are times in a marriage when you put the goals of one over the other. Maybe an opportunity comes along you can’t pass up. Maybe you decide when you get married that when you have kids the wife will stay home with the kids, so getting the man’s career off the ground matters greatly.

If you aren’t careful though, eventually a marriage will revolve around one person, and it can slowly suck the life and dreams out of the other.

Let me suggest a good (but scary) question to discuss as a couple: Are there any dreams you have right now that I am keeping you from reaching?

Now there are some dreams you have to let go of simply because you chose to get married. There are some dreams you let go of because you have kids. Not all of them, but your life is different now.

Usually the reason we don’t create space for our spouse is our selfishness. We will dress it up in different ways. Church planters will dress it up in God’s will. I did this for a long time. God called me to plant a church, she said yes to it, so it’s now our calling and our goal.

A conversation every pastor and his wife MUST have.

Let me speak to pastors for a minute. You help the people in your church discern God’s will for their lives. You help them learn how God has gifted them and how to best use those gifts and talents. Do you do that for your wife? She is part of your church. Who is she apart from being a pastor’s wife? Who is she as a person who attends your church, and what has God called her to?

Too many couples either give up hope on accomplishing something together, or if given enough time, their dreams will well up inside of them until they will begin thinking about pursuing them apart from the other person.

When, if you took the step of being a teammate to your spouse, you could unleash their dreams together.

How to stand with your spouse instead of against them.