“When you bring someone to church, it is a big deal. The invitation was not random. The person’s agreement to come was not random. Most likely, there have been months of conversations and time spent together to earn your friend’s trust and invite him or her. And when he or she comes, you are entrusting your church with that person.”

I truly feel bad for a pastor who believes that if his church simply changes the style of its worship service, unbelievers are going to start coming on Sunday morning. For many, this has and continues to be a type of strategy to get non-Christians to church. While I am all for seeing unbelievers come to hear the gospel and just the thought of it excites me, I have never understood the logic behind efforts to attract those who are non-Christians to come to a church service.

I fear that the church is setting herself up for disappointment when this is the vision that is cast. Personally, I don’t know an unbeliever who is likely to attend a church service, with very occasional exceptions. These would be after a tragedy – when many claimed Christian faith after the events of 9/11/01 –- or on Mother’s Day, because it would “mean so much to Nana.” Unbelievers aren’t coming for any of the reasons churches think they might.

Why would an unbeliever come to church because there is free coffee? He can drive through the Starbucks line, pay $3.00, and be home within 15 minutes.

What about great branding and social media? I have some difficult news to break to you: unbelievers in your community probably aren’t following your church on social media.

The pastor is really funny? So is YouTube.

All these efforts and creative ideas are perfectly designed, unintentionally, to attract people who hop around from church to church, looking for the flavor of the month. The efforts, resources of time and money, and overall planning of the church’s outreach is often well-suited to reach the disgruntled or bored Christian next door, which is not the mission of the church of Jesus Christ. If we are going to faithfully reach the lost in our communities through the local church, we need to start by reminding ourselves the basic truth that church people go to churches, and unbelievers generally do not. Taking that into account, where I serve, we really want unbelievers to come. So we have an entire strategy built around reaching our own members. If people love their church, they will want their non-Christian friends to join them.

People come to church on the arm of a trusted friend because of a relationship and an invitation. Rather than trying to attract unbelievers with elements and efforts they will never even know exist, we try to reach our own members by creating a church they actually want to be part of themselves. I’m not going to invite a non-Christian friend I’ve been investing in for months or years to a church service I secretly wish I didn’t have to attend.

“Isn’t the Great Commission reason enough?” one might ask. Actually, the Great Commission is the very reason why I would not bring a friend to a church service that lacks gospel-centered preaching, devalues excellence, has a mediocre children’s ministry, bad coffee, and unfriendly people. My friend is going to give church one shot, and I’m going to do everything in my power to ensure the overall experience is positive, praying the Holy Spirit convicts and the conversations we’ve had will deepen because he’s come to church with me.

At my church, our strategy to reach our own people consists of two elements that are not spoken or advertised, but rather practiced and valued. We call it the “double promise.”

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