How can we overcome some of the struggles in the church today?
Interview
Host:
Nathan Norman
Guest:
Gary McIntosh
Taking Your Church to the Next Level
The CrossTalk Podcast is a production of CrossTalk Global, equipping biblical communicators, so every culture hears God’s voice. To find out more, or to support the work of this ministry please visit www.crosstalkglobal.org
Produced by Nathan James Norman/Untold Podcast Production
© 2024 CrossTalk Global
Nathan: What are some of the struggles in the church today? More importantly, how can we overcome those struggles? If you've ever sensed the church struggling and wanted to help, you'll want to listen to our conversation today with Doctor Gary McIntosh. Welcome to Crosstalk, a christian podcast whose goal is for us to encourage each other to not only increase our knowledge of the Bible, but to take the next step beyond information into transformation. Our goal is to bring the Bible to life, into all our lives. I'm Nathan Norman. Today we're talking with Doctor Gary McIntosh, professor at Talbot School of Theology at Biola University and president of the Church Growth Network and author of 27 books. Gary, welcome to the show.
Gary: Hi, Nathan. How you doing? Good to be with you today.
Nathan: Doing great. And tell us a little bit about yourself before we jump into this. Where do you currently live? What do you do?
Gary: I live in Southern California, a town called Temecula. It's a little bit southeast of Los Angeles. And right now I'm actually a semi retired professor. I taught at Talbot for 35 years full time. The last three years I'm part time and continue to do some writing and speaking and some consulting with churches and for our listeners.
Nathan: I was a student of Gary's for a number of classes. Benefited greatly. And those 27 books, those are practical theology. I have a whole shelf of his books and I often go back to them. So at the end of the show, I'll give you links and in the show notes that you can go and you can find some of his books. So if you're interested in practical, the practical side of ministry, by all means, go find Doctor Gary McIntosh's books. But Gary, looking at the church overall, I think there is an overall perception that the church in America is in decline. Studies on church attendance, for example, show a decline, but that's too abstract. You study this, you work with more pastors than I will ever meet. You study church trends, and you consult with many, many churches. What are some of the specific struggles the church is facing?
Gary: You're right, Nathan. I think there definitely is a feeling that the church is struggling today in the USA. And it is in some respects. There's been a lot written about the nuns, people who now identify as having no religious affiliation. But I think what we're really seeing is the reality of perhaps what was hidden years ago. A lot of times in years gone by when surveys were done, people would say that they were a church member or a church attendee and they would give the name of the church that they actually didn't go to. They maybe went once a year or maybe once a quarter or something of that nature. And I think many of those people now just identify as none. But I think they were, you know, years ago they were still identifying as church members. But I think maybe today they're a little more open and honest. And so I really think probably the actual attendance at churches is probably honestly the same that it's been the last 20 to 40 years. But it's just that we see the real picture today of what we're looking at. But it certainly feels like the church is declining. The mainline church is suffering serious decline. Evangelical churches are holding their own. Many of them are actually growing. But the growth of the evangelical church is not enough to make up for the decline of the mainline churches that's out there. You know, the general numbers would say that we're, you know, we're maybe starting about, I don't know, four or 500 churches a decade right now, but we're losing somewhere around 4000 churches a decade. So we are. We are losing ground. But again, most of that is in the mainline denominations. But the evangelical churches just can't start enough churches in order to replace the losses that are out there. And so, yes, you know, there's a lot of reports in the media and different places that talk about the church in decline. And it does create definitely some struggles, particularly since the COVID experience four or five years ago. A lot of pastors and churches seem to be struggling. You know, I think the struggles are similar to what we faced in the past, but maybe a little bit more complex today. You know, we struggle on how to communicate to the community around us, struggle how to share the gospel. The models that we had, revivalistic models from years ago that seemed to work, or evangelism explosion from the 1970s or the Romans road, different tools, models we use, the shared faith years ago, do not seem to be working today. And so what I see is a lot of churches struggling on. How do I reach my community? How do I communicate to unchurched people today?
Nathan: Yeah, well, let's take that idea and let's run with that for a little bit. So with churches struggling on how to do evangelism, how to do outreach, what are you seeing that's effective in 21st century America today?
Gary: There doesn't seem to be any particular model that is working everywhere today. I think in the past there was enough christian memory among unchurched people that there were certain models that tended to click with everybody. But today there doesn't seem to be a particular model that works everywhere. But what does seem to work, is just simply conversation. If we can just help our people in our churches have normal, everyday conversations with their unchurched family members, friends, neighbors, workers, coworkers. That's a big part of it. Most people come to faith because they hear about Christ from a trusted person. And that trusted person is usually a family member or a friend. And that's the one constant that has been there for years and years and years. And all the research still points this out, that most people come to faith because they hear about Christ from a family member or friend. And so if we could just, as pastoral leaders, if we could just help our people make friends with non churched, unchurched people and have just normal everyday conversations with them, and then in the midst of those conversations, life issues come up and we can share our faith and share our own testimony of trust in Christ within that. That really is the key.
Nathan: That's a good word. And I think what I found effective in training people because evangelism scary. You put yourself out there, you're sharing the most intimate part of yourself with somebody, and if they reject you, it hurts and it can damage potentially your relationship with the person. And let's face it, us Americans, myself included, we like our comfort. Something I have found that is helpful when I'm dealing with people who are not Christians is I'm listening for their struggles. And so I've got a deli I go to all the time. And so I've gotten to know the owners. They recognize my phone number when it comes up, you know, and, and when they have their struggles, I can offer and I say, can I pray for you? And more often than not, people say, sure, you know, and I pray for them, but I pray as a Christian and I pray the gospel within the core of their felt need. And just kind of, it kind of moves the football down the field. Right. It doesn't bring them to Christ that moment, but it, it takes the football down the field a little bit so that we've, we've made a little bit of inroads as far as having gospel conversations.
Gary: Yes, that's a great place to start. And like you say, when you ask people if you can pray for them, even the people who are not believers will say yes. I mean, who's going to turn that down, right?
Nathan: I've only had two people in my entire life that I've offered to pray that said no. And both of them jumped back away from me. They were shocked. They were very averse to Christianity, I guess. But I've only had two people.
Gary: Yeah. Well, I think the reality today is that the best way to speak to people is to build a relationship and trust with them. And then you wait for something to happen in their life because life happens. We all know this. You know, you. Somebody passes away, somebody breaks a leg, somebody has a car wreck, somebody gets fired from their work or whatever. So what I say is, let's train our people to just be a normal, everyday relationship, friendship with non church people, let's care for them, let's build a relationship of trust and then just wait for something to happen. And when something happens in their life, typically they go to people whom they trust. And so if a person gets fired from their job, they may come to their christian friend to talk about it. Or if they, you know, have someone who gets in a major car accident or something, they may look to the person, you know, who is their, their friend. You know, I've had that happen in my own life where, you know, I've had a neighbor pass away. They didn't go to church, you know, so who did they look to to talk to? Who did they look to to even do their funeral service? It was me. You know, I remember coaching soccer with my children when they were little and we had a, one of our players, their father passed away and they had no one. But they knew that, you know, I was a Christian and they came to me and, you know, asked for my help and asked for my. Of the thoughts and things of that nature, you know, so I was able to speak into their life. And so I think that's what it is. You know, we just get involved in life as normal people, build trusting relationships, and then as things happen in people's lives, we're there to speak into their life and to offer our care and our love and our assistance. And, you know, that that goes a long way, like you said, to kind of move that football down the field. It may not at that moment actually result in them coming to faith, but there's, you know, there's lots of conversations in people's lives before they come to faith. And I think this is one of the things that's changed. If you go way back, say, 50, 60, 70 years ago, most people in the US had some sort of Christianity memory. For instance, the baby boom generation, which is now aging out, most baby boomers up to about twelve years old were actually in church. They went to Sunday school. This is years ago. And so they had some sort of christian foundation, christian teaching, I would say a christian memory. And when you talk to them about faith in Christ, they could recall in their minds that old christian memory. What's changed now is that Gen Y. Well, even Gen X, Gen Y, Gen Z, and the upcoming younger alpha generation, most of them are not in Sunday school. They didn't grow up in church, and so they don't have a christian memory that they can draw upon. Now, what this means is that back, I would say, about 1980, 1990, let's say about 30, 40 years ago, the research said that it took about six or seven conversations about the gospel before a person actually came to faith in Christ. Today, it's 20 to 30 conversations.
Nathan: Wow.
Gary: And the difference is that 40 years ago, you could start with somebody and they believed in Goddesse. Today you talk to somebody and they say to you, I don't even believe in God. And so the conversation today has to start further back than it used to. And that means that it takes a lot more conversations with unchurched people to get them to a point where they're ready to believe. So I think of it as links in a chain. Every conversation with an unchurched person, every. Every deed of love and kindness done in the name of Jesus, is a link. You know, there used to be six or seven links in the chain before a person received Christ. Now it's closer to 20 or 30 links in a chain with a true unbeliever. Now, we still have people in the, you know, who will come to Christ faster. But in general, it takes a lot more conversation, a lot more building of the relationship before a person actually comes to faith in Christ.
Nathan: Wow, that's incredible. I've heard that early statistic about these six conversations, but I guess that's just being used and used over and over again. Now that you have, what, three times as many conversations, three times as many deep moments of spiritual connection that needs to happen. Sure, that makes sense, though. That makes sense, especially in a post Christianity society.
Gary: Well, you know, a good example of this is with crew, you know, the campus crusade for Christ from years ago. You know, the four spiritual laws always began. God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. That was the first law going back, you know, years ago. Again, maybe 40 years ago or so on college campuses, when a crew member would ask a student, have you heard of the four spiritual laws? And they would begin with that first law, God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. They could just move forward from there pretty quickly. Now, if they do that, the student will look at them and say, well, I don't even believe in God. So that means they can't even move forward from that particular first law, so to speak. They have to back up and engage the, you know, a more elemental conversation that is, is there a God, you know, and is there a personal God who, you know, has communicated us through the scripture and who loves us and cares about us and wants to be part of our life? I mean, that was almost assumed to be true 40, 50 years ago by about everybody. But in our postmodern world, we can't assume that people even believe in a personal goddess.
Nathan: No, that's true. I was, about ten years ago, I was having lunch with a young woman who was a Christian, and she was dating a guy who was not a Christian, and that was a point of contention in their relationship. And so I was talking with him, and he claimed he had all these arguments against Christianity. And I asked him about them. They were pretty weak, and I answered them pretty well. And so I said, would you want to know more about God? And he said, you know, when you ask me, do you want to know more about goddess? It's like. Like asking me if I would like to learn how to play the piano. No, I'm not really interested. And that just. It shocked me. But it also recalibrated my thinking to just what you said. A lot of people, I don't even believe in God. Do I need a God? Who cares? Would you. Would you like a hamburger for lunch? Would you like kimchi? No, I'm good. It's just one option that they haven't even bothered to consider.
Gary: Right, right. You know, another. I know our podcast is short, so another issue that I think that churches are facing is the whole aspect of welcoming and connecting with people when they do come to church, to the point that people actually stay in the church. We used to refer to this as incorporation or assimilation. You know, how do you connect to. Today? We think of it more as connecting ministries, but a lot of people will come to church, but they don't stay. You know, they come maybe for a Sunday and they leave and never come back. Or maybe they even come a couple times and they don't come back. And I think that's a big issue today, too. You know, we've got the Internet. A lot of churches have online services, which I believe they. They should have. But how do you move those people from being watching online to actually coming to the building? You know, how do you get people who. Who do come and visit you in your physical space? How do you get them to connect and stay and become active participants? In the church using their gifts and abilities and, you know, giving financially to the church. This is a whole new challenge. And I think one of the things you mentioned is related to it, and that is options. There's so many things today that people have on their plate, and there's so many things they could do, and a lot of those things happen on Sunday. So, you know, years ago, we used to think of a regular church attender as somebody who came pretty much every Sunday and to nowadays, if a person comes even once a month, we think they're a regular attender.
Nathan: And you think about that, right? That's the difference between seeing them 52 times versus twelve.
Gary: Yes, yes, absolutely. Or even if they just come, you know, if they come every other week, you know, it's only 20, sometimes a year.
Nathan: It is a challenge, huge challenge.
Gary: Right. And then how do you take a person who comes twice a year, how do you really disciple them? They're not sitting under the preaching of the word every week. They're certainly probably not involved in a small group every week, you know, so the challenge of discipling people who are only there half the time or fourth at a time, how do you do that? And then how do you get them, you know, to begin to use their gifts and their talents and their abilities for Christ? It's difficult. It's a challenge. There's a premium today on the ministry of welcoming and connecting in churches. Unfortunately, as I visit churches, what I find is a lot of churches really have a poor welcoming connecting system in the church. Even with all the books and resources and things that are out there on how to welcome guests to church, I find a lot of churches just really haven't thought through and developed a good system to connect with guests. And, you know, if you don't have a good system, you know, you're just flying by the seat of your pants, so to speak, and just hoping that people connect.
Nathan: So what are some strategies, I know we can't go through everything, but what are some strategies to help a church better connect with visitors?
Gary: I think the first one is you have to look at your church through the eyes of a guest. You know, sometimes as a consultant, what I'll do with the church is I'll maybe take the, the elders or the deacons, the leadership of the church, and, you know, we'll maybe walk about two blocks away from the church and then walk up to the church. And I ask them questions like, okay, you're a first time person. You've never been to this church. You're driving down the street, what's the first thing you see? What do you think? You know? And then we walk to the parking lot, and I say, okay, you're parking your car, you're getting out of your car. What happens? You're walking up to the front door, you know, what is happening with the guests? What are they thinking? What is your church doing to welcome them? You know, they walk through the front doors. What do they see? What do they feel? What do they hear? You know? So I really think it's helpful to, for a church to really try to step back as much as they can and come to church and think of it as what does a first time guest really see and feel as they're coming to our church. And once you've kind of thought that through a bit, then think to yourself, okay, how could I help the guest at each of these places? You know, as they pull in the parking lot, as they park, as they get out of the car, as they walk in the front door, as they look for a seat in the auditorium, you know, how could we make the experience better for them? How could we make it flow better? How could we make it more welcoming and affirming? Thank you. We're glad you're here, sort of thing. I think that's it. You know, start there. And then I think you just, you really have to put together system of welcoming and following up on guests after they leave. And you have to, you have to work that system on a consistent, regular basis week after week after week after week, and, and start tweaking it, you know, where is your system of welcoming and connecting guests? Where is it working? Where is it not working? You know? So I would say that that's two things that, you know, we could talk about, actually specific methodologies or something. But in general, think like a guest, evaluate your church and then develop a system that makes it easier for guests to connect.
Nathan: Excellent. Now that's, that's helpful. And listeners, you'll find some resources@churchgrowthnetwork.com. which we'll put into the show notes if you want to find more information or look at any of Gary's books that talk about this. But Gary, just in closing of this part of our conversation, speak to the Christian who's listening to this that feels overwhelmed. You know, he or she feels like we're in a losing battle. Christianity's done for in America. What hope do we Christians have right now?
Gary: Well, we have a God of hope and a God of resurrection, so there's always hope in Christ. And I think that there are some signs that revival is happening. I think that not every church is growing, not every church is reaching new people for Christ, but some are. And I think the younger generation of pastors that's coming into the churches today are coming in with a new mindset to be more missionally engaged in the community, with people doing not only sharing the gospel verbally, but also by acts of service. And so I think there's a reconnecting of the gospel with the unchurched world today in America. And, you know, I personally have a lot of hope that we're actually going to see some sort of an awakening, I guess you would say, in the next probably ten to 20 years. I think what happened at Asbury College and seminary a few, what, a couple years ago now, I think that's maybe a beginning of what we're seeing with the younger generation, you know, a heart that wants to be closer to God and to really be engaged with people in the community. And I think this is one of the good things that's come out of the struggles that we've had, particularly coming out of the years with the close downs with COVID and things like that, is that we in the church have learned that we've got to connect with the community. And many churches have been disconnected from their community. And so there's just a whole new movement now, I think, of connecting with the community, with community leaders, schools, political leaders, the fire departments, police departments, many different areas in our communities where we can actually build trusting relationships and show the love of Christ in real ways, real tangible ways. And what I'm seeing is this is leading to people coming to faith and coming into churches, and churches beginning to grow again. So I think what we do is we focus on the basics. We focus on prayer. We focus on good teaching of the word of God. We focus on building relationships with people outside of the local church. We build systems that will help us connect with them and disciple them when they come in. And slowly, over time, I think the church grows. It's like eating. You know, we eat three meals a day, and those three meals a day, most of us don't remember, you know, what we had to eat yesterday, right? But having that consistent nutrition, we grow. We're better off as people because we've had consistent nutrition. And I think a church that consistently prays, consistently preaches well, consistently builds relationships, consistently works their systems of welcoming and discipleship. I think over time, it builds the strength of the church. And the church grows slowly in many places. In some places, it sparks and it grows quickly. But I would just encourage the pastors, you know, just continue to be faithful in what you're doing. You know, work smarter, not always harder. So definitely read, definitely learn, definitely continue to grow in your knowledge of how to do ministry that is more effective in building disciples. And God will bless you.
Nathan: Doctor Gary McIntosh thanks for being on the show today.
Gary: Thank you Nathan. Good to be with you. And I look forward to talking again.
Nathan: Okay, so you heard it from Doctor McIntosh. First of all, we need to build relationships, trusting relationships, in order to share the gospel and speak the gospel into the lives of our neighbors and community. We also need to get better at assimilating or welcoming people into our congregations and think about what people see our churches doing as they're coming into our church and how to follow up and be a welcoming church that welcomes them into, invites them into a relationship with Jesus and a relationship with our church. And the encouragement is that revival is coming right now. Focus on faithfulness. Focus on the basics. To find out more about the church Growth network, please visit www.churchgrowthnetwork.com and to explore some of these topics in greater depth. I encourage you to read growing God's church and there's hope for your church and take your church to the next level, all by Doctor Gary McIntosh. There are links to all of this in the show notes the Crosstalk podcast is a production of Crosstalk global, equipping biblical communicators so every culture hears gods voice. To find out more about this educational, nonprofit organization, please visit www.crosstalkglobal.org. you can also support this show by rating it on Apple Podcasts or wherever you find it. Be sure to listen next Friday and discover how you can go deeper in your relationship with God. You wont want to miss it.