Your Church Is Not For Everyone

by Rev. Mark E. Tidsworth, Founder and Team Leader

We don’t much like to acknowledge this truth, preferring to believe that everyone in our communities would resonate with our churches if they were just able to know us like we do. There’s good intention behind that belief, wanting to be open to all people from all walks of life. Yet with minimal reflection, we can easily understand how not everyone is drawn to the same expression of church.

I remember a seminary class discussion from the late 1980s on this topic. Before theology class started, we students were chatting with professor Dr. William Hendrix, describing the diversity of Baptist churches in Louisville, the home of our seminary. This was during the height of the Southern Baptist Convention conflict, where conservatives and moderates were separating themselves. Several students asked Dr. Hendrix, a professor at this moderate seminary, what he thought of several prominent and very conservative churches in the city who were making religious headlines. Dr. Hendrix responded with an expansive, very generous viewpoint, saying that in God’s providence, there are many expressions of church. He described how the variety of churches, in terms of theology and practice, makes space for more people to engage with the body of Christ. Angry students didn’t much like this answer, but I’ve seen this truth play out over and over again, having worked ecumenically in the Christian movement the last thirty years.

Your church is not for everyone, while it is for someone.

Churches are faith communities formed by scripture, history, tradition, community context, local culture, theology, personalities, and a host of other influences. To describe them as multi-layered is to understate the complexity forming who they are. Given this, there are people in every community who do not resonate with one particular expression of God’s church. At the very same time, those same people are spiritually enlivened when intersecting another church.

Your church is not for everyone, while it is for someone.

When we understand this seemingly obvious truth, moving toward acceptance, we are liberated from unhelpful constraining assumptions, believing we must be all things to all people. When we accept we are not the church for everyone, while we are the church for someone, these three strategies help us move forward.

First, do the work to gain clarity on your identity and mission. Your church will help open doors to God for some in your community. But if you are unsure who you are and what you are about, they are unlikely to resonate with you. A clearly articulated identity, complete with identity markers, allows your church to know itself, embracing who it is. Core commitments that give expression to your identity further clarify who you are, naturally providing guidance for describing your mission. We might suggest you go all in, so to speak, on who you are and what you are called to become and do (mission).

Second, pray for the eyes to see and love to engage those for whom your church will help open doors to God. Again, this isn’t everyone in your community, but it is someone. What if your church began praying for them? Do you think God might partner with you, responding to your prayers by helping you recognize those in your community who need your church? It’s hard to imagine God not wanting these wanderers to find their way to your particular body of Christ. When you recognize them, you are positioned to engage them with Christian hospitality.

Third, prepare to welcome your neighbors. I’ve run into more than a handful of churches since the pandemic who are looking to involve young families with children, while not providing a nursery during worship nor Bible Study classes during the Christian formation hour. Others are completely unorganized when it comes to welcoming new persons, largely because they don’t expect anyone new to be interested in them. It’s amazing really, how organizations who are desperate for numerical growth act like they couldn’t care less about hospitality. I hope that those churches who use the second strategy, praying for the eyes to see others, also find themselves changed by their praying, preparing their church family to welcome their neighbors.

Your church is not the church for everyone, but it is the church for someone… when we have the hearts to love, the eyes to see, and organize ourselves for missional engagement and Christian hospitality.