Right now churches across the country are feverishly preparing for the mother of all church days – Easter Sunday. But despite the best intentions and the most polished productions, history has proven that these efforts will, at best, provide marginal results. In most cases, we’ll never see those visitors again.
So then why do we bother? If we really want to keep visitors coming back, we’ve got to acknowledge a couple of important things:
Visitors are people, too. This may sound trite, but those visitors (or guests, or whatever the hip thing is to call them now) are people. And those people, just like you, are the target of billions of dollars worth of advertising for much more engaging and compelling entertainment than you or your church is going to provide them Sunday morning. In fact…
There are “better” churches. Chances are pretty good that in your city there is a church with better facilities, more talented musicians and singers, bigger production abilities, fancier media…just all around better equipped. Their angels will be suspended from harnesses. Their singers have been on “Idol”. By comparison your attempts to compete will look, well, totally and completely lame.
The bottom line is really this:
You can’t produce it. Seth Godin just posted on his blog about the “four horsemen” of media, with the hottest and most powerful being “tiny media” when bloggers and tweeters talk to others about you. He says:
“There are some that [think] you ought to be able to buy this sort of buzz…Of course, it doesn’t work that way. Buying your way into the fourth horseman doesn’t work. Professionalizing it doesn’t work so well either. What works is making something worth talking about.”
Your music may not be worth talking about. Your drama might not be worth talking about. Your production values might not be worth talking about…or better put in our case, responding to. So what’s the key? How do we make something this Sunday worth talking about?
There is only one thing that will always, without fail, make people talk and respond:
We must have the power and the demonstration of the Holy Ghost. It’s not enough to sing about it, talk about it, dramatize it, recite it, print it, film it, or produce it. Paul said, “nothing I said could have impressed you” but the “demonstration of the Spirit and of power.” (1 Cor 2:4 MSG) What a letdown to invite someone to hear about the “greatest story ever told” and never allow them to experience it. Not just in an audio-visual-sensory experience kind of way, but in a God’s Spirit working inside of you kind of way.
The story of Easter is interactive. Man is separated from God by sin. God wraps Himself in flesh to pay the price for our sins so we won’t be separated. The Spirit of God is then no longer confined to a single room in a tabernacle, but chooses instead to dwell in man. Not just on the pages of a book, but today. Now. In you.
God can literally be felt and experienced.
Without the Holy Ghost at work in your church, you can bet those Easter visitors won’t be back.
I was five years old when I first attended my church. Today, 28 years later, I’m still there. Why? Not because of any production values — there were none. But that church, after all these years, is still one of the unique places where you can walk in and know that someone has been with Jesus. Know that the Holy Ghost is real and at work and (buzz word alert) relevant.
I’m still convinced today that if people can walk into a church, regardless of size, facilities, talent, or equipment, and see, feel, hear, and know that the Holy Ghost is at work that they will be talking, and returning, week after week. So put down the paintbrush, come down from the ladder for a few minutes, and pray that God will show up this Sunday. He always draws a crowd.
