ATLANTA — Even in the Bible Belt, fewer than half the people go to church. In Seattle, it’s less than 10 percent.
And “what do the unchurched people think of us?” asked Scott Dudley, senior pastor of First Church in Bellevue, a Seattle suburb. “They don’t. They don’t think of us at all.”
Dudley said research has shown 7 of 10 Americans think of church as irrelevant. “And some of them go to church.”
Dudley spoke August 18 to the Presbyterian Global Fellowship about what Christians can do to evangelize in their own communities — basically, how to reach the unchurched. A while back, he said, a college student doing research on “unusual professions” came to spend some time following him around — to her, being a pastor seemed to qualify as a truly odd job.
“She had never been to a church before in her life,” he said, “and everything we did appeared foreign and alien to her.”
She wondered, for example, why there was so much singing in worship, and why male pastors sometimes wear gowns that look like dresses.
“In such a world,” Dudley asked, “how do we get people to know Jesus?”
The answer, he’s convinced, lies in dropping the expectation that people will just show up if the church offers enough good programs, and realizing that the church needs to go out to be with the people.
That’s what Jesus said — “Go into the world and make disciples of all nations,” Dudley pointed out. “He said, `Go, go all of you.’ You see, Jesus did not call the world to go to church. He called the church to go to the world … so people can know there’s a God out there who would rather die than lose them.”
And it doesn’t work to go preach to people or to argue with them, Dudley said. Post-modern people — well schooled in advertising and spin — are suspicious of mere words. “We have to give them an experience of Jesus,” the Jesus who served people, he said. “Evangelism is doing those things that provoke the question the answer to which can only be Jesus.”
Dudley also offered practical suggestions for doing that — as he phrased it, “How do we put feet on this great theology?”
His ideas:
Change the address of the church. Don’t stay in one spot. Go out to demonstrate faith in the neighborhoods, the workplace, the schools.
Some Christians gather with other believers where they work to pray for their co-workers. One manager sets aside time every week for employees to come talk about their concerns — he offers to pray for them. Dudley suggested other ideas. Take a meal to a neighbor — “just because.” Instead of using e-mail, talk to someone face-to-face. Thank them for what they’ve done.
Intentionally serve your community. “We are called to bless the city that we’re part of,” Dudley said — so go to the mayor or city manager or school principal and ask, “What are the crying needs in our community and how can we help?”
His church is partnering with a nearby public elementary school that draws many students from low-income families. Volunteers from the church tutor students, call children in the morning to wake them up if their parents have to work, turned out for a workday at the school.
The PTA president cried for joy that day, saying, “that so many people from your church would come to help — it’s a miracle,” Dudley recalled.
And volunteers from the church said, “This is the best church experience I’ve ever had.”
Change what churches measure. Because “what we measure gets done,” Dudley said. Count adult baptisms — people newly brought to faith. Find ways to measure the impact of work being done in the community.
Give people a taste of mission work. Think “easy, one-time service with low commitment,” Dudley said.
His church agreed to help renovate a home for New Orleans residents who relocated after Hurricane Katrina. High school students took turns knocking down a wall with sledgehammers. “That is sophomore-boy heaven,” Dudley said. They liked it. Probably they’ll come back.
Add additional components to existing church programs. The internal work of a church does have value — it can keep people strong, Dudley said. So he argues for this: “Internally strong, externally focused.”
At his church, Sunday school children spend time each month writing letters to shut-ins or baking cookies for prisoners. Women from a Bible study cook breakfast for a group of at-risk high school students, then eat with the teenagers.
A recent capital campaign was expanded to support two additional construction programs — one for a center to help children in Rwanda, another center to serve urban children close to home. Dudley called such outreach programs “ripples for Jesus” and said that while they added substantially to the cost of the capital campaign (consultants said it would be too expensive and couldn’t be done) they also added enthusiasm to what might have been a ho-hum project.
“We exceeded our goal,” he said, “because people were so excited about being part of something big.”
Empower people to find new ways to work in ministry. Dudley said his church has volunteers whose job it is to connect people up with opportunities, and help them jump-start their own ideas. One woman created a tutoring program. A group of men became the “Auto Angels,” holding clinics twice a month to provide free car repairs for low-income families.
“They don’t know that their hobbies and passions can be used to build God’s kingdom,” Dudley said. And telling these kinds of stories to the congregation inspires others, creating “holy jealous because it sounds like fun.”
Invite people to join in. “Remember always to invite people into an adventure rather than guilt them into duty,” Dudley said. “I think people in our churches are just dying for this,” to feel there’s something more to life.
“When we get out of the pews and into the world, we change the world and people’s perception of Jesus,” he said. And we are changed as well.
“God doesn’t use us to get mission done,” Dudley said. “He uses mission to get us done.”
