Amy Thompson Sevimli: A (radical?) proposal -- ask people why they don’t come to church

I’d like to say a word in favor of speaking to people. And not just to anyone, but I’d like those of us who are part of the church to speak to those who aren’t. Further, I’d like to suggest that we first listen, then speak.

I realize this doesn’t sound controversial.  We may want to do this, but there is a gap between the wanting and the doing. And if we ever get to it, the actual doing often involves very little listening.

As a pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, I count myself convicted. For years, my outreach to those unconnected to the church was through evangelism committee meetings centered on flyers, direct mail, and improvements to things around the church.  I did plan a congregational event to which the neighborhood would be invited. None of this is bad. But I was so focused on people inside the walls that I never engaged any new people outside of them.

Then I started a new call, which centered directly on connecting with the demographic most unconnected to the church: young adults. How on earth would I connect with this notoriously unconnected group of people?

I wish I kept a better journal, so that I could remember what prompted me to try something so out of character. It must have been the Holy Spirit. I told anyone who would listen what I was doing. And I asked for names and email addresses of young adults who don’t attend church. To my surprise, mostly baby boomers funneled me names and email addresses of young adults who lived in DC and didn’t go to church. I know that many of them hoped that I would speak to these “wayward young adults” and convince them to go back to church. I was more interested in what these young adults could teach me. I figured the only way the church could learn what was keeping them away was to ask. So, I did.

To my utter astonishment, they answered. Over coffee, dinner or beer, they shared their opinions about the church, what kept them out of it, and the ways they still practiced their spirituality without the church. Some of them asked me about my faith. A good number of them re-connected with a congregation afterwards.

Stunned by my own success at evangelism through dialogue, something I had no idea how to do, I have told people all around my church that one of the best ways to connect with young adults is to talk to them. Websites, Facebook, and Twitter are all necessary tools, but nothing can compare with a face-to-face connection.

But the surprises never stop. Though I have made this suggestion to hundreds of lay people and more than one hundred pastors, only one person has ever reported doing this. Naively I thought that church leaders, who often pine for a human addition to individualized technological devices, would welcome a relationship-based recommendation. Alas, I was wrong. Perhaps I am not an effective communicator. But I fear that the problem is bigger. When I look around the church, especially the mainline church, it seems that most leaders prefer a program, a flyer, a demographic study, or a direct mail initiative to dialogue. Yet people long for community. We long for someone to care about our opinions and spiritual experiences. We long for someone finally to listen to why we are so frustrated with the church. We long for a relationship. We long for God.

I’m reflecting on how I could improve my communication skills or re-think my strategy for promoting evangelism through dialogue. In the meantime, I hold onto the way a colleague has enhanced a phrase commonly associated with St. Francis: “Preach the gospel at all times; use words when necessary. It’s time to start using words.” We need words, conversation, dialogue. Not direct mail.