the front door

There is something about a front door that is either scary, bland or welcoming. There is a big beautiful house a couple of blocks from here that someone spent close to three hundred thousands dollars on, and then they painted their front door lavender.

It makes an impression.

There are churches out there that spend 70-85% of their resources - time, money, staff - on their front doors. For some churches their front door is how they get people into the building on the weekends. It's the first impression. It's the show.

The front door is listening to music with hundreds or even thousands of other people. It's listening to a talk from someone you'll probably never have a conversation with. It's an interesting/funny/poignant video/drama/song that might stir the emotions...and then what?

Well then you have next steps. There are small groups/ministries/classes/serving roles. There are ways to go deeper with your relationship with God.

If you want to...

That might be the secret. We know that many people aren't that interested in that - or at least aren't making the effort - they're just showing up at church. They're consumers. They're checking the box. "I went to church today" (check) Life moves on...

So to "connect" with people - we put incredible effort into the front door. It's too difficult to move them towards next steps. It's pretty easy to work towards a bigger or better show. If we pour more time and energy into the front door, we'll get more and more people. More = better, right?

So you can tell our "ministry" flourishing because it's growing. We're giving the people what they want - a big pretty front door...

Maybe it's time the American church started working on the hallway?