Tips to Make Church More Attractive

An attractive church means a church that members love to attend church meetings and activities. It also means members would invite other family members and friends to attend the church he/she is attracted. This is a result of a church that is healthy, vibrant and growing or attractive in short.

An attractive church is certainly not a church that is stagnant or dying but a lively and growing church. Growing and attractive are indeed two names of the same church attribute. Both have the same distinct characteristics. And when we look at them closely, we can learn of the secret behind. We may apply them to make our church attractive and grow.

When we make a quick survey of some of the healthy churches in USA and around the world, we see they all have some common traits that make their church attractive. They may be stated in brief as tips below:

Tip number one

This is not only the first tip in priority but it is also the most important factor to have an attractive church. For all churches around the world I have studied and experienced regardless of the denomination, the primary catalytic factor for their attractiveness is the pastor. Look at the Yoido Full Gospel Church in Korea that attracts about one million members, Pastor Cho is certainly a thinker, dynamic and command a high degree of love and esteem for their leader.

I have also observed church life in Baptist, Presbyterians and Pentecostal. I have seen it in large church (about 10,000 members in Thailand) and small church, Burmese, Chinese, International churches. The pattern of an attractive church is pastor who is well loved through living relationships with the people.

Tip number two

Dr. Rick Warren, senior pastor of Saddleback Valley Community Church in Orange County, tells of his life experience of an attractive church in his landmark book "The Purpose Driven Church" that such a church is driven with a purpose. Life is a purposeful life and it would be dull if we attend a church without a purpose. How boring would it be if we have to go through the same rutted church life day in day out.

It may be true that every church is driven by something of tradition, finance, programs, events, and even building. But Rick Warren believes that in order for a church to be healthy, it must become a purpose - driven church build around the five New Testament purposes given to the church by Jesus. And Jesus told us the five are:

- Warmer through fellowship.

- Deeper through discipleship

- Stronger through worship

- Broader through ministry

- And Larger through evangelism.

Tip number three

For a church to be attractive, it must motivate and involve all members in any of the five church purposes in tip number two. Pastor of attractive churches, whether they be large or small, know how to motivate their members to be active and productive and guide them into meaningful avenues of Christians services.

Motivation should be done from church leaders and spread to every one in the church. Pastor Cho managed to have some of his church members to spare 15-20 minutes a day helping mothers carrying things with babies and the seniors getting in and out of the high rise lifts and witness Christ to them.

Tip number four

Dr. Donald McGavran, in his classical text "Understanding Church Growth", indicates that people like to become Christians without crossing racial, social, linguistic and class barrier. The term "homogeneous unit" is coined to mean a group of people who consider each other to be "our kind of people". They have many areas of mutual interest. They share the same culture. They socialize freely. When they are together they are comfortable and they all feel at home.

The church should encourage members into different homogeneous units. They may be units of sex, age, race, occupation, hobbies and so on.

Tip number five

Dr. C. Peter Wagner has been a professor at the Fuller Theological Seminary School of World Mission since 1971 and wrote more than a dozen of books in church growth. He has studied, analyzed, and diagnosed churches for more than 20 years and concluded that one of the major character of an attractive church is the way how they worship.

People can worship God beside a babbling brook in a forest or in his car on a freeway or with his family around the dinner table. But Wagner considers that to attract members to worship, the church should do it in three different levels of celebration, congregational and cell worships.

By celebration, he means Sunday worship when a lot of people come together to experience a special kind of worship. Size has something to do with the quality of a celebration as a game played before seventy-five thousand spectators makes it superior to the same game before a mere five hundred.

However, a good celebration alone does not make for an attractive church. It must also be balanced with congregational and cell worships. Both are medium and small groups worship. Worship is closely related with eye contact of personal fellowship with each other.

Personally, I have experienced the warmth and attractiveness of churches with these characteristics. I am positive that the five tips will work well in your church to become an attractive church.