When Your Visitors Do Not Return to Your Church

When my brother and his wife lived in Japan, there was one doctrinally sound English-speaking church in their city for them to attend. That made their decision pretty easy. This is not true with the American church. Even when believers narrow their choices of a church using criteria like doctrinal soundness, expositional preaching, and evangelistic concern, they are still left with enough options that other criteria factor into their decision. Their choice of musical preference can become a factor. Whether a church is large enough to have a youth pastor can become a factor. The quality or size of the church facilities can become a factor. The pastor’s personality can become a factor. One believer told me that she likes her church because the pastor doesn’t preach from notes and preaches while he walks around the front of the auditorium. This seemed to be said as a preference against pastors who preach from notes and remain behind the pulpit. Given several choices of good churches to attend, second and third-level criteria will often factor into a believer’s choice of a church. While the church I serve wants to do its ministry the best it can for God’s glory, we are not concerned about the things that people want that we just can’t do, or, for philosophical reasons, won’t become.

>>Even when believers narrow their choices of a church using criteria like doctrinal soundness, expositional preaching, and evangelistic concern, they are still left with enough options that other criteria factor into their decision.<<

Absolutely. When my wife and I visited churches in our area to consider as a church home, we visited something like 14 churches. A few of them were just a little too far away, while still being within reason if that church was the absolute best choice. The services ranged from very traditional to very modern and a fair amount in-between. I was a little uncomfortable with those at the cutting edge of modern, but I can say we didn’t get a bad message or a bad impression from any of the churches we visited that they were unbiblical given how seriously they all seemed to take worship, even if they didn’t do it exactly as my wife or I would have.

Of course, I was pretty careful in selecting the churches we visited, so I was able to reduce the chances of getting a heretical message or really bad doctrine (at least on the obvious big doctrinal points). That left other factors as a large part of our choice. It wasn’t a “slam” on any church we didn’t re-visit, just that it wasn’t the best fit for us (kind of like the author talked about in one of his points, although he was considering whether the visitors were the best fit for his church). One of the main things we considered was how we would be able to fit in and start serving, rather than just being a passive participant.

I feel blessed that we had that much choice, but it also made the choice much more difficult than finding the only doctrinally solid church in the area and joining that one. Pastors should understand that people are different, and look for different things, so it shouldn’t be immediately discouraging (or even humbling) to them when visitors don’t return, especially when the church is doing things biblically, even if different from other churches in the area. Introspection is a good thing, but it can definitely be carried too far.

When visitors don't return to your church, perhaps it can be a blessing in disguise?

If your congregation is friendly and welcoming to visitors, but they choose to move on, I wouldn't sweat it.

Having pastored now for over fifty years, I learned a long time ago that worrying about why visitors did not return is pointless. There can be a hundred reasons, and there's no way for any church to appeal to everybody. Some will think you are too contemporary whereas others too traditional. Some are looking for expository preaching, but others prefer topical, and on it goes. Although we would love to have every visitor conclude that our church is exactly what they are looking for, that is unrealistic. We are committed to being as true to Scripture as possible, and let God lead the ones He wants to us. This hasn't made us huge, but it has, by God's goodness, given us steady growth. But even if we do not grow as we wish, having God's approval, not man's, is what counts at the last day.