Why haven’t some people come back to church?

Lately I’ve been pondering the question of why some people haven’t come back to church. I italicized come back in that last sentence because I think that’s the focal point that needs attention in a variety of ways.

If people aren’t coming back, we should be asking the question — why not?

There’s a few things to consider here. For one thing, church attendance and membership has been in decline for decades — people have been leaving for a long time. Have we been asking why? Have we been open to listening to the answers? Do we really want to hear the answers? Are we willing to do anything about them? Is getting more people in the pew the correct thing? Is that really the goal? What is the goal? What is the purpose of the church? Are we even clear about that?

Secondly, I think when most people talk about people coming back to church, they are referring to people leaving because of the pandemic and not returning in person to their churches, or not returning at all. Again, the question needs to be asked — why not?

More to consider — what has changed for these people? What habits have they created? What trauma have they gone through? How has their lives changed over these last three years?

But we can’t just look at the people, we need to also look at the church as well. Has the church changed? In what way? Are those changes moving closer to the changes of peoples’ lives or further from people’s lives? And who? The existing folks? New folks…