In earlier posts on this blog we’ve made the case that the American Church has basically been treading water for at least the last 16 years. Exhibit “A” is the research by David Olson indicating that the number of people who actually attend church has not changed since 1990. The result has been that despite a net gain of 8000 new churches at the end of the day we’ve just been moving Christians around. I know it’s more complicated than that and I know that there are some churches that are actually connecting effectively with lost people. But from a big picture perspective we are doing a very poor job collectively of being on mission with Jesus. And as I’ve been advocating on this blog, we need to change the way we are doing things or we are doomed to repeat the tepid performance of the past.

In the series of blogs we did on “Measuring Missional Movement” we concluded that one thing we can do to get off center is to measure our progress differently. We proposed that some new measuring tools might be things like how many relationships do we have with lost people, how many conversations are we having with them, how may prayer pauses are we taking to engage in spiritual warfare on their behalf…etc. In the last MMM post, we suggested that in the past the bulk our energy and church infrastructure has been directed toward transferring information to Christians with very little exertion made toward people who are far from God. We postulated that part of the problem has been that all of our discipleship strategies start with the assumption that a person is already a believer when they begin the discipleship journey. As a result, most churches and individuals have no intentional plans to build relationships with, have conversations with or pray for lost people. We suggested that if we want to see people come to faith in Christ we need to spend a lot our energy with pre-Christian people. We postulated that perhaps the bulk of our time as followers of Christ should be spent among the “unconvinced” so that out of the fertile seed bed of Spirit led relationship an ever increasing throng of Christ followers might emerge.

The question then becomes, where do we find pre-Christian people to spend time with? And how do we spend that time? The focus of this post will be the possible pools where we can “fish” for relational connections. Let me suggest several pools for us to consider.

1. Prodigals- When we call someone lost in America, the truth is that they are not necessarily “lost” in the truest sense of the word. I think it is safe to say that most Americans have had some contact with “church” and the “gospel message.” It is rare to find someone in America who has never been to a Christian church or never heard a presentation of the gospel. Even very secular programs like Saturday Night Live and Seinfeld (among others) make passing (and usually sarcastic) references to concepts that would be familiar to people who have had some contact with Christian ideas. My guess is that a vast majority of the people we commonly refer to as “lost” might be better described as “turned off” or “running away” or “disappointed” or “disillusioned.” They are modern day “prodigals.” Dary Northrop, pastor of Timberline Church in Fort Collins, Colorado has configured Timberline to be a bridge to these very types of people. He has developed an outstanding approach to retro-fitting an existing church to be laser focused on reaching prodigals. Take a moment to watch his interview with Dr. Wood here. I think it has tremendous application for start-up churches as well. The practical application is that we start building relationships with people with the knowledge that the majority already have some knowledge of the Christian message (usually skewed) and our job is to help them see what it looks like for someone to manifest the authentic character of Christ in everyday living. So “prodigals” are everywhere we go and we need to learn how to have redemptive relationships and transforming conversations with them.

2. Existing social networks- People are social by nature. Some more than others, but most people are connected to other people through some type of common interest. The most common is the workplace. Hobby groups are another. Community service organizations are another. The list goes on. Too often, we try to artificially create social networks to replace existing ones. For example, a Christian mountain bike group. We start one and then try to lure people into it with the idea that in order to share the gospel with them we need to have them on our “turf.” Why not join an existing mountain bike group and bring the presence of Christ into the mix of what is already taking place? This is exactly what John and Stephanie Van Pay did when they started Gateway Fellowship Church in Helotes, Texas. Check out their interview with Dr. Wood here.

So what are some other ways we can connect with people who are far from God? I’d love to hear your thoughts, concerns, questions and examples of how you are being the church everywhere you go!