I recently asked my Instagram followers several questions relating to church and the pandemic. All communication and responses were taken privately. I mainly wanted to know how fellow believers felt the last 1.5 years of their Christian life had gone with the absence of Sunday morning gatherings.

A few lived in areas of the world where their churches never did close, and they had mix feelings about that. Some felt the churches didn’t do enough to push back on the restrictions. Others felt excited to get back, because they came to realize how important gathering together truly was for their spiritual growth.

But there were also some who gave up on church because online services were not working for them. Some felt abandoned or forgotten by the people they use to see weekly. And some were so turned off by the politics either way, that they don’t plan to ever return.

First of all, I am incredibly thankful for everyone’s honesty. When I posted these questions, I wasn’t sure anyone would respond at all. These questions are quite personal and I would have completely understood if no one wanted to talk about their thoughts with me.

I recently read a book called ‘Autopsy of a Deceased Church’ by Dr. Thom Rainer. It was a really interesting read and I’d encourage everyone to check it out. It’s written by someone who spent time consulting with churches to figure out why they’re failing, or for lack of better words, dying. What causes a church to die? You may be surprised by what he found.

The most common reasons for church failure was the lack of connection with their local community. They didn’t help them, know them, or truly see their need. They expected the community to come to them, versus the other way around. They didn’t meet their physical needs before meeting their spiritual ones. They were often made up of a group of comfortable Christians who liked to spend time together. Not wrong in itself, but definitely not enough.

I believe there are many purposes for the church – and it’s really common to see a church doing one or two of these things well. I believe the church should be a place where we are challenged and where we can learn from each other. It should be a place where we can be encouraged, sharpened, and strengthened by being around other believers. It needs to be a place where we serve our communities and serve each other. And it needs to be a place where we shine Gods light to those around us and share the good news of Jesus.

The church is not about me. It’s about Him. But it’s also about us. We are meant to be ‘the hands and feet of Jesus’ and to do our part to help this hurting world. That means caring for those both inside and outside of our church. A world full of sin will continually break our hearts. Suffering, sickness, death… it’s not going anywhere until Christs return. And that means the church can’t be perfect until then either. I don’t think perfection matters right now.

We need to do better. I need to do better. Our churches need to be a place where anyone can walk through the doors and feel immediately loved and welcomed. We need to be less cliquey and more open. We need to talk about real, deep, and current problems in our society, even if they’re uncomfortable. We need to be humble and apologetic about where we’ve gone wrong. We need to put aside our pride.

We need more churches that care. No, I mean it. Really care.

When someone looks at your church, what do they see? Take a second to think about that. If you were an outsider looking into your church, would you want to walk through the doors? It’s easy to consider it someone else’s problem and not consider ourselves part of the solution. So today, I’ll be praying about what my family can offer. How can we help. What are our gifts and abilities? How has God equipped us? How can we further shine Gods light in this world and help make our church better.

We can’t sit around and wait for everybody else to do it.