In today’s episode, we unpack the reasons why most churches in the United States are not growing.

To put it plainly, if your church isn’t growing, you have either a front door or a back door problem.

Knowing which one you are facing is the first step in changing the tide.

Join us as we discuss some of the action steps your church can take to reach more people and grow.

Front Door Problem – Your number of local visitors annually is less than your average weekly attendance. 

Easy Wins:

• Look at your website Calls To Actions
• Use the Google Grant
• Ask People to Review You Online

Back Door Problem – Fewer than 10% of your visitors are assimilated into the church’s life. 

Easy Wins:

• Consider Pre-registering Visitors
• Build an Email Sequence
• Give Visitors One Clear Onramp

Thomas Costello –  00:00:00    In today’s episode, we unpack the reasons why most churches in the United States are not growing to put it plainly. If your church isn’t growing, you either have a front door or a back door problem. Knowing which one you are facing is the first step in changing the tide. Join us as we discuss some of the action steps your church can take to reach more people.  

You’re listening to the reach, right podcast, the show dedicated to helping pastors and church leaders reach people the right way, hosted by me, Thomas Costello, and with me as always is my cohost Ian Hyatt. We’re here to help your church see more visitors and grow. Hey guys,  

Thomas Costello –  00:00:58    Welcome to the REACHRIGHT podcast. Episode number 17. I am your host Thomas Costello as always. My cohost is with me today and he is in Hyatt. Hello, Thomas, and hello, our audience. Hey, Hey, and Hey audience. Welcome you guys. We’ve got a good conversation. We’re going to be having today.  here’s the topic it is. Does your church have a front door problem or a backdoor problem?  our belief is that almost all churches probably have one or the other, or you have room for improvement or in one of the other.  and I think it’s a really important conversation for us to have, and we want to give some churches some solutions on how they can do some quick wins if they have a front door or a back door problem. Um, let’s,  let’s start by guests by defining that a little bit.  

Thomas Costello –  00:01:46    What, what do you think,  what is a front door problem? What do we mean by when we, when we say that getting people into the church doors, or if you’re not meeting in this lovely pandemic season, getting them engaged online and first time visitors attracting first time visitors in some form. Yeah, that’s exactly right. And we have some technical details on how we’ll define that and how you can measure if you have a front door problem and a backdoor problem. But yeah, so that’s, that’s a front door is that you just can’t get people to show up or enough people. And if you don’t get people showing up, there’s no way to grow your church. It just doesn’t happen if new people don’t come. That was one of the most profound things. I remember when I was in a church planters intensive,  the guy got up there on the stage and like he basically, his whole point was, if you don’t see visitors, your church won’t grow.  

Thomas Costello –  00:02:38    And it was, it was so profound to me and it’s like, well, that makes so much sense. But like nobody really said it so plainly before. So it literally, it had an impact on me and changed the way we planted a church. I think when I heard that. So, um, backdoor as much like it is,  it’s you have a problem, not so much with getting people there, but you have a problem with keeping them around.  so,  that people don’t stick, they don’t get assimilated into the life of the church. They don’t go from a visitor into a fully committed member within the church. And a lot of churches have that issue too. Um, which would you say is more, if you had to guess this is, I don’t have data on this cause it’s a arbitrary to some people, but what would you just say is a more common problem for churches  

Ian Hyatt –     00:03:18    And, you know, that’s a good question. I would think what I hear more of on, on the front lines of serving as many churches as we have over the years. Um, I think it’s reaching more visitors, um, you know, that comes to mind, but I, but I also think that more churches while they, they don’t have the backdoor problem as much because they’re not reaching as many first time sinners, but they would have it equally. I think so.  

Thomas Costello –  00:03:42    Yeah. I really, you can’t have a backdoor problem if there’s nobody coming in the front door because they have to get into the door somehow first. So if they’re not inside, it’s tough to measure that. But yeah, I would say too, that most of the churches that we meet are struggling to see people walk in their doors or watch them online or connects to the first time with the church.  and, um, but I think both problems are really a challenge for churches. So, um, and here’s, here’s why we know this. Let’s see, I guess we’ll share a few stats with people about why we know this is an issue now you and I have been in this industry. And I know that for a long time, I, at least I said this, maybe you did too, that we used to say the numbers were off the charts, like 80 to 90% of churches are either a stagnant or declining in attendance. Maybe our audience has heard that to let us know in the comments, if you’ve, if you’ve heard that kind of thinking, um, I can’t seem to find a source that verifies that. And most of the current sources, they put that number at about 60 to 65%. So,  here’s the encouraging. Yeah, I guess so at least 65% of us are stagnant or declining, so that’s good, but  

Ian Hyatt –     00:04:52    Quite encouraging, but better than 85 to 90% or so.  

Thomas Costello –  00:04:55    That’s exactly right. Yeah. So Tom Rayner, he’s over at church answers, they found it with a study of a thousand Southern Baptist churches,  that 65% of them are plateaued or declining.  according to Lifeway research, they say it’s about 61% of churches are stagnant or declining. So great news. That’s that’s that’s that’s no, but really. So the go ahead. I’m sorry.  

Ian Hyatt –     00:05:18    Well, I was just gonna say even, you know, everyone’s up, up and for more depressing news in 2020, so yeah. Let’s just give him some more  

Thomas Costello –  00:05:24    Exactly it. Yeah. I think it is,  telling that we have been in this pattern for a long time, and this is, we used to share these stats a Dover a decade ago, but I’d say for the last 20 years or so, it’s been obvious that more churches than not are in some kind of a stagnation or decline. And I think that,  really in, in our view, there are really only two reasons for that. And you can boil all those reasons down to these two things is that your church either has a front door problem or your church has backdoor problem. So either you’re not seeing enough visitors or those visitors that you’re seeing, you’re unable to keep them sticking. And there are all kinds of reasons for this. And so what we want to do today is unpack some of those reasons. But,  first I guess I want to, I want to tackle some of the metrics that we would recommend churches use to assess whether or not they have a front door or a back door problem, or if they have both.  

Thomas Costello –  00:06:22     so for the front door, here’s the one that I use and I...