Sermon Illustrations on church attendance
Background
Why People Don’t Go to Church
Rick Warren, perhaps the most famous missional code breaker, surveyed his community and found why people in his community did not go to church. He found that there were four primary complaints about church:
Church is boring, especially the sermons. The messages don’t relate to my life.
Church members are unfriendly to visitors. If I go to church, I want to feel welcomed without being embarrassed.
The church is more interested in my money than it is in me.
We worry about the quality of our church’s childcare.
Stories
Jonathan Swift’s Exhortation for Two
While primarily known today as the author of Gulliver’s Travels, Jonathan Swift also served as an Anglican priest in his home country of Ireland. While his writing gained significant traction throughout Britain, his ministry was not quite so successful.
While serving a small parish in Laracor, Ireland in 1709, the author and clergyman regularly drew less than a dozen souls to Sunday worship. His prayer meetings were even less well received, where he could only depend on a “congregation of one,” his clerk and bell-ringer Roger Cox. Apparently, it was recorded at the beginning of one of these meetings, “Dearly beloved Roger, the Scripture moveth you and me in sundry places …’
Stuart Strachan Jr., Source Material from Hesketh Pearson, Lives of the Wits, 1962
The Pastor’s Visit
The story is told of a man who had gone to church for several years but suddenly stopped attending. His pastor dropped by one evening unannounced. The man answered the door and invited him in. Of course, he knew why his pastor was there.
They went and sat in two chairs in front of a roaring fire. Neither man said anything. After a few minutes, the pastor picked up the fire tongs, took one of the logs out of the fire, and laid it on the hearth. The flames died down and flickered a few times before going out. They watched in silence as the log started to grow cold.
After a while, the pastor once again picked up the fire tongs and put the smoldering log back with the other burning logs. It immediately burst back into flame.
The pastor got up and said, “Well, I need to go now. But I’ve enjoyed our visit.”
The man rose too and said, “I appreciate your message, pastor. I will be in church on Sunday.”
Source Unknown
Studies
Why People Don’t Go to Church
Rick Warren, perhaps the most famous missional code breaker, surveyed his community and found why people in his community did not go to church. He found that there were four primary complaints about church:
Church is boring, especially the sermons. The messages don’t relate to my life.
Church members are unfriendly to visitors. If I go to church, I want to feel welcomed without being embarrassed.
The church is more interested in my money than it is in me.
We worry about the quality of our church’s childcare.
Analogies
The Pastor’s Visit
The story is told of a man who had gone to church for several years but suddenly stopped attending. His pastor dropped by one evening unannounced. The man answered the door and invited him in. Of course, he knew why his pastor was there.
They went and sat in two chairs in front of a roaring fire. Neither man said anything. After a few minutes, the pastor picked up the fire tongs, took one of the logs out of the fire, and laid it on the hearth. The flames died down and flickered a few times before going out. They watched in silence as the log started to grow cold.
After a while, the pastor once again picked up the fire tongs and put the smoldering log back with the other burning logs. It immediately burst back into flame.
The pastor got up and said, “Well, I need to go now. But I’ve enjoyed our visit.”
The man rose too and said, “I appreciate your message, pastor. I will be in church on Sunday.”
Source Unknown
Humor
Bat Infestation
Three pastors got together for coffee one day and found all their churches had bat-infestation problems.
“I got so mad,” said one, “I took a shotgun and fired at them. It made holes in the ceiling, but did nothing to the bats.”
“I tried trapping them alive,” said the second. “Then I drove 50 miles before releasing them, but they beat me back to the church.”
“I haven’t had any more problems,” said the third.
“What did you do?” asked the others, amazed.
“I simply baptized and confirmed them,” he replied. “I haven’t seen them since.”
Reader’s Digest, July, 1994, p. 64.
The Church Split Over… What, Precisely?
Presbyterian minister Michael Lindvall begins his fictional story about a pastor in the Midwest in The Good News from North Haven like this:
I am the pastor of Second Presbyterian Church. There is no first Presbyterian Church in town and there hasn’t been for years. More than a century ago, the newly founded First – and then only – Presbyterian Church enjoyed a fine church fight. Folks still tell the story of the Sunday in June when half the congregation walked out during the sermon and founded Second Presbyterian.
All memories agree as to what the fight was about: whether young women ought to lead discussions at Christian Endeavor meetings or keep a low profile and ask questions when they got home, as St. Paul seems to have counseled. What memories do not agree on is who was on what side. Some people now say that the Second Presbyterian group that left was in favor of women speaking at meetings, some say they were against it. Whatever the truth, everyone agrees that Second Presbyterian Church was squarely established on the firm foundation of an important principle, even if no one is quite sure what that principle was.
First Church’s building burned to the ground a few years after the split, and most folks assumed that this was a sign…Most First Church folks switched over to Second Church after the fire. But a handful of stalwarts refused to yield on a matter of Presbyterian principle and became Methodists.
Michael L. Lindvall, The Good News from North Haven, pp. 2-3. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991.
Jonathan Swift’s Exhortation for Two
While primarily known today as the author of Gulliver’s Travels, Jonathan Swift also served as an Anglican priest in his home country of Ireland. While his writing gained significant traction throughout Britain, his ministry was not quite so successful.
While serving a small parish in Laracor, Ireland in 1709, the author and clergyman regularly drew less than a dozen souls to Sunday worship. His prayer meetings were even less well received, where he could only depend on a “congregation of one,” his clerk and bell-ringer Roger Cox. Apparently, it was recorded at the beginning of one of these meetings, “Dearly beloved Roger, the Scripture moveth you and me in sundry places …’
Stuart Strachan Jr., Source Material from Hesketh Pearson, Lives of the Wits, 1962
Not Going to Church
As was the normal routine on a Sunday morning, a wife got ready for church. She got up, had breakfast, showered, got dressed, put on makeup and was ready to go. It was just as she was ready to leave that she noticed her husband was still in his robe and pajamas. She asks him what’s going on, “I’m not going to church” he says. “What do you mean, you’re not going to church?” Give me one good reason why you’re not going to church?“
The husband responds, “I’ll give you three good reasons why I’m not going to church. Reason number one, the church feels cold. Reason number two, no one likes me. And reason number three, I just don’t like it there. Is that good enough?” he concluded quite proudly.
“Well, what if I give you three reasons why you should go to church.” the wife answered. “Reason number one, the church is actually quite warm and friendly. Reason number two, there’s a few people there who like you. And reason number three, you’re the pastor sweetheart, so you better get dressed and get to church.”
Original Source Unknown, Stuart Strachan Jr.
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