3 Spiritual Barometers Your Visitors Are Using This Christmas

I once met a young lady who told me she didn’t like God or church. When she was younger she attended the youth group at her parent’s church. Like a lot of teenages, she struggled to feel like she fit in. One evening, after a youth service, she go into it with another girl. In response to the conflict, the other girl spit in her face. That was the last time she attended church. After that night, she painted church, faith and God with the same brush.

It seems sort of irrational to walk away from faith entirely because of one bad interaction with a peer, but it’s the kind of thing that happens all the time.  Those are the people that typically become the biggest skeptics of faith.

While away from church, a lot of people classify themselves as agnostics. They believe there is a God, but He’s probably not the one from the bible. They feel like organized religion is too rigid, so they form their own religious beliefs.

Eventually, those same people are likely to return to church. Only when they come back, they bring their skepticism and personal spiritual beliefs with them.

As a servant to those very people, you have to be aware of the fact that when people walk through the door of your church to attend a service, they're not there to see if it's all true. They want to know if it'll change their lives for the better. You may have excellent theology, but most people are less concerned with your doctrine, and more concerned about whether they’ll find a sense of hope at your church.

As people visit your church for Christmas Eve, these are things many of them use as spiritual barometers. While none of these things are as weighty or valuable as the content of the Bible, these are the things that are speaking to your guests.

Feel of the environment. If the environment (i.e. music, decor, preaching, etc.) drums up childhood memories of church, that simply serves to reaffirm a lot of people’s suspicions that church is what they thought, and they’re better off continuing their spiritual pursuit in isolation. If, on the other hand, they walk in and the environment feels different, then that might be a reason to come back. Do services at your church feel safe and authentic?

Relevance of the content. Most people don’t believe that the Bible is completely without error. Despite the fact that it’s God’s spoken truth, most people don’t really know what to think of it. The general feeling is it’s a good book with a lot of good insight, but not everything it claims to be. The important thing to remember is that the typical guest isn’t there to find out if the Bible is true. They want to know if the content can benefit their lives.

Lots of churches get bashed for doing ultra practical, seeker sensitive sermon series. Certainly the church that shys away from the gospel to make newcomers comfortable is doing everyone a disservice. But don’t underestimate the practical sermon series. For a lot of people, those series will become a foothold for the gospel.  

Divination through children. Parents view their kids as the most valuable part of their lives. For that reason, it’s natural for many parents to view their kids as barometer to measure God’s presence. A while back, I spoke to a father who summed up the perspective really well when he said, “I brought my family to church, and my kids had a great time. That seemed like a sign from God to me.”

What's your children's ministry like? Is it babysitting for your congregant's children, or is it so much fun that they can't wait to come back? Either way, you can rest assured that when your guest's kids leave the service they'll tell their parent's all about it.

Most visitors don’t care about the essential truths of the Christian faith. They don’t walk into your service wondering whether the Bible is true, and they don’t care about the doctrine. They are looking for hope. They may be using any kind of spiritual barometer, that’s why it’s important to pay attention to all the little details within the services. Ultimately, the only stumbling block in your services should be the gospel. North Point pastor, Andy Stanley put it really well in a talk he gave at the Drive Conference recently. He spoke about this very issue and communicated that he was completely comfortable with people stumbling over the gospel, but they had better not stumble over anything else that goes on in the service.