Church But Make It Cool
Speaking the language your community knows best
I’ll just come out and say it: growing up, church was kinda boring. I know the purpose of a religious ceremony is not to be ~entertained~ but at seven years old, I was mostly showing up on Sundays for my friends rather than for everyone’s best friend, Jesus.
The ritual was the same every week. My family would attend the 8 am contemporary service (a service for the hipper, younger Gen Xers in the church congregation) and I’d spend the sermon scribbling messages back and forth in the bulletin margins with my bestie. When else were we supposed to gossip about how I had brushed hands with my crush in the bin of colored pencils at school last Wednesday?
Growing up I assumed that every church was exactly like mine. Big stained glass windows, an even bigger sanctuary, and cookies that weren’t exactly good but when you hadn’t had breakfast before you left the house they hit for sure.
It wasn’t until my junior year when my family started attending a new church that I realized that this was very much not the case.
This new church was, in all visible ways, the complete opposite of the church I’d been going to for the last 16 years. If you’ve ever seen the makeover show What Not To Wear where Stacy London and Clinton Kelly work their magic to turn the guest of the week from drab to fab, then you can start to get a sense of how different these churches were.
This church met in a movie theater in downtown DC. They served donuts every week. There was a live band. The words to the songs were on a screen. There was not a bulletin in sight to tell you the order of events, because they didn’t need one. Music, sermon, music and you were out of there.
The sermons at this church made me want to pay attention. As my dad put it at the time, the church I had been raised in had sermons for your head, and the new one had sermons for your heart. For the first time, I cared about going to church not because it’s where I could see my friends but because I felt genuinely moved by the messages. They had figured out how to make Sunday practical, something that could be applied to your life, chewed on and put into action.
The reality of the situation was that while the heart of the messages was the same at both churches, the way it was being presented at this new church resonated with me more as an impressionable 16-year-old. The live music, strobe lights, and aesthetic videos introducing each sermon series were curated to appeal to a younger, active audience. It’s easier to hear messages when people are speaking your language.
When I moved to New York two years ago I started attending a church that had a similar aptitude for speaking in a way that communicated a clear understanding of who made up their congregation. They know that the busy, Gen-Z New Yorker is easily distracted. They also know that while it’s important to not conform to the patterns of the world (Romans 12:2 😉) being aware of what the church is up against for our attention makes it easier to minister more effectively. While building a church that is relevant and present for younger Christians today, they’ve found new ways to bring the Bible to life and heaven to earth in ways I would have never been able to previously conceptualize. The church I now call home and the church I grew up in have the exact same mission; to bring people to faith and to grow the kingdom of God, but how they communicate this vision is integral to effectively gathering the community they are trying to bring together.
As people who enjoy bringing people together, the way we curate an event and message it is vital to getting the right people in the room. This work begins with getting clarity on who your ideal community member is and developing programming, content, and strategies to meet them where they are.
I also want to caveat that there is not necessarily a wrong answer to figuring out who you want to attract. Everyone deserves access to a community where they feel safe and known and that community may not (and probably shouldn’t!) appeal to everyone. Having a discernible purpose is the first step to figuring out who you want to attract to join. The real magic comes from then understanding your community members well enough to get the right folks in the room ✨
What communities are you in that you feel like do a really good job speaking to their members? Leave a comment and let me know!
Substack does a fantastic job speaking to the community. The content in their newsletters and podcast is almost always relevant, helpful, fun, and inclusive.
I hope this helps your algorithm.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts about church ⛪️ - thoughtfully and intelligently. And, it's not just churches that should read this message - any group or organization that is trying to build community can learn from it.