Why haven’t people returned to church post-COVID?

COVID is getting smaller and smaller in the rear-view mirror, yet we experience its lingering effects. One effect is that some people haven’t returned to the life of the church. We may have expected a “Great Return of Exiles.” That didn’t happen.

Why not? There are several reasons:

Some were hurt by protocols, lockdowns, mandates, and restrictions. They left angry because we said something wrong or didn’t say something we should have. Some were already on the edge about their place or purpose in the church and the pandemic gave them an “out” and they stayed out. Some were introverts and watching from home met their needs.

In churches there are attenders who show up and believe but little else, members who join but rarely move beyond that, and engagers who serve, give, connect and invite. COVID revealed where some people were at.

Many who remained faithful to the physical gathering of church community wonder how to encourage non-attending members back and expect pastors to come up with strategies to win them back.

Are non-attenders “lost”?

I want to reflect on some observations from Luke 15 about “lostness.”

Who were “the lost” Jesus was seeking?

There is a clue in the first verse: “Now the tax collectors and sinners were drawing near to him.” Despite being fringe people, they recognized in Jesus something they needed and drew near.

Like the tax collectors and sinners, I think the lost sheep was no longer wandering. It was caught in a thicket and realized it was in danger, it is lost, it is stuck, and is now crying out. That pitiful bleating alerted the shepherd to the location of the sheep, he finds it, frees it, and carries it home.

Lostness happens to God’s people. This could mean losing a sense of belonging ... or the will to persevere.

We can’t extract the same implication from the story of the lost coin. It simply features the joy of the seeker.

But in the parable of the Lost Son, we again see the condition of lostness in a responsive creature. Note that the son is allowed to wander. He rejects the authority of his father and demands his inheritance to go and live wildly in another land. The father allows him to go.

Then in verse 20 we read, “And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off his father saw him and felt compassion and ran and embraced him and kissed him.”

The text does not say this, but we get the impression that the father was watching the road to see if his son was coming home. He does not go seeking his son; yet he keeps an eye on the road. The father is prepared to welcome him home with extravagant grace.

Debie Thomas, a writer and blogger, offers a further thought on “lostness.” “For a long time, I thought that the lost lamb and the lost coin represented sinners ‘out there.’  [But] the lost lamb… belongs to the shepherd’s flock from the very beginning…it is his lamb. Likewise, the coin in the second parable belongs to the woman... In other words, these parables are not about lost outsiders finding salvation… These parables are about us, the ‘insiders.’ ”

Lostness happens to God’s people. This could mean losing a sense of belonging, or the capacity to trust, our felt experience of God’s presence, or the will to persevere. Illness, crisis of faith, death, lost love, broken marriages, and yes, pandemics, can exacerbate lostness.

The sinners and tax collectors know they are lost; the sheep knows, and the son finally realizes his lostness. When that realization comes for people in our life, we can welcome them home, not with an accounting of sin but with extravagant grace.

When people don’t want to admit that they are “lost,” nothing we say or do will convince them, and we are not called to chase after and rebuke them. But we shouldn’t be discouraged—there is more going on than we can manage without the Holy Spirit.

So, what do we do? Carey Nieuwhof offers these helps:

1. Focus on the people who stayed, not the people who left.

2. Turn your remaining attendees into engagers.

3. Celebrate and embrace your new church.

4. Continue to live-stream. We can’t force people back to church by discontinuing live-stream.

Who are the lost that Jesus wants us to find? From his own example, those who know they are lost and want to be found. Like Jesus, let’s work with those God gives us and leave the chasing to the Holy Spirit.